Baby Bum

I got to TWO new things for this customer!

This cake was for a baby shower, expecting a baby girl. The customer requested a Cinnamon Roll cake for one of the tiers which I hadn't yet done. It turned out pretty amazing tasting!! The second thing she wanted was a baby bum cake decor. The baby bum is entirely edible, made out of marshmallow fondant.

 

93rd Birthday

This is a 2-layered half sheet cake, half Chocolate and half White filled with Raspberry Jam filling and covered in one of my favorites White Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream.

 

I swear it weighed 15 pounds! This was one heavy but wonderfully smelling cake :)

To celebrate a friends grandma turning 93 years young.

 

It made me realize I desperately need to work on my hand writing skills for cakes, another reason why I love using fondant for letter.

Our Reveal!

We recently had our 20 week doctors appointment and ultrasound, in which we were luckily enough to be able to find out little Dex's gender! We decided to have our families over for dinner to reveal baby's gender to everyone at once and in person! Since I'm a little bit of a baker I wanted to try making a new type of cupcake but that could still be used for that very purpose. So I went with was is called a Hi Hat Cupcake.

This is what they are suppose to look like...

but mine were a complete FAIL!

The marshmallow frosting turned out a disaster, I don't think I got it hot enough or maybe the gel tint ruined it, I don't know. But I wanted to show I still make mistakes and things don't always go as planned in the baking world. I usually don't share many of my failed attempts at dinners or baked goods but this one was a complete and utter flop!

I, of course did not fully prepare these cupcakes a head time, I decided to wait to put them together after our appointment with only an hour and a half in between till our families were to arrive.  Poor planning on my part!

Fortunately for me, even though the frosting never got to the consistency I needed it still tasted wonderful so I tinted it and made it the filling inside the cupcake.

It's all about improvising! 

 Plus, I always keep left over frosting in the freezer and was so thankful I do so, I already had extra chocolate cream cheese frosting in there so I quickly defrosted and whipped up to top off my cupcakes. They turned out awesome!

The blue cupcakes are my failed attempt at the frosting not going my way. The chocolate are my improvised version.

We waited until after we ate dinner for the reveal....to help build the anticipation of course ;)

We gave Carter the first cupcake to bite into so he could reveal if his new cousin would be a girl or boy.

 Cupcakes reveal BOY!!

The large majority thought for sure it was a girl, but everyone is thrilled to have another little boy in the family.

We are so excited to meet our little man in August!

Gender Reveal Cupcakes

 Our friends Lincoln and Kylah are pregnant with their second child. They had their BIG ultrasound scheduled for Friday. Kylah asked if I could make some gender reveal cupcakes for them half of each color so they could take them to the grandparents to reveal which gender they were having right after their appointment. We decided on a chocolate cupcake with a creamy marshmallow filling topped with chocolate ganache and a white icing "?" (just like a homemade Hostess cupcake).

 I made half with blue tinted filling and half with pink. Making sure you were unable to see any color from the outside. In order to reveal what Kylah and Lincoln were having each grandparent was given the appropriate colored cupcake to break open and see....

They're having a BOY!

Congrats again Lincoln, Kylah and family! We are so happy and excited for you!

An Orange Dream

Cocktails made into cupcakes are one of my faves! Here is an Orange Dreamsicle cupcake that is just like the drink. The drink is usually made with an orange flavored vodka, orange juice, triple sec and cream. No fear these cupcakes have no alcohol in them but they are just as creamy and luscious as the drink.  These definitely are a keeper! 

 Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes

 

Cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 T citrus olive oil (I used 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil + 1 tsp orange extract) 

1 cup sugar

2 T vanilla

2 eggs

Zest of 1 orange

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup heavy cream (I just used milk as I was out of cream)

1/4 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with paper liners.  This made 18 cupcakes for me.

Combine butter, olive oil and sugar and mix on medium high speed about three minutes until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs and mix about one more minute until well incorporated.  Stir in orange zest.  In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Separately combine heavy cream and orange juice.  Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by 1/2 of the cream mixture and repeat, finishing with the flour.  Mix until just incorporated after each addition. 

