American Flag Cakepops

I have an amazing day job, which is why I haven't been posting as often. And the folks that work in my office, which make my job so amazing, really, REALLY love my baking.  Like, really.  For example, my boss told me, after eating one of my cupcakes, "I think you should quit your job and just bake cupcakes."  Yep.  She told me that.

So, because I thought this would be a fun idea, I made some cakepops, created an American flag, and brought them in for a special fourth-of-july treat.

Yum!

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

I have an amazing friend.  Well, I have a lot of amazing friends.  And lucky for them, I love to bake, and I love them, and they often get cupcakes for their birthday!  This August, we were celebrating the 30th birthday of one such amazing friend, Cecilee.  She planned a catered Hawaiian Luau complete with pineapple chicken and rice.  (It was delicious.)

When I asked what I could do to help, she asked me to make cupcakes.  When I asked her what kind of cupcakes she wanted, this "foodie" came back to me with two different recipes, "can you use the graham cracker crust part of this recipe, with the frosting and key lime curd from this recipe. . . "

Sure.  No problem.  :)

Luckily I have another friend who loves to help me bake, and I could never have done it without her!  We put a graham cracker crust on the bottom, then made key lime cupcakes.  Key limes are teeny tiny, so trying to "zest" them was a bit crazy, and don't even get me started on how long it took to juice them!  But we made it work, and then I cooked up the key lime curd to put in the fridge.  Meanwhile, Marlo was working on making white chocolate hibiscus flowers for the decorations.  We filled the cupcakes with the key lime curd, topped the cupcakes with key lime cream cheese icing, and then dipped them in more graham cracker crumbs.

They were pretty darn delicious!

Carrot Cupcake Cuteness

You probably know that my favorite cake in the whole world is carrot cake.  It's probably because it's moist.  No, it's probably the cream cheese icing.  Nope, it's probably the walnuts.  Yep, it's definitely the walnuts.  :)

Since I have a ton of friends who also love carrot cake, and their birthdays all fall within one week of each other in August, I decided to make some carrot cupcakes to celebrate at our monthly "First Friday Karaoke" get-together.  We love to sing Karaoke.

I found the most adorable cupcake liners and flags and I knew I needed to use them for something special.  Something that would make me very happy.  And I knew that these carrot cupcakes were the perfect choice.

The cutest, right?

Love the owls!  And the hedgehogs!

And the flowers!

And the squirrels, and foxes.  OMG.  So cute.

Super cuteness.

S'More S'More Cupcakes, Please!

Hubby's birthday was quickly approaching, and I asked him what type of cupcakes he'd like for his birthday dinner.  He quickly said s'mores.  I think he'd been thinking about it for awhile.  I sent him several recipes, graham cake, chocolate cake, etc.

As we all know, the three essential ingredients for the all-american s'more include the following:
- graham crackers
- toasted marshmallow
- chocolate.

Three of my favorite!

And for whatever reason, graham crackers, crushed up and mixed with melted butter, taste oh, that much better!

I use this handy tasting glass from a Beer Fest long ago when I make cupcake crusts.  It works great!

So, I forgot to mention one of the best parts of a s'more is the melted chocolate.  So my cupcakes had to have a bit of melted chocolate, right?

(Melted chocolate on top of the graham cracker crust, soon to be topped with chocolate cupcake batter, more melted chocolate, and more graham!)

And you simply can not have a s'more without marshmallow.  How's some homemade sound?

Come on baby, light my fire!  Oh yeah!  This kitchen torch was the most fun, and I let hubby do the honors!

Add some decorations and voila! Beautiful cupcakes.

*Eat with caution.  After my boss ate these she told me to quit my job.  You just lose all rational thought!

Red, White & Berry

My many apologies for such a late and outdated post.  The good news is that in the world of Pinterest, someone will find this post around the Fourth of July and then if I'm lucky, a few people will re-pin the image!

If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with berries.  I hear that berries will help you live longer.  If that's true, I'm going to be 100 because I eat them nearly every single day.  I've used berries in my baking before, but I'm really more of a chocolate person.

I got the idea that I wanted to swirl strawberries and blueberries and use some super cute liners that a good friend sent me at least a year ago.  I couldn't find the exact recipe I was looking for, so I put a bunch together.

Here's the results:
Shortbread Cookie Crust
Vanilla Cupcake swirled with strawberry sauce & blueberry puree.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Simply Delish.