Cupcake Photo Shoot

My college room mate, Erin, is a fabulous photographer! Check out her work at Bella Luce Photography . Her sister manages a restaurant and wanted some food art for her office, so Erin asked to photograph some cupcakes for the "sweets" portion of the art. She wanted some fun colors and flowers on chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. I was really excited to put together some fun desserts for her to photograph. Her are a few of the pictures.

Wilton Fondant Course

I just started a new Wilton course: Fondant and Gum Paste. I am really excited because I have experimented with fondant before, but it is always helpful to have someone show you tips and techniques. The cake itself is from my brand spankin new cookbook "CAKE LOVE". It is a grrrrreat cookbook! I chose to make the lemon cake for class. The texture came out wonderfully, which I think has to do with the combo of all purpose flour and potato starch. And... you can't go wrong with a cake that has limoncello in it! In the first class, we learned to cover a cake board and cake in fondant. We also got to play with all of the goodies that came in the course kit including flower and circle cutters, punches, and rollers. I thought the finished project looked like an easter hat, which is why I used super girly colors. Fun Fun!

Biscuits & Gravy

Ok, so I know this isn't cake or even desert but I do enjoy baking biscuits.

This morning I was really craving a hearty breakfast. I am not a huge fan of sweet foods first thing in the morning, so biscuits and gravy sounded really yummy. I had a bag of self rising flour left from a few cupcake recipes. I haven't made biscuits using this type of flour before. So... I used the biscuit recipe on the back of the Gold Metal Self Rising Flour bag.

1) Heat oven to 450F. In a medium bowl, stir together 2 1/2 c. self rising flour, 2 tsp. sugar, and 1/2 tsp. baking soda. Cut in 1/2 c. shortening with a pastry blender until mixture looks like fine crumb. Stir in 1 c. buttermilk until dough leaves sides of the bowl and rounds up into a bowl. (Note: I was out of buttermilk, so I mixed in 1 Tbs. lemon juice with regular milk and let it sit for a couple of minutes before using).

2) Place dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead gently 5 or 6 times or until smooth. Roll or pat 1/2 inch thick . Cut with floured 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter (I used a circle cookie cutter). On ungreased cookie sheet, place about 1 inch apart. 

3) Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

The gravy I made was a basic milk gravy. I melted 2 Tbs. of butter over low heat in a medium saucepan. I then whisked in 2 Tbs. of flour and cooked until a light brown and smooth (approx. 5 minutes). Next, I whisked in about 1 c. of milk until it was the consistency I wanted. I seasoned with salt and pepper, and it was ready to eat!  

Happy 4th of July

I thought I would create some patriotic cupcakes for the holiday, and these flag cupcakes are the product. I saw the idea for these flag cupcakes in the Wilton cupcake book. I baked the vanilla cupcakes from the 500 Cupcakes book. I like the recipe because it is so simple... just mix and bake! The texture of the cupcakes are good, but they came out a little dry and baked more quickly than expected. I think next time I will bake at a lower temp and add some extra liquid. 

Have a safe and happy holiday!

Wilton Course 2 Final Project

I just finished course 2 of the Wilton Classes at our local Michaels store. Our final project used our royal icing flowers and color flow bird that we created in previous classes along with a basket weave and rope border. I was a little unsure about my flowers over the past few weeks, but I was happy with how it all came together. The cake is a cherry vanilla cake with vanilla pudding  filling. The frosting is the Wilton Class buttercream recipe, which is not my favorite. It is made with shortening to keep the bright white color, and I have trouble with it coming out very dry. I prefer the taste of buttercream made with real butter. I guess everything really is better with butter!

Wedding cake & cupcakes

My friends Mayanne & Casey were married June 28, 2008 in beautiful Lake Tahoe, and they asked me to do cupcakes for the event. I was very excited and nervous about the task, but I am really happy with the result. The cupcake flavors were chocolate, kahlua, and white chocolate. They were filled with vanilla and chocolate pudding and frosted with vanilla and white chocolate buttercream. The top tier was white chocolate cake with chocolate filling and vanilla buttercream. The flowers on both the cupcakes and top cake were fondant daisies painted with luster dust and made to match the colors of the invitations. I found the cupcake stand at a local shop called the Candy Connection, and we added the blue ribbon to coordinate with the couple's colors. 

The reception was held at the Picchetti Winery, and was beautiful. The only cake related issues we faced were the pollen from the pine trees and the warm weather. 

S'Mores Cupcakes!

My husband and I have been camping quite a bit lately, and so I have been eating quite a few s'mores. This got me to thinking that a s'mores cupcake would be super yummy. So... I did some searching on other blogs and found a couple of recipes that I combined to create these. 

I saw the idea for the chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow icing at Sew Darn Cute  and I saw the idea to have a graham cracker bottom with graham cracker cake, chocolate frosting, and marshmallow filling at Cupcake Bake Shop I decided that I would like to try a chocolate cupcake with graham cracker bottom and marshmallow frosting.

First, I crushed 6 graham crackers in my food processor and stirred in 1/2 stick of melted butter. I then spooned teaspoonfuls of this mixture into the cupcake liners. This made enough for 2 dozen cupcakes. However, the batter and frosting made 3 dozen cupcakes so I had to crush a few more graham crackers. Here is what a filled liner looked like.

The chocolate cupcake recipe I used was Martha Stewart's one bowl chocolate cupcakes. The recipe says to fill the liners 1/3 full, but I found that they needed to have more batter (approx. 1/2 full).  Here was the finished result after I topped them with the marshmallow frosting. YUMMY!