First Wedding Cupcake Order!

Current Mood: excited and crushed
Current Song: Krewella-Alive

First off, I hope that everyone who lives in Rosedale or was in Rosedale when the train derailed this afternoon is okay. My prayers are with you all!

Second off, I just had my first wedding cupcake order on Saturday. Funny thing is, I didn't know they were for an actual wedding until AFTER I made them on Saturday morning! Talk about being nervous! Dom's mom had another cupcake order for me last week...started at 8 dozen minis and turned into 12 dozen after a few days. But I didn't know what they were for! I LOVE making minis though. I can bake 48 at a time and they only take about 10 minutes to bake. I can roll through them pretty quickly. In other words, ORDER MINIS FROM ME SOON!

Kthx.

So Friday night I had this task upon me. 12 dozen minis--4 dozen red velvet, 4 dozen chocolate on chocolate, and 4 dozen vanilla on vanilla. Simple enough. And monetarily pleasing. Does that make sense? Sometimes I'm vocabulary challenged. All my friends will tell you that. And to think I was going to be an elementary school teacher...HA!

Anyways, I got started on the order right away (sorta) after work on Friday. Thank goodness I (and by I, I mean Dom) didn't have to take them to Kelly at Peerce's until 11:30am the next morning! Why? Because I messed up the batch of vanilla...wasn't a happy camper. I used my three most favorite recipes that have been a big hit previously.

I love oil. And fatty substances.

Said no one EVER...

But when it comes to cupcakes, everyone should be saying that!

I made absolutely TO-DIE-FOR chocolate buttercream for the chocolate cupcakes. I couldn't stop squeezing it out of the pastry bag (once I was done with the cupcakes) into my mouth. I literally couldn't stop.

So I found out Saturday morning that these were for an ACTUAL wedding. An Irish wedding at that. Dom was bartending at it and said they didn't even have a cake! They just had my cupcakes and some petit fours that the mother of the bride made. I feel so honored!

Keep the orders coming everyone!

Cheers!

Peanut Butter Cinnamon Goodness in a Cup of Cake

Current Mood: Hopeful and keeping my fingers crossed!
Current Song: Justin Bieber- Beauty and a Beat

Wait what!? Cup of cake you say? I made da bomb diggity cupcakes Sunday night for two birthdays that we had here in the office. Yes, here in the office...my favorite time of day to blog is during the later morning hours of the work day. Preferably Tuesdays when we're less busy. Yup.

Well it was Martin's 25th birthday yesterday and Jim's (our CFO) today. I think he's 36. Who knows. Jim basically likes NOTHING. He doesn't like chocolate...most sweets...or anything delicious to put it simply. He eats burgers for breakfast and a huge bag of salsa chips for lunch. Anyways...the ONLY sweet thing he likes is peanut butter. In fact, he LOVES peanut butter. But not so much Reese's because he doesn't like chocolate. SO DIFFICULT! On the other hand, Martin will eat any of my treats that I make.

I took myself back in time to one of the very first months of my blog when I randomly made peanut butter cupcakes. I got the recipe off allrecipes.com but for some reason, I can't find it anymore on there. The cupcakes feature a hint of cinnamon (only a 1/4 tsp.) which you could barely taste the first time I made these. I thought the flavors of peanut butter and cinnamon together was very odd at first, but it is LITRALLY the best combo ever. Aside from chocolate and peanut butter of course.

The recipe that I use for these cupcakes includes a peanut butter frosting. It's not a butter cream at all. It went something like...1/3 c. peanut butter...2 c. powdered sugar...some honey...vanilla extract....and some milk. It was more like a thicker, sweeter peanut butter spread. It was very good, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to change it around this time! Here is what they looked like the first time I made them for my blog last May:

I kept the recipe the same except I added more cinnamon to the batter. I put a 1/2 tsp. instead of just 1/4. This made a HUGE difference in a positive way! I really like that this recipe uses brown sugar instead of regular sugar.

Did you know that brown sugar is just granulated sugar and molasses? Makes recipes a bit sweeter :)

Random thought/tip: When a cupcake recipe tells you to bake them for an amount of time HIGHER than 20 minutes...don't do it. Simple as that. I start with 18 minutes all the time if I come across a recipe like this. This recipe told me to bake them for 23-25 minutes or something ridiculous like that. I started at 18 and they were done JUST RIGHT at that time! For cupcake minis, I start at 10 minutes.

I made up my own peanut butter butter cream frosting this time around. Here's the recipe I used to PIPE 18 cupcakes.

1/3 c. of peanut butter (give or take)--you can really add it based on what you like
1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 c. confectioner's sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon to taste (optional)

Blend the butter and peanut butter for about 5 minutes. You want the butter to relieve all of it's chunks. This takes a while. But the longer you whip it/blend it, the flufflier your icing is! Add the sugar slowly. Add the vanilla and cinnamon to taste.

This is THE BEST icing recipe ever. One coworker said the frosting tasted like PB fudge...another said it's her favorite frosting yet (and I've baked A LOT for work!)...2 others said these cupcakes were their favorite.

ORDER THESE TODAY!!

