Halloween

These were so fun to make! Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting.

Adult Cupcakes!

A work friend is having a girls' weekend (jealous!) and asked if I could make cupcakes. She wanted something with alcohol. I made a chocolate cupcake with Guinness Stout, chocolate ganache filling with Bailey's Irish Cream, and Bailey's Irish Cream frosting. YUM! They were so tasty. I could definitely taste the alcohol; it was the perfect mix of sweet and alcohol.

Mini Cupcakes for a Rehearsal Dinner

I made these mini cupcakes for a rehearsal dinner. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting and vanilla with cream cheese frosting.

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

I made these beautiful cupcakes for a bridal shower. Lemon cupcake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting and salted caramel cupcake with dulce de leche buttercream.

Lemon

Lemon with lemon and white chocolate cream cheese frosting

Cookies and Cream

These have a little surprise at the bottom. Can you guess what it is???!!!

Strawberry

Flavors!

-Chocolate or vanilla cupcake with: chocolate or vanilla buttercream, chocolate or vanilla cream cheese, or milk chocolate frosting
-Strawberry with strawberry frosting
-Salted caramel with caramel buttercream
-Banana with: honey and cinnamon cream cheese or peanut butter cream cheese frosting
-Raspberry with white chocolate buttercream frosting
-Red velvet with cream cheese frosting
-Chocolate with peanut butter cream cheese frosting
-Chocolate with chocolate ganache
-Cookies and cream with orea cookie cream cheese frosting
-Lemon with lemon and white chocolate cream cheese frosting
-Caramel apple with vanilla cream cheese frosting
-Spiced pumpkin with vanilla cream cheese frosting infused with maple syrup
-Pumpkin with vanilla cream cheese frosting
-Chocolate chip cookie dough
-Hummingbird with cream cheese frosting
-Carrot with cream cheese frosting
-Irish Cream (alcoholic or non)
-Girl Scout
-Gluten Free Chocolate Fudge


These are on my list to try:

Coconut with coconut cream cheese frosting
Maple with maple cream cheese frosting
Chocolate with mocha buttercream frosting
Lemon and raspberry with raspberry buttercream frosting
Cherry vanilla with vanilla cream cheese frosting

Lemon with Lemon and White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

These cupcakes are so so tasty! Yum! They have a very light lemon flavor-sweet not sour like you'd think lemon would taste. Although they are sweet, they have a very light sweet flavor. These are one of my favorites!

**This picture was taken with my phone so it's not the best quality**

I made these cupcakes for my coworker's dad's 60th birthday. The chocolate ones are the ones I was so disappointed in-the paper pulled away from the cupcakes :( But I know they still tasted great!

These are my tried and tested cupcake flavors so far...

Chocolate with chocolate buttercream or cream cheese frosting
Vanilla with vanilla buttercrean or cream cheese frosting
Strawberry with strawberry frosting
Salted caramel with caramel buttercream and a dulce de leche or caramel swirl
Banana with honey and cinnamon cream cheese frosting
Raspberry with white chocolate buttercream frosting
Red velvet with cream cheese frosting
Chocolate with peanut butter frosting
Chocolate with chocolate ganache
Cookies and cream with orea cookie cream cheese frosting
Lemon with lemon and white chocolate cream cheese frosting

These are on my list to try:

Coconut with coconut cream cheese frosting
Hummingbird

Chocolate Ganache

The other night I made cupcakes for a bridal shower and 60th birthday party. I was SO disappointed because the cupcake liners came away from the chocolate cupcakes, but by that time there was no way I could remake them. And I had no idea why this happened. It had never happened to me before-grrrr! The next day I was determined to find out WHY this happened. I searched the internet for possible reasons and came up with about 10 reasons as to why this might happen.

So, the next day I set out to figure out why this happened. I remade the batter exactly like I had the night before. I changed two things: I lightly pounded the cupcake pan on the countertop (with a towel in between) to make sure the batter set in place with no air bubbles, and I removed the cupcakes from the pan as soon as they came out of the oven. They were perfect. Perfectly shaped and the liner stayed right were it should. I'm thinking I solved my problem, right? Well, kind of, but this has never happened before, and I've never pounded the pan on the table, and I usually leave the cupcakes in the pan for at least 5 minutes to cool. So, who knows.

Because I wanted to try using ganache, I topped these chocolate cupcakes with ganache. Ganache is a combination of melted chocolate chips and heavy cream. I wanted to add a pretty decoration to the top, but it was late as it was (and I was in the middle of a good book!). ***This picture was taken with my phone.***

Graduation Party Pictures

Last weekend I made 300 mini cupcakes and 20 dozen mini sugar cookies. I also made the cupcake stand which was super easy to make! I will post instructions later on. I spent less than $10 on the cupcake stand, and it took me no more than 10 minutes to make.

Banana Cupcakes

Today I experimented with banana cupcakes. YUM! These are delicious. They are so incredibly moist because of the bananas. The frosting is honey and cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Very sweet but a great addition to this cupcake.

Raspberry Cupcakes!

Raspberry Cupcake with White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
I made these cupcakes today, and they were AWESOME! I think I need to use slightly less raspberries next time because they weren't very sweet, although the wonderful frosting made up for the less sweet cake, and actually, it was a great combination. This one is definitely one of my favorites (or my most favorite).

