Blueberry Muffins

I wish Laura could come for breakfast more often...

My lovely cousin, Laura Beth (she may get mad at me for adding the "Beth" part), lives in Indiana with her husband; therefore, I NEVER get to see her.   She was in visiting her family in New Jersey and was gracious enough to squeeze us in!  I made the quiche I made for Mother's Day, some fresh fruit with yogurt, and blueberry muffins from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.  The muffins were fantastic!  Very simple to make and very fresh tasting.  Laura stated that she liked the "blueberry to muffin" ratio... I just through in an entire pint of blueberries without looking at how much the recipe called for.  I loved the crunchy tops.  There are only three left, and I'm going to rush home to get a final one before Matt polishes them off!

Check out those giant blueberries!

Don't you just love my new cupcake stand?  It spins!  My mom bought it for me at HomeGoods a few weeks ago.  I absolutely love it.

And more Paula Deen cupcake liners.  So sweet...

By the way, Check out Laura Beth's blog.   Her writing is so eloquent and thoughtful that she always makes me wish I could express myself as well as she can. 

Happy Fourth of July

Lemon Cupcakes

My brother and sister-in-law were nice enough to host breakfast and lunch/dinner on Sunday.  I offered to bring a dessert, but I wanted something that would be refreshing on a  HOT summer day.  I've been trying to bake my way through Martha Stewart's Cupcake cookbook, so I found her Lemon Meringue Cupcakes recipe.  I changed it a little though because I didn't feel like making the 7 Minute Frosting.  I made the Swiss Meringue Butter Cream instead.  It was also my first time making Lemon Curd.  I was a little intimidated, but it was so simple!  These cupcakes were delicious.  Her recipe is very similar to her buttermilk cupcakes, but with a lemon twist.  YUM!

Can you see that beautiful lemon curd?  Its tartness really tasted great with the butteriness (is that a word?) of the frosting.

A word to the wise...these cupcakes do not travel well, especially on hot days.  They sort of slid...oops.

I found these liners in the dollar bin at Michael's.  They are from Paula Deen's line.  So cute.

This is Sammy.  Her mommy regularly reads this blog, and I thought she'd love to see Sammy's picture up of her eating the cupcakes!  So stinkin' cute.

Martha's Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Drive-by posting...

I had just gotten in from a long day of shopping with my cousins, sister-in-law, and aunt when Matt called and said his cousin, Doug, was stopping by on his drive home.  We hadn't seen him in a few months, so it was a great surprise.  I wanted to make something quick for us to enjoy for dessert, so I flipped through my Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook and saw Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies.  Jackpot!  I hadn't made this recipe yet, so I was excited to try it.  It was very simple to throw together at the last minute and was delicious! 

My swirling technique leaves a little to be desired, but you get the idea.

If you are interested in the recipe, check it out here on Martha's website.

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!

Cute Cupcakes. All The Time.

I've been featured again!

Twice in a week...I'm excited!  Cute Cupcakes. All The Time featured my cupcakes and cake from Jack's Birthday Party   today!  They were kind enough to feature my snowman cupcakes awhile back, as well. 

Thanks, Cute Cupcakes!

Vanilla Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Magnolia strikes again...

We had a few stressful weeks at work waiting for some budgets to be passed and funding to come through.  I thought we could all use a cupcake to cut the tension.  I've been wanting to try some more recipes from my Magnolia Bakery cookbook, so I made vanilla mini cupcakes and their white chocolate cream cheese icing.  So delicious and simple.  I think that's why I love their recipes.  Simple, fresh, and very few ingredients.   I didn't have any white chocolate on hand, but I did have pink chocolate wafers that I used for Everly's Christening Cupcakes.  I figured it would help me skip the step of adding food coloring  I love the way they turned out.  I topped them with jewel colored glitter jimmies that I found at HomeGoods a few weeks ago...Gotta love HomeGoods!

All Things Cupcake!

I've been featured!

