Richie Rich

I'm taking Steve on a "secret trip" for his 40th birthday coming up next weekend, but he decided he wanted a party anyway.  I decided to do an afternoon Memorial Day party so it could be low-key (i.e. not a lot of work).  I asked if he wanted an ice cream cake, or cupcakes, and he said he didn't care.  If I get to pick, then you know what I am going to choose!

Marlo said she'd come help me after she tasted how delectable "The Dream" flavor from Friday was, I guess she thinks she'll learn some of my secrets or something!  (Just kidding - we just had a lot of fun.)

First we made the hot fudge sauce that was swirled and drizzled as a part of the recipe. 

Next we mixed the batter - this is a one-bowl recipe so I didn't even need to use the mixer.  (It might have been easier if I had but it all worked out in the end.)

Then I swirled in some of the hot fudge.

So pretty!  The recipe said it made 12 so I doubled it and of course doubled it made 36.  Oh well.  We actually organized my pantry with all of my new Tupperware while the cupcakes baked and cooled, and then we cored them with my fancy cupcake corer! 

Gotta save the middles to stuff back onto the cupcakes.

Then I piped some frosting into the middles and Marlo stuffed the tops back on.  Next up: piping the frosting on top!

We added a Brach's star to 18 of the cakes and drizzled the hot fudge sauce over the other 18.  So yummy and tasty looking!

Trust me when I tell you that these are delectable!

"The Dream"

I've named this "The Dream" for a couple of reasons - one, because it evokes memories of childhood, and all of the dreams that come along with childhood.  Second, because I am always dreaming of chocolate chip cookies - and this is my favorite cookie but with the airiness (and shape, and frosting) of a cupcake!

It was storming when I came home from work Friday afternoon, and we were let out 1.5 hours early due to the holiday.  I decided it was perfect weather for baking some cupcakes.

After the vanilla cupcake disaster of last week, I decided to spray my pans with Pam first.  However, I then found the liners to get kind of greasy.  Not sure I like that so much. 

Then I got my dry ingredients ready:

I love this whisk.  I own 4 whisks.  But I really want a nice, professional one like you see on all of the shows.

My microwave has all of these features, like "melt" and "soften" so I am always using it to soften my butter because I never remember (or plan ahead far enough in advance) to stick mine on the counter:

I also wanted to make cupcakes to use up this milk from last week.

Oh, how I love brown sugar, sugar and butter combined.  I could just eat it raw.  (I may have in the past, but I'll never admit to it.)

My secret ingredient - not so secret because I always tell everyone that this is my secret ingredient:

I put these babies in the oven, and then on to the clean up.  No one ever blogs about the clean up, you know?

 Gotta spray my baby down:

Has anyone else seen the new breast cancer kitchen aid from Williams Sonoma?  It is raspberry color and it is SO KICK ASS.  I really want it.  I want two.  Then I don't have to clean between batter and frosting.  And then I can have a kick ass hot pink kitchen aid.

So I looked up and saw that the timer said 10 minutes were up:

So I rotated those beautiful Williams Sonoma pans.  Do you know that before I started baking cupcakes I had never been in a Williams Sonoma?  What is wrong with me!  I hadn't yet lived!

Let me take this time to show you my favorite cooking tool, my Weber oven mitt.  I guess it's really a grill mitt, but its perfect!  The thumb is placed like a normal thumb placement so that you can actually grab things.  

So while these babies cool, it's on to the frosting.  (You'll notice none of them crested so I didn't need to spray the pans with Pam to begin with, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.)

I cheated on this step - I had some leftover frosting I had made on Monday night for my cake decorating class at Michael's (blog post about THIS to be coming soon) so I just used that.  I was so excited to use my new Tupperware mix-n-stor to get it ready for piping:

And to use my new trick of the cup being your bag holder:

And also to use my new "jumbo" tips from Ateco:

I knew that I wouldn't have a lot of frosting (for cupcakes you really need to make 2-3-4 batches of frosting to get them nice and piled high) so I did just a small dollop on each cake.  I think they are super cute and guess what?  They taste AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Light and airy like a cupcake, with the flavor of a chocolate chip cookie.  Yum, yum.

