Dessert | 300 Cupcakes

So, we survived the 300 cupcakes!  Yes, we, Ty and I survived baking and frosting 300 cupcakes.  My husband is amazing, he canceled watching football with his friend twice to help me frost the cupcakes.  There is no way I would have been able to finish and it wouldn't have a been a tear free occasion {woot!}.

Close up of the carnation cupcakes!

I prepped all my dry ingredients for the vanilla cupcakes Friday night.  On Saturday morning with my production line all ready to go, I baked for 4.5 hours straight!  We then took a break and enjoyed a lovely dinner at Disneyland Hotel's Steakhouse 55 with some of our friends.  Dinner lasted a little longer than I thought and we returned home hoping to frost half the cupcakes... boy, was I wrong.  I made 24 cups of vanilla Swiss meringue frosting and that took about an hour and a half (my mixer is small and I could only make 6 cups at a time).  I showed Ty how to pipe a carnation (thank you to Blue Note Bakery, your online video is great!) and off he went.  I took over a little while later and by the time midnight rolled around, we only had about 48 completed.  I figured out that it took us about 30 minutes each to pipe 24 cupcakes... not promising.  


The next morning we woke up around 8:30am and started piping right away.  We piped from 8:30am to 12:00pm.  I think Ty finally understands the pain associated with cake decorating, ha! 

All in all, the totals for the weekend:
13 hours for prepping, baking and frosting
10 pounds of butter
75 eggs used 
4 Harry Potter movies that played in the background that weekend 

12 boxes that held 2 dozen cupcakes each, plus one box that held a dozen

It was awesome to see all of them in their boxes!  It was a definite sense of accomplishment

 Thank you again to Ty who was the best sous that weekend, I still wish I was able to take a picture of you piping pink carnations for our kids one day!  And thank you to Salisa and the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority for this opportunity!!!


Until next time!
~Danielle

Dessert | Carnation Practice... Marigolds

This weekend, I am baking 300 cupcakes for the sorority Gamma Phi Beta... 300!  I'm both excited and scared...  I don't know if my little kitchen can handle this, but it's going to have to.  I was asked to pipe carnation flowers, I learned by watching this video that no longer works and my flowers look more like marigolds than carnations.  I wanted to share with you my practice run, my marigolds below.  Wish me luck today as I start on the 300 cupcakes!

Cupcakes Inspired by Glee

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a couple weeks.  Work is crazy busy, we are getting ready for our big trade show and I am getting married in exactly three weeks! 

I'm a pretty big fan of Glee, you may go so far as to say that I am a Gleek.  I have the music from Glee on my iPhone and I listen to it almost daily at work, it gets me through the day!  Anywho, a bunch of wonderful ladies gather weekly to watch Glee together

And in honor of the season finale, I wanted to make cupcakes.  I was going to go the simple route and just pipe frosting on the cupcakes and spell out Glee or something like that.  But then my friend Tals said we should make slushie inspired cupcakes.  A day later we had this!

I baked red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  To make the cupcakes appear like slushies, I piped the frosting onto the cupcake.  Then I dipped the cupcake into a bowl of large dusting sugar.  I then used spray food coloring, red of course, to color the frosting to make it look like a slushie.  I have found that the more you spray the wetter the frosting will appear.  Tals bought small red cups and straws.  We filled the red cups a little over half way with starbursts and then placed the cupcake gently in the red cup.  We finished it off by cutting colored straws to 3 inches and placing the straw into the cupcake (thank you Stephanie for your help!).  

Over head shot!  I think they look just like a slushie would!

I had all the girls pose for a slushie in your face shot!  If you haven't seen an episode of Glee, I highly recommend it!  It may just bring some gleefulness into your life.

I'll have a new post soon!  So many cakes to share with you!  Thank you for stopping by, until next time, take care of that sweet tooth!
~Danielle

Minne Mouse Cupcakes

Minnie Mouse themed Cupcakes

I love the mouse and I have always loved the mouse! I really wanted to do a bachelorette event at Disneyland, so with many thanks to my coworker and her future husband to be, my girlfriends and I were able to go for a day! I wanted to do something special, so I made these Minnie Mouse inspired cupcakes for all the ladies to enjoy. 