I received a notification over the weekend that the cupcakes I made for Tiffany's shower were going to be featured on All Things Cupcake blog.  Check it out! 

ETA: Maureen just sent me some pictures from the shower.  They looked great on the tables!

A blast from the past...

Claudine's Baby Shower

As I was looking through old pictures online today, I found a cake and cupcakes I had made two years ago that I can't believe I haven't posted. Remember Holly? Well, before we knew she was Holly, we had a book themed shower for her mommy,  Claudine. We asked everyone to bring a book for Holly's library. I found an adorable little icon of a little girl reading a book and we used it on EVERYTHING!

I found a Wilton Cake pan in the shape of a book, and took the photograph to the local grocery store bakery, and they printed it out on an icing sheet for me to use on my own cake.  I've since found out that they will not do this anymore.  If you do want to try the icing sheets, there are a few vendors on Etsy.com that will print things for you.  This cake isn't my best as I was still learning to pipe and decorate, but ok for a first shot, right?

For the cupcakes, we tinted the icing purple (Claudine's favorite color) and printed the little girl graphic on labels then wrapped them around toothpicks.  Again, towards the beginning of my cake decorating exploration. 

It was a  fun shower, and its strange to think that we didn't even know how adorable and sweet Holly was yet! 

Happy Anniversary to us!

Celebrating four years of marriage...

That was the best moment of my life.  I had finally married the most wonderfully handsome and loving man in the world in front of our entire HUGE families in my childhood church.  I cannot believe it has been four years since that awesome day.  Who knew that in only four years, we could already become the "Old Married Couple?"  That, we are.  Some people may celebrate their anniversaries with gifts, fancy dinners out or vacations, but we're a little more low key than that.  Matt took the day off from work, and I took a half day.  We spent the afternoon reading, watching the World Cup, playing cards, and sitting on the front porch watching a thunderstorm roll by.  The weather was the exact weather we had four years ago...hot, humid and thunderstorms! 

We knew that we'd make dinner together, and Matt suggested homemade pizzas on the grill...sounded great to me! I found a recipe for basic pizza dough on the food network website. Emeril Lagasse's Basic Pizza Dough recipe was so simple to make that I don't think I'll buy frozen pizza dough ever again.

Before Rising...

During Rising...

After Rising...

I don't know why but the science of rising dough always makes me laugh because I think of Alton Brown's explanation of yeast and how it works. I keep picturing the burping molecules.

As you can see, our pizza dough tossing skills leave a little to be desired.    We decided to make four different types of pizza so we could sample each.  Needless to say, we have plenty of leftovers now.

My first one had olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, green peppers, mozzarella, Parmesan, and basil.

Matt's first was a buffalo chicken pizza...BBQ sauce, roasted chicken, mozzarella, and garlic.

Matt's second had tomato sauce, tomatoes, basil, garlic, and mozzarella.

My final pizza was plain...just tomato sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan.

We decided to try the pizzas on the grill.  I read somewhere that it makes it taste more like brick oven pizza.  It was a nice night out (after the thunderstorm passed) so we went for it.  We used our pizza stone instead of putting them directly on the grill...we weren't that confident in our pizza making skills to not make a mess!

The results were fantastic!  The dough was perfectly cooked.  I think we'll use the grill all the time now when we make pizza! 

How great does that dough look?! 

For dessert, I made some Black Forest Brownies from a mix my mom got us on clearance at Target last week.  My mom is super thoughtful and knows how much Matt loves brownies and cherries.  Finding a mix that combined both, she couldn't resist :)  I have to tell you, they were so fudgey and delicious!  I've become sort of a brownie snob since I started making Martha Stewart's Fudge brownies from her Baking Handbook, but these were great. 

Can you see the juicy sour cherries?  The combination was so unique and scrumptious.  If you find these at target, BUY THEM!

Anyway, it was a fun and relaxing anniversary...just the way we like it.  Matt broke the rules a little bit and bought me some flowers.  When I yelled at him, telling him he wasn't supposed to, he said, "Big Whoop.  I bought you flowers."  I thought it was a big whoop!  They are beautiful.  Thanks, Matt, for a wonderful day and a fun four years.  I love you!

