Apple Spice Cupcakes w/ White Chocolate Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing!

Wow is all I can say about these cupcakes. So wow infact, that I have no photo. They went too fast. Everyone loved them from my hubby to my 2 year old. The 2 year old wouldn't even wait for me to take off the paper, she was willing to eat that they were so good! The perfect start to the fall season. These cupcakes were moist, light, a wee bit spicy, and just delicous!

For the cupcake, I used my go-to vanilla cupcake recipe that is Amy Sedaris':

1½ sticks of unsalted butter
1¾ cups of sugar beat well
Add 2 large eggs beat in one at a time
2 Teaspoons of pure vanilla beat again
½ teaspoon of salt
2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder
2 ½ cups of flour
1 ¼ cups of milk
Then I added 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, mixed it all up and then folded in one diced Fiji apple. Fill cups, and bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes. You should get 24. I made 12 regular and 24 mini cupcakes.

For the icing, I had made a huge batch of white chocolate cream cheese icing for some strawberry cupcakes that are a best seller at the coffee shop. So I just took the leftovers and added cinnamon to taste, about a tsp. or so.

The pieces of apple in these cupcakes keep them so moist and give little pops of flavor that have you begging for more. I had to hide them from my daughters. I can't wait to hear how they sold at Get Coffee.

Chocolate Cupcakes 2 Ways

A few weeks ago I made some toffee topped chocolate cupcakes for Get Coffee. Apparenlty they did pretty well so they requested more. I decided to do half the batch of chocolate cakes with the toffee chips and half with a little minty surprise inside. I put a Three Musketeers Mint Mini in each one. Wow! Baking the candy made them kind of chewy which made for a delicious little treat. I topped the toffee cakes with "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting recipe from the back of the Hershey's Cocoa Powder box. The minty cakes I topped with some Mint Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I can't wait to see how these sell because I loved them both.

For the cupcakes I used the Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Dorie Greenspan's

Baking: From My Home to Yours: (this is the original recipe, I doubled it to be able to make a pan of mini cupcakes also)

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa pwdr

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 stick butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted & cooled

Preheat oven to 350F.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking pwdr, baking soda, and salt.

Use the paddle attachment on your mixer and beat the butter at med. speed until soft & creamy. Add the sugar and beat for about 2 minutes, until is is bledned into the butter. Add the egg, then the yolk, beating for 1 min after each addition. Beat in vanilla, then reduce mixer speed to low and add half of the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear. Add the buttermilk, mixing until incorporated, then mix in the remaining dry ingredients. Add the melted chocolate and mix it in with a rubber spatula. Bake cupcakes for 22-25 minutes.

"Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting:

1 stick butter

2/3 cup Hershey's cocoa pwdr

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating on medium speed to spreading consistency. Add more milk if needed. Stir in vanilla.

Mint Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

3 egg whites

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temp

1/2 tsp vanilla flavor

1/4 tsp pepermint flavor (more if you like it strong, do 1/4 tsp. at a time b/c peppermint is sta-rong!)

Put egg whites and sugar in a double boiler over simmering water. Whisking constantly, cook until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm (easiest way is to get some on your finger and see if you can still feel the sugar granules. Pour heated egg mixture into a clean bowl of a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg white mixture on high speed until it forms stiff (but not dry) peaks. Continue beating until fluffy and cooled, about 6 minutes (It's very important to beat it for the whole 6 minutes). Switch to the paddle attachment. With mixer on medium-low, add butter several tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. (If frosting appears soupy or separated after all butter has been added, beat on medium-high speed until smooth again, 3 to 5 minutes more.) Beat in extracts. Reduce speed to low; beat 2 minutes to eliminate air bubbles. Stir with a rubber spatula until smooth.

