S'mores Cupcakes

This past weekend's wedding cupcakes included a s'mores cupcake with a toasted marshmallow frosting. I was so excited to use my new creme brulee torch from Bed, Bath and Beyond LOL. I liked them so much I made them for a football party Sunday and I'm going to make them again to bring in to school for my teacher friends this week lol. Here's the recipe I used, but of course you can modify it to your liking.

For the graham cracker crust, you can use pretty much any homemade recipe. I just mash up a pack or two of graham crackers in a food processor (aka my "magic bullet"). Add a few table spoons of butter and sugar til it's slightly moist. Press it in the bottom of each cupcake liner - I use a small glass to press it down evenly.

For the cake, and for my chocolate cake recipes I love to use Martha Stewart's Devil's Food Cake recipe. It makes at least 36 cupcakes and I usually cut the recipe in half. I do a little less than an ice cream scoop full. Pour into each cupcake liner and cook for about 15 minutes (depending on your oven).

After the cupcakes are cooled I top them with Trophy Cupcakes Toasted Marshmallow Frosting. It's basically a meringue frosting that I use the creme brulee torch to "toast". The recipe on the site says it makes enough for 2 dozen... when I think it makes enough for 20 dozen!!! I cut it down and this amount makes really makes a smaller amount good enough for 2 dozen or so.

Marshmallow Frosting
Modified from Trophy Cupcakes/Martha Stewart

3 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
Dash of cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Place egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set over a saucepan with simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch, 3 to 4 minutes. (I make sure they reach at least 140 degrees F)
   
2. Transfer bowl to electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat, starting on low speed, gradually increasing to high, until stiff, glossy peaks form, 5 to 7 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix until combined. Use immediately (it cannot be saved for later use)
   
3. Optional: use a creme brulee torch to toast the frosting like a marshmallow :)
   

Rona & Greg's Wedding

I had the pleasure of making the cake and cupcake tower for my friend's Rona and Greg's wedding this weekend. It was held at Glen Echo Park here in the DC area. What a fun location! It is so rich with history and has that vintage feel. Little fun fact: Glen Echo was built in 1891 and was the premier amusement parks in the DC area until the late 1960s. The wedding itself was held in the "Bumper Car Pavilion."

The entrance to the park with an old trolly from the 1900s

The Bumper Car Pavilion in the early 1900s
(I love seeing old pictures from past history)

The Bumper Car Pavilion today!

The cake and cupcakes were simple and fun. The cake was a basic yellow cake with amaretto ganache while the cupcakes included red velvet and a toasted s'mores cupcakes (a fun cupcake for the fall weather!).

The wonderful beautiful bride and groom

And last, I made a groom's cupcake with the old school Redskin's "R." I am not a skin's fan, but I'll do what I gotta do for my friends ;-) Congrats to Rona and Greg!! I had such a great time and thank you for letting me be apart of your special day.

One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes

Here is an easy chocolate cake recipe if you need a quick dessert. It doesn't use a lot of utensils either (because you all know we hate doing dishes!). And you can top it with whatever you like (I topped these off with a quick vanilla cream cheese frosting)... Enjoy :)

One Bowl Chocolate Cake
From All Recipes
Makes about 36 cupcakes or 2, 9in Rounds

Ingredients

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two nine inch round pans.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla, mix for 2 minutes on medium speed of mixer. Stir in the boiling water last. Batter will be thin. Pour evenly into the prepared pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, until the cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

A few things about this chocolate cake recipe: it is a soft lighter cake, almost like a box mix texture (so I don't think it would be very sturdy for stacking or anything like that); if you are making cupcakes like I did, fill the liners no more than 2/3's of the cupcake liner because anymore than that and you will have cupcakes with overflowing "muffin tops" and that ain't pretty (basically when I used my ice cream scoop to portion the cupcakes, right where the metal thingy is that swoops across to release the ice cream/batter is, that is the line I used to fill the scoop). Also, this recipe is easily cut in half (I made 17 cupcakes when I cut in half :).

Vineyard Wedding

This past weekend I had the honor of making the wedding cake for one of my best friend's brother's wedding. When it came to the cake, the bride was very laid back and open to all ideas when we were discussing decor. The colors of the wedding were purple and green and It was going to be held at a local winery. So, when I think of a vineyard, I think rustic.