 

Jack's Robot Party

Happy Birthday (Again) Jack!

Jackie (aka Robot Boy) turned three on June 1st but his party isn't until tomorrow.  Jack has been asking for months for cupcakes with robots on them.  Matt and I had a whole idea ready to go last night about how we were going to make a robot shaped cake and cupcakes.  Well, when I went to bake today, my oven was not cooperating.  It kept turning off in the middle of baking, which caused two of the small cakes I was making to collapse in the center.  I got super frustrated and decided to go with a much simpler idea.  I used his invitation as inspiration....

I made a chocolate half sheet cake and swiss meringue butter cream.  I cut the letters and robot out of leftover fondant.  I also decorated around the edges of the cake with chocolate buttercream that I made for the cupcakes.

It wasn't what I originally wanted to make, so I'm a little disappointed.  Hopefully Jack will like it anyway. 

I did not think that the cake would be enough for the large party tomorrow, so I decided to make cupcakes as well.  I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate meringue frosting.  I had found silver jimmies (sprinkles for those of you not from Philly) at HomeGoods a few weeks ago, so I thought they'd be perfect for the robot theme.  I dipped the cupcakes in the silver jimmies, then I had no idea what to do.  My mom and Matt helped me stare at the cupcakes to come up with an idea.  We tried putting eyes and a mouth on them that looked like the eyes on the cake just in a smaller form.  Well, the eyes ended up looking more like deviled eggs.  Then we tried to put red instead of yellow at the center of the eyes.  Then it looked the GEICO money.  Finally, my mom had the idea of doing robot silhouettes on each of the cupakes.  I think they turned out pretty cute. 

It is supposed to be VERY hot tomorrow, and I'm a little worried about the cupcakes and cake melting on the way over to the party.  What do you do to keep cakes from melting and falling apart in the summer time?

Congratulations, Molly!

Cake success and fail on the same day...

My cousin Molly graduated on Friday from Bishop McDevitt High School and will be attending LaSalle University in the fall...our alma mater!  LaSalle is where Matt and I met twelve years (eeek!) ago, and I think Molly will do great there.  Molly's mom asked me last week at the family reunion to make 2 dozen cupcakes--half Bishop McDevitt themed, the other half LaSalle themed.  I thought, "No problem!"  Little did I know that the baking gods were not working with me this morning.  I baked 2 dozen vanilla cupcakes and while cooling, the cupcakes pulled away from liners.  CAKE FAIL! After a little bit of googling, there are two possibilities as to how this happened.  Either, the cakes weren't fully cooked or the oven is heating evenly.  My guess is that its a combination of both.  I'm always worried about over baking cakes, and our oven has been acting weird lately. 

Needless to say, I had to start over and make another batch.  This time, I made sure to bake them a little longer and rotated the cupcake pans more often.  The results were much better!   I made swiss meringue butter cream icing and tinted half of it yellow for the LaSalle cupcakes.  Have you ever had an idea in your head that you just couldn't make happen in reality?  That's what these cupcakes were like for me.  They turned out cute enough, but just not what I had in mind.  I've seen lots of cupcakes rimmed with sugar, and I thought it would be fun to try.  Somehow, it just didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. 

Sorry the pictures are so dark.  It started to storm like the world was ending right as I was finishing up, and I just could not get the lighting right.  (Not-quite-right seems to be the theme of the day).

The cupcakes, luckily, tasted pretty good.  Molly said they tasted very fresh, which  I always like to hear!  Holly really liked the icing and even conned her Poppy into giving her his icing...Poppy just ate two plain cupcakes!   After devouring the icing, Holly said, "These are good.   Matt made them!"  She proceded to tell everyone that Matt made the cupcakes and kept thanking him!  Needless to say, Matt didn't correct her!

Congratulations, Molly!  You'll have a great time at LaSalle!