Coconut Key Lime Cupcakes

These were fantastic! I didn't want to sell them but my Avon deadline is quickly approaching so I've gotta bake bake bake to get that money in! I adapted this recipe from Cupcakes! By the Cupcake Doctor. She uses cake mixes in her recipes and I prefer from scratch so for the cupcake, I used Amy Sedaris' vanilla cupcake recipe:

Amy Sedaris' Vanilla Cupcakes
1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter
1 ¾ cups of sugar
Beat well, then add:
Add 2 large eggs
2 Teaspoons of pure vanilla (I used 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp coconut flavoring)
½ teaspoon of salt
2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder
2 ½ cups of flour
1 ¼ cups of milk
I also added in the zest and juice of one lime to the batter, next time I will do two limes for more flavor.
Beat well, fill cups, and bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes. You should get 24. I made 12 regular and 24 mini cupcakes.

For the filling, I mixed one can of sweetened condensed milk with 3/4 cup key lime juice, 2 drops of green and one drop of yellow food coloring. Once the cupcakes were cooled, I used a piping bag to fill each one with the key lime filling.
For the icing, I made coconut swiss meringue buttercream:
4 large egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp
2 teaspoons coconut flavor

Put egg whites and sugar into the top of a double boiler over a pan of simmering water. Whisking constantly, cook until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees). Pour heated egg whites into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg white mixture on high speed until it forms stiff (but not dry) peaks. Continue beating until fluffy and cooled, about 7 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment. With mixer on medium-low, add butter two tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. Increase speed to medium-high; continue beating until frosting appears thick, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low; add coconut flavor and continue beating 2 minutes to eliminate air bubbles.

After icing, I topped them with more lime zest! Sublime on a hot day!

Everyone loves S'mores!

As I showed below, I am now getting special requests for my cupcakes and that is the biggest boost to my ego! I won't lie.
Luckily I had a half day at the office yesterday so I had time to whip up the two different types of cake requested. Even so, I was still up until 10pm baking but I did take a break to fix some bad ass hamburgers for dinner. I even skipped Project Runway to get this stuff done so I hope they're appreciative! (don't tell them I have a DVR and can watch it today)

Look at that lovely. It tastes as good as it looks too. One day I will find a light and fluffy marshmallow icing recipe but this is the 2nd one I've tried and it turned out the same as the first - a bit runny and VERY sticky.

For the Cupcake:
I had some sweet German Chocolate in the pantry and just used the recipe for Sweet Chocolate Cake inside the box. You want to talk about light and fluffy, this cake batter is it! I could eat it out of a bowl it is so delicious!

1 pkg Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate
1/2 cup water
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine (I always use real butter)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs separated
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, put 1 Tbl. white vinegar in the milk and let sit for about 5 min. I had to do that and it turned out just fine!)

Preheat oven to 350F. Microwave chocolate and water in microwavable bowl on High for 1-2 min. or until chocolate is almost melted, stirring after each minute. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. (I sifted mine b/c I get great satisfaction from sifting ingredients into a nice, neat pile.) Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electri cmixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in chocolate mixtures and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating until well belnded after each addition.

Beat egg whites in a separate bowl with electrix mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently sir into batter.

Pour into cucpakes pans (an ice cream scoop works perfectly) and bake for 20 min. (Note: b/c these were S'more cupcakes, I put a bit of crushed graham cracker crumbs in the bottom of each cupacke liner)

For the icing, I used Paula Deen's Marshmallow Icing recipe:

2 egg whites
1 1/2 cup sugar
5 Tbl. cold water
2 Tbl. light corn syrup
1 cup mini marshmallows

Cook egg whites, sugar, water, and corn syrup over a double boiler and beat for 5 minutes. (this too me WAY longer than 5 min - close to 10). Stir in marshmallows until melted.

I then beat the crap out of that icing with my hand mixer for another 10 minutes to cool it down and try to stiffen it up. Of course with only 2 egg whites in it, there wasn't much stiffening to be done.

I will never work with marshmallow icing in a piping bag again. It is a sticky mess and no matter how tightly I held that bag, it was more than determined to sneak up and out and all over my hand. I used the filling tip and filled the cup cakes with the marshmallow mixture and then filled in the top of the cupcake. It helped that mine were a litte undercooked and therefore sunka bit in the middle creating the perfect marshmallow bowl! I then sprinkled some graham cracker crumbs on top and added a square of Hershey's chocolate and Viola! S'more cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Couture Girl!