One of the farms near the winery

Entrance to the winery

With all that in mind, this is the cake I came up with. It's quite simple but elegant at the same time. Thank you to Tim, the bride's friend who supplied all the flowers for the wedding and had extra for the cake. I put hydrangea and roses.

I love this pic of the cake on the wine barrel

...and a close up shot of the cake

I love the rustic look. I also love how much less stress it is to put together this kind of cake. The stress came in when I got the weather report for the weekend: 90 degrees with humidity. Did I mention it was an outdoor wedding? We had to keep the cake inside until the cake cutting. Since I was attending the wedding as well it was no problem to help set up everything right before hand. I forgot to mention, the cake was a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and white chocolate swiss meringue buttercream. Yummy! For the guests we set up a cupcake table with assorted cupcakes.

To go with the rustic look, I decided to display the cupcakes on different stands and cake plates. This gave it depth and added to the rustic feel of the wedding.

The flavors were lemon raspberry, chocolate salted caramel, and carrot cake.

It was a beautiful wedding! Congrats Jon & Angela! Thanks for letting me be apart of your special day :)

Ashley's Baby Shower: Part I

This weekend I helped host my friend Ashley's baby shower! The two other girls (Erika and Heather) who helped put the shower together, have design experience and I love putting together these kind of events, so we made a great team :) We have been planning for the past few months now and it all came together this past Sunday. The inspiration was drawn from the beautiful invitation our friend Erika designed:I love it! How cute is the bird family?! The theme for the shower was birds with the color palate of green, blue and orange with hints of brown and yellow here and there. Our friend Ashley does eco-friendly fashion so we wanted it to be very natural and "naturey" as well. In this first post, I will post all the food from the shower.

Our menu and the frame I painted to match the shower theme.

Close up of the menu. We had sweet and savory items.

Cucumber and radish open faced sandwiches made by Erika. I also made the plate stand. I will post how I did that later :)

Desserts included: lemon blueberry cupcakes, chocolate orange cupcakes, a small lemon blue berry cake, bird's nest treats, coconut macaroons and fruit salad served in sugar cones.


So many pics, so little space... click to see these larger :)


6 inch mini lemon blueberry cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream for the mommy to be. Notice the birds match the birds on the invite :)


Everyone loves these homemade coconut macaroons! They have become a staple any time I do an event for my friends lately. They're so easy to make too!

For favors we ordered swirl lollipops and personalized them with our own sticker to match the shower as well a simple bow.

So you can't eat it, but a shower is not complete these days without a diaper cake! I like to keep mine simple, so I made a basket to hold a majority of the contents. Products included all natural baby products from my friend's website Mom To Mom Health!

Gotta wash it all down with personalized water bottles! Label designed by our friend Heather.

Stay tuned for the next post for part II.

M.I.A.

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post! I've been crazy busy with grad school, homework, work, and somehow I try to fit a social life in there somewhere. I really have not been in the kitchen to bake anything since my last post, but yesterday I finally got to whip up some cupcakes for my friends Stella & Dot jewelry show.

How cute is my new cupcake stand?! Goes perfect with the Jewelry.

Cupcake flavors were chocolate orange, chocolate peanut butter, gluten free lemon, gluten free coconut and to top it all off I made coconut macaroons too. I made the sweets to entice people to come look at the jewelry ;-) ....Well a few more weeks of school and a condensed summer course to go and I will be free! I also have a few friends weddings this summer and will be making cakes for them, so I'm excited about that!

Butterfly Bridal Shower

I had the honor of putting together one of my closest friend's bridal shower together this weekend. I was excited to be able to choose the theme and everything.

I knew I wanted something with butterflies and the color purple since that is her wedding theme. I went to one of my favorite sites for inspiration: etsy. I truly admire the talent so many people have on that site. In my search for all things butterflies and purple, I came across the Frog Prince Paperie. Paula, of the Frog Prince Paperie was so kind and personalized what was originally a birthday party idea into a bridal shower theme for me. Here's how the party turned out...