Scoop batter into prepared liners, filling about 2/3 of the way full.  Bake about 17-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pans about five minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Marshmallow Cream Filling:

7 oz marshmallow fluff

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

Cut butter into small pieces and add to fluff in a mixing bowl.  Beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy.  Cut a small cone shape into the top of each cupcake and spoon marshmallow cream into wells allowing the cream to puddle on top of the cupcake slightly.  (Don't add too much, when you add the buttercream, it will cause the cream to move out toward the edges of the cupcakes.)

Orange Buttercream:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/8 - 1/4 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed

Zest of 1 orange

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Add orange juice, zest, and vanilla and mix until well combined.  Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing until incorporated to reach desired consistency.  Whip on medium high speed about two minutes until smooth and creamy.  Transfer to a piping bag fitted with desired tip and pipe onto cupcakes. 

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

You may remember the Cookies and Cream Chocolate Cake I recently made a few weeks ago. It was such a hit that I decided to turn it into cupcake form! I was asked to make a couple orders of cupcakes for my sister-in-laws parents housewarming party over the weekend and one of the requests was for a chocolate cupcake with the chocolate frosting I had used on the cookies and cream cake so I thought I would just turn the entire cake into a cupcake!

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Cake recipe from Hershey's

Cake:

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin tins with cupcake papers.

Add sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large mixing bowl or stand mixer and mix together until combined. Add eggs, milk, vegetable oil, and extract and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water on low speed until well incorporated. The batter will be thin. Fill each cupcake about 2/3 full and bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool about 10 minutes in muffin tins then place on wire rack to cool completely.

Once cool hallow out the center for the filling.

Filling:

2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Approximately 20 Oreos

Pour heavy cream into metal mixing bowl and chill in the refrigerator. Crush Oreos in a food processor and set aside. Add vanilla extract to cream beginning on low and gradually increasing speed to medium high as cream thickens. Add powdered sugar slowly while mixing. Beat cream until it holds stiff peaks. Gently fold in crushed Oreos.

Place filling in pastry bag or Ziploc plastic bag, cup the tip off and fill cupcakes

Frosting:1/2 cup unsalted butter
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter and pour over cocoa powder. Beat on low speed until well incorporated. Add 1 cup powdered sugar followed by 1/3 of the milk, beating on low speed until incorporated, continue alternating until all the powdered sugar is incorporated. Add vanilla and beat on medium speed until smooth. Add more powdered sugar or milk to reach necessary consistency.

I got about 30 cupcakes from this recipe and only used half the filling to fill the cupcakes. I would recommend halving the filling next time.

Delicious!

A Birthday Present

Yesterday we celebrated a birthday, Christmas and New Year's all in one! Dave's uncle's birthday was at the beginning of December but he lives out of town and wasn't able to make it back here on Christmas Eve due to him working and the weather. So instead we got to celebrate all three at once. Dave asked me if I would make a cake for him and he wanted it to look like a present. I decided to go with a square cake to look like a box.


For the cake I just used a chocolate pre-made cake mix. I made a chocolate ganache for the filling and used chocolate buttercream for the frosting. When using a filling you need to pipe a thick line of frosting around the edges of the first layer and THEN fill will the filling. This is to keep the filling inside the cake and prevent it from dripping down the sides of the cake. I then refrigerate it for about 15 minutes to firm up before I continue.

Then I place the second layer on and frosted a crumb coating with the chocolate butter cream to keep all the crumbs from mixing in with the rest of the frosting. This really isn't that important for this kind of cake since I covered it with fondant but I find it easier to frost the cake as this one was very moist! Once the crumb coat is on you put in the refrigerator again just to firm up and then you can frost your cake beautifully. Once frosted I covered it with marshmallow fondant I tinted green. I then tinted some fondant brown and rolled out ribbons and a name tag.

Chocolate Ganache

Bring 3/4 cup heavy cream, 1 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp sugar to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Place 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips in a medium bowl. Pour mixture over chocolate chips and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth let stand 15 minutes or until filling reached desired consistency. As the chocolate mixture cools it gets thicker.

I love seeing all the layers!