To the Kitchen and pronto!

So last week I was in a CPR training class for three days and at the end of each day had to pick up my girls and do all the motherly duties of course and was in no mood for baking cupcakes. Little did I know that my public demands them! Today I received this e-mail:

Hi. I have a special cupcake request. First I was wondering if you could make cupcakes for the shop. I am getting lots of requests for them especially the strawberry and the caramel. I do have one very special request for this Thursday. There is a young lady that works at Winnie Couture up the street from the shop and she lovvvvess your cupcakes especially the strawberry. Her birthday is coming up and her staff has asked if I could order some for her. Would you be able to make the following and deliver this Thursday?:
3 strawberry (along with a batch for the shop if you could)
3 s’mores

Oh Lordy. She hasn't replied back yet but I really hope she means 3 cupcakes and not 3 dozen or else I'm in trouble! LOL

So I need to thank Cassie of How To Eat A Cupcake once again for introducing me to the most popular cupcakes I have made so far. They are selling like mad and in doing so making lots of money for my Avon Walk for Breast Cancer! So HOORAY for caramel!!

Stay tuned for my next post on the S'more cupcakes! The only good thing about my CPR class is that it gave me some comp time so I'm off of work early tomorrow to bake bake bake!

The best cupcake you will ever eat!

This is my absolute favorite cupcake ever! And that is saying a lot coming from a complete chocoholic since this cake has zero chocolate in it. I must use what little creativity I have to alter this recipe for other flavors because it is perfectly moist and spongy. What I'm talking about is the Caramel Cupcake and Thank You Cassie for introducing us to it! (I hope you clicked on that link because her site is totally adorable!) The only change I made was not making them salted.
Folks, let me tell you, Swiss Meringue Buttercream is a very intimidating icing. I recognize that. But it is worth every ounce of work that goes into it. And once you get into the habit of making it often, it's really easy. Everyone who has tried these has told me that it is the best icing they have ever tasted!

For those of you who are all, we don't need no stinking links, here is the recipe which I stole borrowed from Cassie who got it from one of her cookbooks in her ever growing collection of which I am a teensy bit jealous.

CARAMEL CUPCAKES

MAKES 12 CUPCAKES (I actually got 12 cupcakes and 16 mini cupcakes out of this)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup whole milk

CARAMEL SWIRL BUTTERCREAM

MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS

Caramel Drizzle

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

Pinch salt

Buttercream

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

Pinch salt

1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces, at room temperature (I only used 1 1/2 sticks butter)

For the cupcakes:Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the sugars and butter together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beating on low speed until just combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 20-22 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour.

For the frosting:In a heavy-bottomed, high-sided saucepan, cook the sugar over medium-high heat until it begins to melt around the edges, about 5 minutes. Stirring with a clean wooden spoon, continue to cook until the sugar is melted and has turned golden amber, about 3 minutes longer. Carefully pour the cream down the side of the pan in a slow, steady stream (it will bubble and spatter), stirring constantly until completely smooth. Stir in the salt. Pour the caramel into a small heatproof bowl and let cool completely before using. (The caramel can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week; bring to room temperature before using.) In a large, clean heatproof bowl, combine the egg whites and sugar. Set the bowl over (but not touching) simmering water in a saucepan and heat the mixture, whisking constantly, until the sugar has completely dissolved and the mixture is very warm to the touch (about 160°F on an instant-read thermometer), about 2 minutes (It always takes about 5 minutes for me). Remove the bowl from the saucepan. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg white mixture until it is fluffy, cooled to room temperature, and holds stiff peaks (the mixture should not look dry), about 6 minutes. With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the salt and the butter, a few pieces at a time, beating well after each addition. If the frosting appears to separate or is very liquid after all the butter is added, continue to beat on high speed until it is smooth and creamy, 3-5 minutes more. Add the caramel drizzle (I only added about 1/2 cup) and beat until combined (or almost combined for a swirling effect), scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Frost the cupcakes with the buttercream. (The frosted cupcakes can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days - if they last that long; bring to room temperature before finishing.) Top each cupcake with a caramel candy, sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt (which I omitted), and serve. I topped each cupcake with leftover caramel that I put into a plastic sandwich bag and snipped a very small corner off to "pipe" the caramel in pretty spirals. So good!