The decor/theme: butterflies, purple with green accents. I loved Paula's simple butterfly theme. She made water bottle labels, cupcake topper (I couldn't find the right size scalloped punch to make them as pretty as I wanted); bag labels; and banner (and more but I just didn't have time to use all the materials she created). The guests loved the personal touches it added to the party :)

The main table: I was excited the bride's mom had an area to set up the cupcake tower and cookie favors (made by the bride's mom too). I hung up the banner over it - looking back, maybe I should have hung the banner over the mirror, but ah well. I also added some flowers on each side.

The food table: Thanks to the lovely bridesmaids who helped put together the main food which included brie with hot pepper jam, spanikopita, mini quiche, hummus and veggies, fruit and more. I love the center piece I came up with the day of - green and purple vases .99 cents each at the thrift store; the L and B initials $1.00 each at Michael's; LOVE sign the bride's mom already had; flowers from the local grocery store for around $20 total. Not bad!

Desserts I made: As you know from my blog I love dessert :) I made lemon blackberry cupcakes, coconut macaroons and white chocolate dipped oreos. The cupcakes made a great center piece on the main table.

I was so happy with the final result! This was only the second party I've gotten to really put together. There was a lot more detail I wanted to add, but time constraints (grad school, work, etc.) but I'm happy with what we ended up with. I'm ready to start planning the next party! Thanks to the bridesmaids for all the help; to the bride's mom for letting us use her house and making the sugar cookie favors; and the Frog Prince Paperie for the designs.

Lemon Blackberry Cupcakes

It's been awhile since my last post! School and work have consumed my life. Haven't been able to bake as much as I've liked. I didn't even get to make something cute for a valentine's day post :( Ah well... I made these cupcakes last weekend for a friend's birthday. Blackberries were on sale and I've been wanting to make some lemon cupcakes. A great flavor combo - reminds me that spring is around the corner!

Recipes Used:

Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream
-I cut this recipe in 1/2 and added a few tablespoons fresh blackberry puree (be sure to remove the seeds! I use either a mesh strainer or a cheesecloth) instead of using vanilla
-It makes a beautiful all natural purple color that I just love

Joy of Baking Yellow Cupcakes
-I added fresh lemon zest and lemon juice to the batter
-This recipe is best when eaten the same day, if not as soon as its cooled. I think I would use another yellow/vanilla cake recipe instead next time because they were a bit dry at the time of the party that night (but still tasty ;-)

Almost forgot... I got to use my logo stickers! I look so professional huh?? ;-) ~Cara Lee

Super Bowl XLV Cupcakes

I made some Super Bowl cupcakes for the big game today. I came up with a "Pretzels and Beer" cupcake. How I came up with this concoction:

Pretzels + Chocolate = Flipz
Pretzels + Beer = A delicious food combination
Chocolate + Beer = Young's Chocolate Stout
Pretzels + Chocolate + Beer = CUPCAKE!

The result: a cupcake with a pretzel crust, chocolate stout cake, a little vanilla swiss meringue frosting, and topped with a chocolate covered pretzel.


I could care less for the teams who were in the game (I'm and Eagles fan myself ;-) but I did match the colors black liners with yellow sprinkles for the Steelers and then yellow liner with green sprinkles for the Packers.

Recipes I used

Crust: I just winged it... smashed up some pretzels, sprinkled some sugar and some melted butter

For the cake: Smitten Kitchen's Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cake (just the cake part, and I used Young's Chocolate Stout instead of Guinness)

Frosting: Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue

Valentine's Birthday

A friend of mine asked me to make some cupcakes for his girlfriend's birthday. He let me do anything I wanted, except the flavor had to be red velvet - her fave ;-) Since Valentine's Day is around the corner I used that as inspiration.



Even though I cannot stand the taste of those conversation hearts, I do think they are fun to look at. I made fondant conversation hearts and I thought it would be a cute idea to write things on each heart that had to do with them as a couple. Some phrases I used: "family" (since they are expecting), "farmville" (she loves that game), to really personalize it. I also put fun fondant curly ribbon on some of the cakes to make it more birthday-ish :)





So I had some left over red velvet batter and wanted to create something... I came up with a "red bottom" cupcake.


It's red velvet and cheesecake cupcake with chocolate chips. Traditionally you use a chocolate cake on the bottom. I attempted to make the cheesecake part look like a heart ...FAIL! But it tasted good. You don't even need frosting. You know I've met quite a few people who ... dare I say this....don't care for frosting! (My BF included... but I've been working on that ;-) ~Cara Lee