Girl Scouts Again!

I love Samoas. Thank goodness girl scout cookies only happen once a year. Never mind the Samoa copycats in the store (Keebler, I think). I've had them once, and they don't even come close to Samoas.

So, tonight I tried Samoa cupcakes. They are very tasty! Chocolate cupcake with coconut flakes baked in the batter. Topped with caramel buttercream (the caramel is homemade), toasted coconut, chocolate ganache, and caramel drizzle.

Vanilla Cupcakes With Fresh Fruit

Today was a snow day so of course I had to make cupcakes! These are vanilla cupcakes with diced strawberries and blueberries. The frosting is vanilla buttercream. These have a light sweet taste, and I love the added touch of the fruit. Perfect for summer!

Birthday Cupcakes

Today was my cousin's sweet little boy's first birthday party. She asked me to make cupcakes which I happily agreed to!

I was planning to make cookies and cream and salted caramel, but my caramel failed me last night :( I forgot to buy heavy cream so I substituted (after looking online) butter and milk. I learned that that substitution does not work for caramel. I went to plan B and made vanilla instead.

Cookies and Cream: Vanilla base with crushed oreo and vanilla cream cheese frosting (tinted a light blue to match the birthday colors).
Vanilla: My new vanilla cupcake with the secret ingredient ;) and buttercream frosting tinted a brighter blue.

Girl Scout Cookie Cupcakes!

These were delicious! I told my students (the girls) that if they brought their order form to school, I would order girl scout cookies. I didn't realize how many girl scouts are in my class! I knew I wanted to make cupcakes, of course.

The mint looking ones are Thin Mint cupcakes: chocolate cupcake with bits of Thin Mints and mint buttercream frosting with bits of Thin Mint on top.

The other ones are Tagalong cupcakes: chocolate cupcake with bits of Tagalongs and peanut butter cream cheese frosting with a chunk of Tagalong on top.

These are mini which are the perfect size.

My Son's 5th Birthday

The other week we celebrated my son's 5th birthday. He is obsessed with Transformers so that was the theme he chose. He really wanted a cake (I tried desperately to talk him into cupcakes!). I agreed to the cake and thought I would make it. It was A LOT of work. It doesn't look like it would be, but IT. WAS. Cakes are a lot more work than cupcakes.

The bottom layer is chocolate and the top layer is vanilla. The frosting is my favorite buttercream.

More Cupcakes!

My mom recently had her work friends over for a party, and she asked me to make cupcakes! She wanted something simple so I made vanilla cupcakes (my own recipe!) and buttercream frosting and milk chocolate frosting. These are the BEST vanilla cupcakes I've ever had, and I have made a ton of vanilla cupcake recipes. These contain my secret ingredient. ;)

Salted Caramel

Oh my. These cupcakes were a little piece of Heaven. They were ah-ma-zing! They had the perfect combination of sweet and salty. The caramel was fabulous too.

My Daughter's Elmo Party

We recently celebrated my daughter's 2nd birthday. She is going through an Elmo phase. I also wanted to incorporate the color pink (of course as it's her favorite color). We had: vanilla cupcakes with milk chocolate frosting and vanilla cream cheese frosting and strawberry cupcakes.

I also made Elmo sugar cookies. These took forever to make, but I love how they turned out!

Georgetown Cupcake!!!!

I have a slight obsession with Georgetown Cupcake. They have a reality show on TLC called "DC Cupcakes" and bakeries located in Washington DC, New York City, and Boston. I've been wanting to try their cupcakes for awhile, and I finally got to! They ship their cupcakes all over the country, but for $29 per dozen plus $26 for shipping, that was NOT going to happen. They had a 24 hour special recently-40% off per dozen AND shipping. I decided to go for it!

Their cupcakes are definitely good. I will say, though, some of the recipes I use or have tweaked are just as good or better. They are well known for their red velvet cupcakes which was very good. I'm so glad I finally had their cupcakes. Would I pay $50+ for them? No, but I would definitely visit their bakery if I'm ever in D.C. or NYC.

Ravens Cookies

I made these Baltimore Ravens cookies for a mom from my mom message board. She lives in Maryland with her family, and her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the fall. He is a huge Ravens fan so I sent some cookies to brighten their day during this difficult time.

Carrot Cupcakes

These were delicious. I took a recipe that I love from Sprinkles and adapted it to make a carrot cupcake. It was moist and delicious!

Irish Cream Cupcakes

I wanted to make some cupcakes for girls' weekend. What better than some Bailey's Irish Cream and cupcakes?!?!?! This cupcake is Bailey's Irish Cream and chocolate with vanilla cream cheese frosting.

Gluten Free Fudge

I have a few co-workers who are gluten free and have been wanting me to make a GF cupcake. I finally found one from Georgetown Cupcake that I used. Yum! It was really good, and my co-workers said it was the best sweet they've had in a long time. These are Gluten Free Chocolate Fudge with a fudge core and vanilla cream cheese frosting.