Double the fun - Tiramisu and Strawberry Cupcakes

Big event at Get Coffee this weekend with live music. Extra cupcakes were requested. I wanted to make three but time kept me to just two. I thought I'd give the adults a treat with some alcohol soaked Tiramisu Cupcakes and my previous Strawberry Cupcakes did very well so I did a reprise of those.

Both came out really well and the leftovers were taken to my father-in-law's bday party. The Stawberry ones were gone firts - the kiddos took care of that. I think I ate more of the Tiramisu that anyone else but I didn't care. They were amazing! Definitely a repeater! Bonus is the Kahlua White Russians I bought to soak them is one of my favorite drinks so I had some fun while I baked.I found the Tiramisu Cupcake recipe at Wycked Sweets. I only made a few changes including using the Kahlua White Russian mixed drink instead of vanilla liquor and brandy. I only used 1Tbs of syrup over each cake and for the minis, just 1 tsp. I felt they would be impossible to handle if I used more. As it was, they got pretty soggy so I told the coffee shop to display them in the courier I delivered them in so they wouldn't fall apart! Then she had the brilliant idea of serving them in short, fat wine glasses! Cute, right? I thought so. If you make these, be very careful not to overfill. I used generous scoops with an ice cream scooper and they overflowed a bit. A little extra icing covered it up but I'm a bit of a perfectionist w/ my baking so I wasn't happy about the mistake. The mini's came out perfect. See them soaking up the delicious syrup:
Insides filled with syrup and marscapone icing! YUMMO! I topped each one with a chocolate covered coffee bean.For the Strawberry cakes I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe for the Pefect Party Cake with a few additions. Here is the recipe:

2 1/4 cups cake flour (I used all purpose flour and they came out just fine)
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt1
¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I used buttermilk)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (I omitted this)
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract ( I substituted vanilla extract)
Also I added a package of strawberry JELLO to give it that pretty pink color and a cup of diced strawberries.

Sift together the flour,JELLO, baking powder and salt. Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl. Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant (omit this step and just put sugar and butter into mixing bowl). Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light. Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated. Pour batter into baking pans. Bake for 20-22 minutes (minis for 12), or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean.

I topped these goodies off with some White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing:

8 oz. cream cheese
4oz. softened unsalted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
6 oz. melted white chocolate

Whip cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add sugar 1c. at a time until well blended. Add melted and cooled chocolate and beat until it's a good consistency. Add more sugar if you need to.

The way to a man's heart (finally a new post!)

It's been over a month. I've been baking. Lord knows, I've been baking. Just so tired from the baking, parenting, working, beaching, and blogging that I've neglected my poor baking site. So to the 2 people who actualy read this, I apologize.



So a couple of weeks ago I made chocolate cupcakes with Reese's peanut butter cream cheese icing. It was very nostalgic to make something with Reese's because I contribute my husband's proposal to said brand. Well, it played a big part anyway. He was in school in Texas and I sent him a package for Halloween including a big bag of miniture Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. We were actually broken up at the time but "still friends" whatever that meant. He told me when he opened that package, he knew he was loved. One month later, he came home for Thanksgiving, told me he loved me, and the very next day, asked me to marry him. Talk about getting back together! So these cupcakes are dedicated to Chuck, the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I got the recipe for the cupcakes from Couture Cupcakes. She totes it as the "Best Chocolate Cupcake Recipe" I beg to differ. It was a little dry for my taste. The chocolate taste was divine but I'm a big fan of the moist cake. The first step is to melt unsweetened chocolate and cocoa powder in a bowl with some boiling water. This makes the most tempting bowl of chocolate which I kept forgetting was unsweetened so everytime I went to lick some off my fingers, I had to run for my Diet Coke.