Mexican Chocolate Pudding Filled

I guess I need to come up with a clever name for this one, but I can't think of it right now.

My good friend at work asked me for 2 dozen "Mexican themed" cupcakes for a party she was attending, as well as the weekend visit of her mother-in-law.  I found this recipe and decided I HAD to try it.

First I ordered some Mexican chocolate - yum!

I created the pudding first, which needed to chill in the refrigerator for several hours.  It looked pretty good!

Next I baked the vanilla cupcakes.  Can anyone tell me why vanilla cupcakes always rise WAY tall and crest OVER the pans and then get stuck to the pans and then pull away from the liners and make a huge mess?  Anyway, there are few photos because I ended up making about 100 cupcakes before I got 24 satisfactory cupcakes.  I really have to remember to put just a tiny amount of batter in each muffin tin for vanilla, and also to spray the pans with Pam in case any do happen to rise up.

It was after 11:00 PM when I started to make the frosting - not good.  I am not a night-time baker, but I know that starting your own business takes a lot of hard work so I was dedicated to completing a finished product that would live up to my very high standards.  The chocolate frosting was also a major disaster - it was too runny.  I don't understand why I can't seem to make chocolate frosting that isn't runny.  Any advice would be fabulous!

Don't worry - I used all of the extra cupcakes for cake pop balls- I know we'll be making some soon and when I do - I'll post them here!

Here are the finished Mexican Chocolate Pudding-filled cupcakes:

I got the colorful boxes from Michael's and the inserts from a place in Durham called "Not Just Paper."  I need to find a wholesaler of these boxes with the inserts.  However, I was very disappointed when my friend Melanie (the customer) told me that the cupcakes slid under the inserts and got all messed up.  Sad!

Melanie brought some of the leftovers to work to share with our coworkers, and one told me the frosting was "bangin'!"  It was very cute and very funny all at the same time.  Everyone who tried these cupcakes told me they were amazing, so I am really glad that at least they tasted great!

"The Stephanie"

Shortly after my little sister, Stephanie, moved to Raleigh a couple of years ago, she came over one day to make some "pink lemonade cupcakes."  She made them when we weren't home, and she didn't leave us ANY!  Ever since then, I've been dying to try them.

She sent me the recipe in one of those email recipe exchange chain letter things, and I recently found it.  She also recently tweeted about the flavor with our local ACTUAL cupcake-a-teer here in Raleigh.  Stephanie recently moved back to Michigan and was sad that our local shop was offering her signature flavor but she was too far away to eat any.

We belong to an organic CSA here and today they are hosting a Spring Fling event at the farm for all members.  We are all supposed to bring a covered dish, so of course it made sense for me to bring cupcakes.  What a better flavor for an outdoor summer picnic than pink lemonade?

Luckily, I texted Stephanie to see how many cupcakes the recipe made, and she told me only 12 so I doubled it.  I really needed to triple it to make a full 24.  I found these super cute liners a couple of weeks ago at Michaels and thought they'd be perfect for today.

The batter was nice and pink and baked quickly and evenly.

The frosting was a bit of a disaster.  It doesn't call for any milk or cream, so it was very dry and tough.  It was too tough to pipe and too tough to smooth across the tops.  So I dumped it all back into the mixer and added some milk.  That solved the problem.  Of course I had to make another batch because I'm quite heavy handed with the icing, and I needed a triple batch.  I think they turned out cute!

I used a bit of the leftover fondant I had from two weeks ago to add just a small, cute touch on the tops.

Easter Cake Pops

Inspired (as always) by my friend Ashley, I wanted to learn more about cake pops.  They are so cute, and you can be so creative with them.  Ashley, her sister Marlo and I got together the day before Easter to make some bunnies, chicks and eggs.  I was so happy that Ashley thought ahead and already made the cake balls so that was one less step - we got straight to the decorating!

I can say that these cake pops tasted AWESOME!