CORA Cupcakes

Beef, Beer, & Cupcakes

I work at a not-for-profit agency called CORA, which provides emotional, educational and prevention services for children and families in need.  Like most not-for-profit agencies lately, money is always an issue.  Therefore, CORA is sponsoring a Beef & Beer fundraiser tonight at a local bar.  If you aren't from Philly, you probably have never heard of a beef & beer.  Its self-explanatory really.  Roast beef sandwhiches and beer are served at a local pub or union hall and partying ensues.   It is a great way to raise money, and we are hoping tonight will help our budget at CORA out a little bit.  CORA employees are providing desserts, so I thought I'd make some cupcakes with a CORA theme. 

I made devil's food and butter vanilla cupcakes with fluffy vanila icing.  I had leftover blue fondant and tinted some leftover white fondant a burgandy color.  If you check out CORA's website,  you'll see that I took inspiration from our CORA emblem. 

I hope people enjoy them after a long night of drinking, dancing and donating!

Family Reunion

Strawberry Cupcakes

We had a small family reunion on my mom's side today.  Lots of cousins that we haven't seen in years.  Despite being 85 degrees in a park, it was a good time.  I had a ton of strawberries left over from the cake I made the night before, so I thought I'd try Martha Stewart's swiss meringue buttercream.  I used the same recipe for Strawberry cupcakes from Patricia's birthday, which Matt has been begging me to make for a few months now.  Too bad he's out of town until Monday (I saved him one).  I also wanted to try out some Food Tattoos I picked up at Michael's a few weeks ago.  They were really easy to use and very cute; although, I think they would have looked cuter on vanilla icing. 

The pureed strawberries in the frosting really made it taste fresh and summery.

These are the tattoos I bought at Michaels.  Very easy to use.  I saw that Duff from Ace of Cakes started a line of cake baking items including cake tattoos.  I'm dying to try all the cute designs. 

Kate and Jack liked the look of the cupcakes.  Jack tried the icing and said, "YUM!"  But a few seconds later he said, "I don't want it, I don't like strawberry."  So,  I don't think I can trust Jack's critique.

Happy Birthday, Timmy!

A Philadelphia Union Birthday Cake

Our friend Timmy is turning 30 this weekend, and his wife decided to throw him a surprise party.  Although, Matt definitely cannot make the party, and I may not be able to, I wanted to make a cake for him.  His wife, Jess, clued me into the fact that his favorite cake is strawberry shortcake.  I was very excited at this news as I have been dying to make a strawberry cake of some sort.  Matt helped me decide on the theme of the cake, which is the logo of the Philadelphia Union Soccer team.  Timmy is a big soccer fan and has gone to several games of the new team.  I really hope he likes it!

I made a basic pound cake recipe, used fresh strawberries with a little sugar for the filling, and made a swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  The fondant took a long time to tint to the appropriate colors.  Who knew navy was such a hard color to dye?   To finish it off, I dipped some strawberries in white chocolate and surrounded the bottom of the cake with them.

How good do these strawberries look?

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Fondue!

Book Club...

This month, we read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.  I really enjoyed reading this book, but the group was split on whether they liked it or not.   If you like murder mysteries and can stomach some graphic descriptions of abuse, you will enjoy this book.  Despite a slow start, the book is a quick read. 

Anyway, onto baking.  I hosted book club this month, and I wanted to make something easy but different to enjoy.  The other week, I started to crave fondue, and I thought, "Duh.  Make fondue for book club!"  I made two cheese fondues (is that the plural of fondue?  Or is it like the word moose? Who knows...don't judge me) and one chocolate fondue.  The first of the cheese course was a spicy parmesan fondue and the second, a cheddar beer fondue.  I chopped up lots of bread, carrots and apples to dip.  YUM!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture.  Sorry :( 

The Chocolate Fondue was a simple chocolate fondue recipe from an article I ripped out of a Rachel Ray magazine.  I bought some rice crispy treats, strawberries and apricots and made some brownies, chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies for dipping. 

See those brownies in the corner of the first picture?  Those are actually Raspberry with Cabernet Wine Brownies.  Yep, you read that right.  What could be better than raspberry, chocolate, red wine and brownies?  My good friend, Patricia, bought me this mix for my birthday a month ago, and I've been saving them for book club.  She bought the mix at a craft fair that our employer was running.  (She got shushed at the craft fair for laughing too loud.  Clearly the person didn't know that this laugh is Patricia's trade mark).  I'd love to be able to hook you up with a website of wherever this brownie mix came from, but I could not find a website on the tag.  Have any of you seen this brand before or know where I could get a more of it?

The recipe called for only a cup of wine, so we drank the rest of the bottle during book club with these wine glasses that I found at HomeGoods a few weeks ago.  I couldn't resist.  I just found them way too cute.

Grammy's Chocolate Cookies

Happy Memorial Day!

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm on a cookie kick lately.  I've been wanting to try out some new recipes.  Today was no different.  We've been home from the beach since yesterday afternoon with no real plans for the day so I thought I'd try a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cookie Cookbook...Grammy's Chocolate Cookies.  These are delicious and simple to make.  The dough requires refrigeration for an hour, so don't make them if you are in a rush.  I thought I'd share the recipe with you, since I really thought they were delicious.  This recipe is a great "go-to" recipe since most bakers having all of the ingredients already in their pantry...

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Sanding sugar, for rollings

1. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add eggs and vanilla, and beat to combine.  Reduce speed to low, and gradually add flour mixture; beat to combine.  Form dough into a flattened disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about an hour.