For the icing, I just melted one cup of Reese's Peanut Butter Chips and added it to a basic cream cheese recipe which is as follows:
8oz. cream cheese (room temp)
4oz. unsalted butter (room temp)
Beat these two together until smooth. Then add powdered sugar, one cup at a time until you reach the desired sweetness, beating after each cup. Then I mixed in the peanut butter chips and got a beautiful, creamy peanut butter icing. I topped it all off with some mini chocolate chips just for fun! The leftovers went to work with Chuck and I heard they did not last very long.

Worth it! Lemon Meringue cupcakes

Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC) is the scariest frosting I have ever made in my life. I had nightmares about it all last night knowing I had to get up early to make it this morning. It's the only icing recipe I've seen that comes w/ a warning that says "it will look like crap, but it'll come together eventually. You ARE doing it right." Really? Am I? Because I'm not sure. I watched two videos on the subject before tackling it just to be 100% certain I could handle it. Let me tell you, it was worth every ounce of stress. It is delicious and light, perfect on a hot summer day.

About a month ago I bought several Frey chocolate bars at my local Super Target. In that bunch was a bar called White Lemon & Lime.

I've been dying to make a lemon lime cupcake but my DH is not a fan of the citrus flavored desserts. So now that I have this Get Coffee gig, I can make whatever I want and he won't get upset b/c he's not eating them anyway. So there.


It's hot as hell outside so I wanted a light and fluffy cake and icing. I decided to try the SMBC even though I was scared. I went to myfavorite cupcake site for inspiration, guidance, and most importantly, the recipe. She did not let me down and I managed to make a perfect bowl of Lemon & Lime SMBC! I followed the recipe for Chocolate SMBC, used my White Lemon & Lime bar instead of chocolate, and left out the vanilla.

For my light lemon cake, I used this fabulous recipe. It only made a dozen cupcakes and the icing recipe makes a lot of icing so you'll definitely want to double this:

1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbl butter
2 eggs
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbl buttermilk
1/4 cup lemon juice

Beat butter & sugar until well blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. Alternately stir in dry ingredients (I sifted them all together first) with the milk. Mix until combined. Stir in lemon juice. Bake at 350 for 15-18 min.
Viola!

My labor of love

Emphasis on labor. I've been baking like a mad woman and I'm sorry to say, don't have a lot of photographs to show for it b/c I get them out the door just about as soon as I'm done. Today's photos were taken in my car on the way to Get Coffee. Yep, that's how good a time manager I am!


The Taste of Chamblee was awesome! We had thousands of people there and I heard nothing but rave reviews of the event. I never had time to check but I was told that my cupcakes were a hit. I decided on 2 kinds of mini cakes for samples - Banana Muffins w/ Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting and Bailey's cupcakes with Mint Chocolate Buttercream frosting. Earlier this week I made some Strawberry & Cream cupcakes w/ Vanilla Cream Cheese frosting.


Yesterday I made these babies:

A reprise of the Chocolate Malted Cupcakes. I modified the icing a bit from the original recipe and it came out much tastier I think. Recipe is as follows:

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes:

1 stick butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1 3oz package instant chocolate pudding

Blend butter until smooth, add sugar and mix well. Add all other ingredients and mix until smooth (it helps to sift the flour & pudding mix together, otherwise the pudding forms lumps.) I've found the best way to fill the cupcake pans is w/ an icecream scoop - the kind w/ the flip handle to push out the batter. It's awesome! (thank you http://howtoeatacupcake.blogspot.com/)

For the icing - blend one stick of room temperatur butter with 3 1/2 cups of confectioner's sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 5 Tbl malted milk powder and I added 2 Tbl cocoa powder to cut back on the sweetness. Mix well and ice your cakes!

If you want to sample any of my delicious cupcakes, remember you can find them at Get Coffee on 5336 Peachtree Rd. in Chamblee!

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!

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.