Here we are posing in front of Disney's California Adventure.  "C" is for cupcake!

I knew I wanted to do a least two different designs. Everyone knows the famous red bow, but not that many non-Disney fans know about Minnie's cute hat! Last year, while walking around the park, I noticed a cute new hat that you could purchase and I was inspired then to create a Minnie Mouse cupcake!

Minnie used to wear a blue skirt with white polka dots as well!

The cupcakes were chocolate cake with espresso swiss meringue buttercream. I created my own cupcake wrappers.  I work for the craft company, Sizzix and we have an art room where we can use our machines for personal projects (I really want to buy a Big Shot Pro!).  I found this fantastic red and white polka dot paper at Michaels and I used my Stampin' Up Perfect Setting die to cut out the wrappers. The Minnie Mouse heads were created out of black fondant.  The red bow was created with red royal icing and my ribbon tip. After the royal icing hardened, I added a little ball of red fondant to complete the look. 

The hats were made out of yellow fondant.  I cut green flower wire to 1/2" pieces and laid them down on parchment paper.  I then took a piping bag with a #2 tip and white royal icing and created a flower.  After the royal icing dried, I pulled the flower carefully from the parchment paper and stuck the flowers onto the hat. 

Tyler did a fantastic job taking pictures outside our apartment complex, the photo below is my favorite because the hat came out perfectly!

And here is a picture of my sister and I with our Minnie ears!

Until next time!  Happy baking and decorating!

~Danielle

S'more Cupcakes

This month's Martha Stewart Cupcake Recipe, S'more Cupcakes was chosen by Mary Ann from Meet Me in the Kitchen.  I love S'more marshmallow goodiness!  But I was torn on whether or not to bake the recipe in the Martha Stewart book.  1. I didn't want to buy graham flour for a one time use and 2. in the beginning of January, Bakerella posted this yummy looking recipe for S'more or Less

Photo Credit: Bakerella

I mean look at this picture... can you see why I was torn?  In the end, I decided to go with Bakerella (sorry Martha!).  


One thing I loved about this recipe is that I already had all the ingredients in my pantry.  I gathered all the ingredients I needed to make for two, yes two, cake batters (yes, I mais en plas with my new Parker bowl set that I got at my bridal shower - love these bowls!).

This recipe is fairly clever in that you essentially start with a base batter and then add cocoa powder to one and graham cracker crumbs to another.  

  
The graham cracker crumb batter smelled so good!  I had a hard time not sampling the product :)

  
Next, I made a graham cracker crumble, so once again I laid out my ingredients.  Love the bowls! 

Now I was ready to start layering the different flavors!  First you put a spoonful of graham cracker crumb batter in the cupcake liner and you follow with a sprinkling of graham cracker crumbles

Then you cut large marshmallows in half and place a half into each cupcake liner

Next you pour chocolate cupcake batter into the liner and then add another sprinkling of graham cracker crumbles

These cupcakes smell really good baking in the oven!  My entire house smelled like chocolate cake and pie crust.  After the cupcakes came out of the oven, I let them cool a bit.  Then I stuck a marshmallow on top and put the cupcakes under the broiler.  Roasted marshmallows, my fav!

Look at all the layers!  When you eat this cupcake, you definitely have to eat all the layers in one bite or you just won't get the full effect of this recipe.  The texture is really interesting, moist but crumbly.  The cupcakes were so good that I had one for breakfast the next morning!

Working for Sizzix has it's perks!  We have this really cute cupcake wrapper die, so I had to cut some wrappers out.  And I am so glad I did, because the cupcakes look extra cute! 

A big thank you to Bakerella for an amazing recipe for the collection.  If you haven't already, visit Bakerella's website for more amazing treats and fun ideas! And an even bigger thank you to Kelly and Shannon for my new Sur La Table cupcake tin and Linda, Jana and Ashley for my Parker bowls :) 

Stayed tuned, this month is turning out to be a very busy month with a wedding cake and a sweet 16 birthday cake!


Until next time, happy baking!
~Danielle