Bridal Shower

I made these tasty cupcakes for my soon-to-be SIL this past weekend.
Red velvet with cream cheese frosting
Salted caramel with caramel buttercream frosting
Strawberry with strawberry frosting

Caramel Cupcakes

A couple weeks ago I bought a can of Dulce De Leche at the grocery store with plans to try some kind of caramel cupcake. Below I was working on my decorating skills. I like the one with the four loops (I imitated the design from Georgetown Cupcakes). This is a caramel cupcake with caramel buttercream frosting and some dulce de leche swirls. YUM! My husband said this is his favorite yet :)

My First Big Cupcake Order!

LAST WEEK I received my first big cupcake order! My son's preschool teacher gave my name to one of her friends who needed cupcakes for her daughter's graduation party. She was going to make them herself but ran out of time.

Her daughter was using six neon colors to decorate for her party, so mom requested 15 cupcakes of each of the neon colors. Luckily I was also working on the mini cupcakes (posted below) so I was able to get a number other than by the dozen (note to self-orders need to be by the dozen from now on!)

After several screw ups (batter didn't mix right, forgot an ingredient, and over filled the liners) everything went smoothly. I don't know that I want to accept too many large orders during the school year though. I started on Friday evening after my kids went to bed (we even went out for dinner so I wouldn't have to clean before I started) and I still didn't finish until 4 a.m. (that included the 4 dozen mini cupcakes). I figured had I not screwed up, I probably would've finished between 2-2:30.

Anyway, I still enjoyed making these cupcakes and I like how they turned out. I LOVE the colors. I sure hope the graduate and her guests enjoyed the cupcakes as well!

*I order the plastic containers from: www.plasticcontainercity.com I LOVE these!

2nd Birthday Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for my cousin's daughter's 2nd birthday this past weekend. I had so much fun making these! I used one of my new fondant ejectors to make the flower. I added an edible pearl to the center of each flower.

The purple cupcakes are chocolate with cream cheese frosting.
The pink cupcakes are strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting.

2nd Birthday Cookies

My cousin's sweet little girl is turning 2!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

It was a nice and lazy day at my parents' cabin and I had the "itch" to try a new recipe. This was my first attempt at making red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I think they tasted pretty good-although I would've cooked them slightly less (in my defense I'm not used to the oven up here and it was a new recipe) :)

I do have another red velvet recipe I want to try too. I garnished them with a strawberry slice and piped the frosting with a ziplock sandwich bag with a hole in the corner as I left all my supplies at home.

Cupcakes!

Cupcake cookies I made for my son's teachers for the last day of preschool. The colors don't show as well as I took these pictures with my phone.

Lightning McQueen!

A friend from my mommy group asked me to make cookies for her son's 4th birthday. She had told me that the theme was "Cars", but I could make any old car for the cookies-they didn't have to be Lightning McQueen. Ha! Like I was going to make any old car! So I set out to make LM. First of all I didn't have a cutter that resembled LM. The closest thing I had was a car that looks like a VW Bug and that wasn't going to work. I did a search and found a cute LM (sugarmamasf.blogspot.com). The baker had written in her blog post that she had cut her dough out by hand. I had promised never to do that again after the My Little Pony cookies, but it didn't look to hard! I drew the shape on paper-actually only half of it and then folded the paper and cut both sides at the same time. Symmetry-my first graders would be so proud of me! :)

The whole time I was making these cookies I was trying to come up with my back-up plan. Considering my mommy friend lives in Kansas and I would need time to send these in the mail, there was no back-up plan which meant these needed to turn out perfect (or near perfect). Considering that I've only been making and decorating sugar cookies for 4 months, I think these turned out great! I'm so excited for Kate to get these cookies! Happy Birthday Mason!

Dump Trucks

I made these dump trucks for a second birthday. I did add lines to the dumper part which makes them so much cuter! Happy Birthday Logan!

Before:

After:

Teacher Appreciation Week

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Because I am a teacher I felt it was necessary to honor my son's preschool teachers with something. I wanted to do sugar cookies but by the time I thought about doing something and realized his last day of school each week is Wednesday, I didn't have time :( Instead I made these delicious mini strawberry cupcakes. These are SO SO yummy! The best strawberry cupcake I've ever had. I use a recipe from Sprinkes (a cupcakery in Los Angeles).

4th Birthday Cookies

I made these for a 4th birthday. "N" is the little girl's first initial.

My Little Pony

I made My Little Pony cookies for my friend's daughter's 4th birthday. I was actually quite proud of myself for making these cookies, because I didn't have a My Little Pony cookie cutter. I don't even have a horse cookie cutter!

I had to get creative to make these. First I found a picture on the internet, printed it, cut it out, and then after I rolled out my dough I laid the picture on the dough and cut around it with a knife. It was a lot of work, but I really like how they turned out. I'm super excited to hear the little girl's reaction to her MLP cookies!

Confirmation Cookies

I have the most wonderful para in my classroom! I made these cookies for her son's confirmation.

Easter Dessert

I made this dessert for Easter. It was very refreshing with the strawberries and "light" cream (is there such a thing as light cream?). I found this on Martha Stewart's website.

Easter Cookies

I made these Easter cookies for someone who needed some cheering up.