No Bake Mini Mint Chocolate Cheesecakes

Mood: Chipper and happy it's Hump Day!
Current Song: Taylor Swift-22 (I really am not fond of her, but I really like this song!)

Cheesecake is probably my most favorite dessert ever. And I mean EVER. If that's on the menu when I go out to eat, I get it. If a good recipe comes out that I come across, I make it. If my mom's making it. I'm there. However, she never makes it!

I made a chocolate, chocolate cheesecake for Martin's dad's 50th birthday last year and they invited me in to try some...of course I didn't turn THAT down! I was nervous actually because I had never made a REAL cheesecake before. I had just gotten my spring form pans at that time and had never used one before. I've used a regular pie pan for "cheesecakes" before but that is more like a pie. Hmph.

So there went nothing! And it turned out AMAZING. The chocolate flavor was so deep and rich. His dad, a chocolate fanatic, loved it.

Anyways, back to my most recent cheesecake extravaganza. We were having a very small dinner party. And I mean small. Four of us. That didn't stop me from making a delish dessert though! While browsing my Liv's Bakery page on Facebook, I saw that one of my favorite pages, My Baking Addiction, had posted these awesome mini no bake mint chocolate cheesecakes. It was sort of last minute with us having the dinner party, so I wanted something simple. Especially since I don't get home until 6ish each day and still had to shower and get ready for our guests. This dessert sounded like it would do the trick!

Here's the recipe I used.  Only mine weren't as pretty :( I didn't use a pastry bag to fill the shot glasses so it was a little sloppily done, unfortunately.

What I changed: I decided to use honey instead of sugar. I've read that honey can be healthier for you so I decided to give it a try! I used the same amount, 3 tbsp. (this is what they had for sugar). I also used low fat, low sugar cool whip. I was trying my best to make this as healthy as possible, people! I wasn't familiar with Andes Creme de Menthe cookies so I went with mint chocolate Oreos instead. I also used 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese. I get this all the time and it's just as delicious as regular!

I then topped each with canned whipped cream like she did. They were so good! Pretty much tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream but not freezing cold. Our friends loved them and it was just the right amount of dessert after eating homemade mexican pizza and cheese steak pizza. Good job to the boyfriend on these!

Cheers!

Happy Belated One-Year Anniversary to Liv's Blog!

Current Mood: Thankful and cheerful!
Current Song: B.O.B.- Airplanes (I know...old one, right?!)

April 22nd, or Earth Day, was my blog's one year anniversary! I know I'm a bit late, but this thought just randomly crossed my mind as I'm sitting at my desk at work pretty bored...

I've learned SOOO much over this past year from baking so many different desserts in so many different categories. I feel like I have taught myself almost everything one needs to know in the baking world. Well not EVERYTHING. Lots of new, exciting stuff has been happening in my life and I haven't been able to bake each Sunday like I used to. I am trying to get back in the swing of it though for the summer! Everyone loves a good summer dessert to read about and try on the hot weekends. Stay tuned for some yummy treats folks!

Cheers!

Hooray for Tequila!

Okay so Cinco de Mayo came early for my coworkers and I. Well...I made sure Dom and I celebrated the well-known holiday well while we were down in Disney World (Epcot has 12 countries that you can visit and we tried to get a drink in each...needless to say, I didn't accomplish since 12 drinks is a little much for me...) so I guess I can say that I celebrated twice this year.

Our receptionist's birthday was April 28 so I decided to make a spring themed cupcake for her and the rest of the office! I went with Lime Margarita cupcakes. Judging by the recipe, one could get drunk off these!

Not really...

But they did have a considerable amount of tequila in them!! In the cupcake...brushed on top of the cupcake...and in the icing. Sounds like a lot huh!? Actually, alcohol infused cupcakes tend to "get rid" of most of the alcohol while baking. I'm pretty sure this is why the baker added a little extra touch to the tops of the cupcakes once they came out of the oven.

This is the recipe I used. Brown-Eyed Baker is one of my favorite websites. She made these cupcakes look and sound amazing and I didn't find any other recipe similar to hers. I doubled it and it actually made around 30 cupcakes. To make my buttermilk, I used the 1 tbsp. vinegar and 1 cup milk recipe since I actually needed only one cup once I doubled the recipe. Do not waste the money to buy actual buttermilk from the store. You never need much more than a cup and I'm pretty sure it goes bad quickly.

Fun tip: Buttermilk can be made from vinegar and milk (I use this most of the time; 1 tbsp. vinegar, rest milk for 1 cup), cream of tartar and milk, or lemon juice and milk (1 tbsp. juice, rest milk for 1 cup). I'm sure there's more recipes out there, but I find that the vinegar/milk one is the easiest. Let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes (it may look like it's curdling, but this is okay!)

I used whatever tequila Dom had in the house which I think was Margaritaville which we use to make margaritas. Works just fine! Of course I used my homemade vanilla extract that is still hanging around. Other than that folks, I didn't change anything about this recipe. Everyone at work LOVED them.

And no one got drunk.

That is all!

Cheers and happy belated Cinco de Mayo!