Hooked on Cupcakes worked for me!

Today I am officially a commercial baker! I make an innocent comment about how I put my leftover cinnamon cream cheese icing on cinnamon rolls and bam! I'm selling cupcakes at the new local coffee joint! Get Coffee will now feature cupcakes by Lovely Baker! And until October (much to the dismay of my husband), I am donating the money made from my mad baking skillz to my Avon Walk.
If you're in the Chamblee area this weekend, stop by our Taste of Chamblee event to sample my goodies at the Get Coffee tent! I will be featuring the very cinnamon cream cheese icing that got me into all this topping the famous Campbell banana bread recipe! This is a very secret recipe and will not be featured on this or any other blog. I was only able to procure it from my mom a couple years ago when I stole it out of her recipe box and copied it into a notebook! Can't make it to the Taste? Well stop by Get Coffee and get cupcakes!German Chocolate Cupcakes (recipe to follow)

Red, White, and Blueberry

Today is my daughter's very first swim meet! They have a theme for each meet and today it is Red, White, and Blue. I'm playing the role of the supportive parent and baked mini cupcakes to sell at the concession stand. Well, the cheese side of me just HAD to go with the theme so I made RED velvet cupcakes with WHITE chocolate BLUEberry cream cheese icing. I topped each one with a fresh blueberry and let me tell you, that little blueberry bursts in your mouth at precisely the right moment!

I used Paula Deen's Red Velvet Cake recipe and I have to say it's pretty darn tasty.

And look how pretty they are!

I used 3 bars of Frey Supreme White Blueberry candy found at Target for the icing. Here's the recipe.

Melt White Chocolate in the microwave.
Whip 8oz cream cheese with 4 tablespoons of butter. Blend in chocolate. Stir in 3 - 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar and then wisk until you reach a good icing texture.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Tres Leche - Chucky Style

On Wednesday, my wonderful hubby turns 27 years old. I sadly will be out of the country for the momentous occasion so we celebrated early. He made his own dinner of grilled pork chops with Iron Chef Sesame Garlic marinade. Thank you Erin, this is our favorite marinade of all time now! He also puts some secret spices on there which I cannot reveal. Mostly because he won't reveal them to me.
A couple weeks ago he had lunch at a Cuban restaurant. He called me at work, "they have my birthday cake!" He was referring to the traditional Hispanic dessert Tres Leche Cake. His mom makes a cake very similar to it for his birthday each year. This year his mom is in Texas so it's up to me. His twist is coconut and lots of it. Here's the recipe (I'm looking at you Shane & Megan!)

Chucky's Coconut Cake
White Cake Mix
1 can Cream of Coconut
1 can sweetened condensed milk
whipped cream
7oz sweetened coconut flakes

Bake cake as directed in a 9x13 pan. As soon as you take it out of the oven, stab it as many times as you want with either a butter knife of the handle of a wooden spoon. This is very therapeutic when stressed out about international travel by the way. Pour the cream of coconut and condensed milk all over cake. Use a spatula to spread the mixture over the top as it will keep sliding to the sides of the pan. When the cake is cool, top it with whipped cream. I actually made my own whipped cream since I've been channeling Martha Stewart lately. So I whipped up 2 cups of heavy cream with 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tsp of vanilla to make the whipped cream and spread that on the cake. Then scatter the coconut flakes over the top and enjoy. Keep it in the fridge and enjoy! It's way better on day 2 & 3 b/c the cake gets all gooey.

Cupcake craziness

I have been on a baking spree here lately. At least one baked good a week. It's crazy. Chuck's not complaining. Nor or my co-workers. Mia likes to help. She's especially good at licking the spatula.
Here's a couple of my latest creations:

Red Velvet Cupcakes w/ White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes w/ Malted Butter Cream Icing

Recipes from Cupcakes! by Anne Byrn. The malted butter cream was extremely sweet, although one coworker called it the best cupcake he'd ever had! I think I'll add some cocoa powder next time to combat all that sugar!

The first and last

I've become obsessed with food blogs. More specifically, baking blogs. So I decided, what the hell, I can do this! I love blogging and I love baking, I'm hopping on this bandwagon and sharing my creations. Why? Because I can!
Let me tell you about my latest creation, dark chocolate tiramisu cupcakes. I made them for a staff appreciation lunch for my daughter's school. You will find no pictures of these bad boys because cupcakes with icing that resemble dog doodoo are not very appealing to the eye. Just trust me. I got all Martha Stewart on these little darling and piped the icing into cute spirals on which to place a chocolate covered coffee bean. I finished, wiped the sweat off my brow and looked upon my creations to disover 16 piles of dog poo. So I took out a butter knife and smeared the icing to just look like poo colored icing. I guess that's better than poo piles right? Right. The lesson here is - do not mix Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder w/ marscapone cheese or else it will come out looking greyish brown and totally unappetizing. I still took them to Mia's school however because by the time they were completed, it was 10pm and I was in no mood to start over. She's switching schools next year anyway so if they were a complete bomb (but judging from the empty container, they were not) it's no big deal since I will never see these teachers again. I will not be making these particular cupcakes again but I will make another attempt at tiramisu cupcakes in the future. Stay tuned.