A very chocolately house-warming!

Our awesome neighbors (and my biggest cupcake fan) just moved away from us this past weekend. We are very sad about this but so happy for them that they found this amazing 3 story blue & brown house in White Rock. For her house warming I decided to do a chocolate - brown and blue mini cupcake theme! There were 4 different design styles which included blue sugar crystals, toasted coconut, chocolate jimmies, slivered almonds and blue & white candies. They were a joy to make and I was so proud upon finishing.

The delivery however was a disaster as I used a metal party tray (you know the regular red rimmed ones you find sushi in?) and it was extremely hot that day, the Hazelnut chocolate icing softened in the heat. I think for parties in colder weather this would be great and the tray fits exactly 54! Also a bit of refrigeration or freezer would have did some good before delivery as well. Regardless they were enjoyed and the house was better than the photo!

Happy new house to Janet, Milan, Olive & Dorathy Dog!

Strawberry Princess Ari

Strawberry Princess Ari - Rich vanilla cupcake finished with fluffy strawberry cream frosting topped pink sprinkles and a strawberry malt ball.

My dad and I recently made our own strawberry jam so perfect, I can use it in my frosting. (Making jam is so easy, just slow cook an equal amount of fruit to an equal amount of sugar til it thickens, then leave to cool - Voila! You got jam!) I just used a standard buttercream and added strawberry jam to it (yes using regular jam is fine too) and it turned out so perfect and it tastes so good too. Be sure not to add too much cause the cream will get runny and will be very hard to pipe (i learned this the hard way)... if you want a deeper pink color, use a few drops of red coloring. Also if need be, put your frosting back in the fridge til it's a good consistency and try again.

This is a big week for me and cupcakes, Hughy's birthday is tomorrow (doing some Blue Hawaii - coconut cupcakes & pina colada ones) and Saturday I got to do a chocolate collection for Janet & Milan's house warming. Cupcakes are so great for any occasion!

Blueberry Citrus Cupcakes and Silicon Baking Cups

While shopping for cupcake liners at Michael's, I notice some great solid colors. I looked at the price - what the? $18.99...these better be some great cups. So with a bit of research I realized that these cups were made out of flexible silicon, can be used without an existing muffin tray, and of course are reusable. I splurged and bought them as a test and the results were.... THEY ARE AWESOME! Not only did the heat distribute nicely (I tested with yummy Blueberry Citrus cupcakes which i finished by brushing on lemon syrup), they popped out so nicely and were so easy to clean. They are also dishwasher safe. I also did a quality test on them by letting Ari play with them, throw them around, squish them, sit on them, step on them... and the shape just went back to its perfect form.

I'm going to go buy 12 more in other colors cause not only can you use these for baking, you can be creative and use them for things such as Jell-O treats.

Red Velvet Cupcakes & Natural food coloring

I have always been drawn to food from the south (USA) for some reason. The comfort foods like mash potatoes, meat loaf, bbq's, corn on the cob, fried chicken (yes once again i blogged about fried chicken), and of course Red Velvet Cake, or aka., the Chocolate Cake of the South. The cake has a bit of a sour taste to it because of the buttermilk but it's quite enjoyable because it sort of feels like you are eating a decadent chocolaty scone. The icing also really makes it for me and for this one I used a cooked vanilla butter icing. Cream cheese would also be really yummy and I heard that is very popular. There is also a lot of food coloring needed in most Red Velvet cake recipes - I'm talking like 4tbsps to get that deep desirable red color so be sure to use a natural alternative with a red beet juice coloring extract.

Make your own ingredients:
1 cup canned beet juice, 2 teaspoons vinegar
Instructions:
Drain the can reserving 1 cup of liquid. Add 2 teaspoon of vinegar to this and you're done.

Not sure how this homemade one works in Red Velvet Cake but you can also always find a Natural, Vegan, Gluten free, Kosher liquid food coloring in certain health/whole food stores to keep things simpler:

Natural food colors are becoming more popular with consumers especially as evidence shows a correlation between certain diseases and the use of artificial colors.

Beware of bakeries that use un-natural ingredients in their food. Always ask before ordering something such as Red Velvet cupcakes.

Didn't want to throw a damper on red velvet cake, but you know, when you eat a cupcake, you want to feel good about it! :)

Also, congrats to Wyness & Eileen for making the mini-8! Enjoy this batch! I ate 6 testers myself (no joke).

Oatmeal Cup'cakes'!

The mini-muffin pan isn't only great for cupcakes, it's great for making mini bite size cookies as well or mini little treats. These are my cranberry chocolate oatmeal cup'cakes' or should I say cup'cookies' topped with a melting chocolate wafer. It's fun to be creative with conventional tools and rethink some of their uses. I absolutely adore the mini-muffin pan and i think if i were to put together a box of 24 mini petits for sale, this would have to be one of the choices (goes great with tea & coffee). These are very decadent and of course, good for you too. Everytime I make these cookies they are gone too fast!

Sugar Rose Petals & Rose Water Cupcakes

Last night I had a hell of a time sleeping so i read the entire "Cupcakes" by Susan McMahon. Only took me 20 minutes or so to go through the 160 some-odd pages as the recipes were all quite similar from one to the next, and more of a visual guide than anything else. The only real new thing that popped out at me were sugar rose petals. The recipes in this book was quite simple and because I was surfing online at specialty cupcakes, I thought it was a very interesting flavor and wondered how it was done. Well here is the recipe for 12 sugar rose petal cupcakes, super easy:

You need:
12 rose petals (make sure they are eatable, ask the florist)
1 egg white, lightly beaten
4-6 Tbsp sugar

Instructions: To crystallize the rose petals, brush them with egg white, lightly sprinkle with sugar evenly and place them on baking parchment paper and let dry.

Note: Do not eat if you are pregnant or sensitive to raw eggs, as this recipe calls for raw eggs... Not sure if I want to eat them myself but they do look very nice... I think I do have to try just one.

As for the cupcakes, just create a standard cupcake recipe - replace the vanilla with rose water.

I'd give you the recipe in this book, but everything is in grams and ounces (This book, I realized is produced in England which means their system of measuring isn't like ours in North America). I will convert and do a post on measurements another day soon, but I wanted to add that when buying books from England, Canadians pay the same price as Americans cause the price is converted from British pounds. Cool, didn't know that. This book only cost me $12.95 + tax. Fair deal I think and looks nice in the collection.

Black Forest Memories...

If there was to be a cake that reminds me of my mother, it would have to be Black Forest Cake. I remember when i was very young, my mother would get my brother and I Black Forest cake from Safeway with the dark chocolate cake, filled with Bavarian cream, topped with chocolate shavings and candy-syrup red cherries. I guess because it's nostalgic for me, I can't have Black Forest cake any other way because I always end up saying - "Something just ain't right...". So I attempted to make this into a cupcake - with a few tweaks. I however didn't use fresh cream, which i found out was a big mistake as vanilla frosting is just way too heavy with the bavarian cream filling (even though it was whipped). Next time however to make it a bit more of my own, I think I will grind up the cherries right into the chocolate cake for more of a cherry flavor. Overall, I still think cherry+chocolate+bavarian cream=pretty awesome! This is one cupcake I vow to perfect.

Also, shoutout Ben's peeps at Sutton Real Estate head office who has this batch in their tummy!