3.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls (I used a 1 inch cookie scoop).  Roll each ball in sanding sugar.  Place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper  (I used silpats), about 1 1/2 inches apart.  Bake until set, 10 to 12 minutes (I baked 9-10 since my cookies were smaller). 

These cookies are chewy and sweet.  As much as I'd like to eat a ton of them, they are so rich that one or two hit the spot.

I put them in my cookie jar, which I hope to use more often.  My dream is to be that mom who always has fresh baked cookies in her cookie jar.  Someday...

Happy Memorial Day/Jack's birthday!

A weekend at the beach...

I've been lucky enough to have a wonderful aunt and uncle who allowed me to freeload off of them for many summers when I was younger.  They have a beautiful beach house on Long Beach Island, and I spent many teenage summers working, sun bathing, and swimming in the ocean.  Now, as an adult, they are still as generous and invited us to spend Memorial Day weekend with them.  I offered to bring desserts, and they asked that I make some cupcakes to celebrate their grandson's (our godson's) third birthday, which is Tuesday.  I decided to attempt to combine the celebrations and made red, white and blue star cupcakes.  I made a chocolate fudge cake recipe and Martha Stewart's Dark Chocolate icing.  The icing is certainly rich and smooth but a little difficult to work with since its a little runny.  I think the butter may have been too soft, and I didn't allow the chocolate to cool enough before combining it into the icing.  I'm hoping it will set up a little better as the day goes on, but we'll see. 

 I used a basic fondant recipe for the stars and numbers and some left over star sprinkles.

I found the cupcake liners at HomeGoods a few months ago.  Aren't they adorable?  This particular brand (which I am failing to remember the name of and have already thrown out the wrapper) is quickly becoming my favorite cupcake liners.  They are thick enough that you don't need to use cupcake tins, and the colors stay bright and visible, even after baking. 

I hope Jackie likes them!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

An American Classic...

Who doesn't love a chocolate chip cookie?  Simple.  Delicious.  Enough said.  I, like most people, was using the recipe off of the back of the Nestle Tollhouse bag of chocolate chips.  Although they made for decent cookies, I was getting frustrated by the inconsistency of the batter.  Sometimes they were soft and chewy, but most of the time, they were crisp and spread out too much on the cookie sheet.  I decided to go for a new recipe.  Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Chip  cookie recipe.  I compared the two recipes, and Martha's called for the same total amount of sugars, but decreased the white sugar and increased the brown sugar.  After some reseach, it completely makes sense.  Brown sugar contains molasses, which is what gives a cookie its chewy texture.  They turned out FANTASTIC.  Perfectly chewy and delicious.  Martha's recipe also calls for course salt, which I thought was strange at first, but after tasting the cookies, I realized that it reallly cuts the sweetness and adds a nice taste.  This will now become my "go-to" chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Christening Cupcakes

God Bless Everly Grace...

Remeber Miss Everly? Well, she was baptised today in a gorgeous heirloom gown that her mother, uncle, and grandfather all wore. Everly's grandmother called me a few weeks ago and asked if I could make cupcakes for the occasion. Well, she left a voicemail at home, which Matt on purpose accidentally deleted. After some research, I found her number and was able to call her back. She asked for some pretty chocolate cupcakes as the cake she was ordering was vanilla; however, she gave me free reign as to how to decorate them. Seeing as Miss Everly is so pretty, I knew they had to be pink! I used a chocolate fudge cake recipe and Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Butter Cream. I topped them with pink chocolate crosses and light pink sugar pearls. So sweet and dainty...just like Everly. The cake, in my opinion, was just ok, but the frosting was delicious! If I didn't know how many sticks of butter went into one batch, I'd probably eat it out of a bowl with a spoon!

I found the mold for the chocolates in the stack of ones my mother gave to me a few years ago. 

Here they are displayed next to the beautiful cake at Everly's Grandmother's house...

They seemed to be a hit as there were very few left at the end of the afternoon...

Mother's Day Brunch

Happy Mother's Day

Matt and decided to host a brunch for our mothers and brothers for Mother's Day.  Despite the brunch being easy to prepare and set up, it was delicious.  I honestly think I could have gone into a food coma.

Here is the table and the counter set for breakfast.  I don't have a dining room; therefore, sometimes, we need to make people sit at the counter. 

Here are the desserts.  I made Citrus Orange Pound Cake Cupcakes with Citrus Orange Buttercream Icing.  I'd like to say that I made the cookies, but I didn't.  I was going to make something similar to these, but after walking around Chestnut Hill with my mom, aunt, and cousin on Saturday, we stopped at The Night Kitchen Bakery.  They had these cookies there, and  I thought, well...that'll do.

Strawberry scones...my first attempt at scones. 

More pictures of the set up.  Here is the buffet of food and the main table.

Paula Deen's Praline French Toast Bake.  So easy and so unbelievably delicious.  The only problem with this was when the pan overflowed in the oven....smoke city.

Bacon Cheddar Quiche.  I wish I had more of this because it was the only thing we had run out of...

Oh, and the strawberry almond salad.  Very summery and yummy. 

Mom and my brother, Johnny, were the first to the buffet. 

Ben was a good sport, and sat at the counter...

We definitely had plenty of leftover cupcakes as most people were too full to partake.  (Well, except for Jimmy and I.  We took an eating break, then soldiered on).   Everyone, therefore, got to take some home in these cute boxes. 

My 30th Birthday.

No longer in my 20's...

I'm not going to write a ton because I'm sure my sister-in-law will write in detail about this cake on her blog, but I wanted to show you the AMAZING cake she made me for my birthday this year.  I wish I had a more adequate word, but amazing is the only thing coming to mind.  So delicious and rich, I loved it.  Oh, and she added pink...what more could a girl ask for?