Cakes and Pops

I recently did a birthday cake and pops for a real live paying client! I think it turned out great.


I've been doing more and more cake pops lately, everyone seems to love them! They're cute, bite sized, and a great way to use leftover cake and frosting. I made a big batch for Valentine's Day too. Any excuse to use more sprinkles :)



I'm currently working on a website, although I need a name for my cupcake company first. It's been the hardest thing to do, since everytime I think of a great name, I google it and find it's already been taken. I don't want to do anything that anyone else has already done, so it's been difficult with all the bakeries out there now!

More cupcakes and pops to come!

Holiday Baking

As I'm trying to get my business up and running, I'm trying a few test-runs, including selling holiday treats at my husband's office. I had quite a few orders, and they all turned out great!
I made mini Derby pies, red velvet cake balls, pumpkin cake pops, and red velvet cupcakes. I was a baking machine for a few days! Oh, and just for fun, I made sugar cookies, and decorated them too.
Check it out!
Sugar cookie snowflakes with royal icing and sanding sugar.


Sugar cookie candy canes with royal icing and sanding sugar.


Sugar cookie Xmas trees with royal icing, sanding sugar, and silver dragees.


Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting and holly berry sprinkles.


Mini Derby Pies: Chocolate Chip-Bourbon-Pecan.


Red Velvet Cake balls- dipped in Red (vanilla) and Milk Chocolate with holiday sprinkles.


Pumpkin Cake Pops- dipped in white (vanilla) candy and topped with holiday sprinkles.

I had so much fun baking all these treats, I can't wait until I get paid to do it all the time!

Holiday Cake Balls!

So I had a few leftover cupcakes from my holiday baking the other day, and what better way to use leftover cupcakes and frosting than to make cake balls!
I usually make cake pops, but decided this time to omit the pops. These look like little truffles, but are really cake, and are a bit easier to make than cake pops, since there are less steps.
I made two kinds, chocolate peppermint and gingerbread, both with vanilla frosting. I dipped them in dark chocolate, and garnished with either crushed up candy canes or holly berry sprinkles.
I was concerned with the dipping technique, since I usually have problems with this. The candy was smooth enough, and I followed the instructions in the Cake Pops book exactly. I found a good method, dip the cake balls, spoon chocolate over them to cover, and lift them out with the spoon. I used 2 spoons, the other one to take the ball off the first spoon and to drop it on the wax paper. I found that cut down on the amount of extra chocolate on the cake ball, so it didn't get too messy.

You have to decorate these immediately, since the chocolate starts to harden after only a few seconds. I learned that with the first one I did.
I packaged them up in little mini cupcake liners to bring to a friend's holiday party tomorrow. So cute! I'm thinking about making more next week to send with my xmas packages to family.
Super cute and yummy!

Martha Challenge #48 and #49- Holliday cupcakes!

It's been a good long while since I've baked, not since Thanksgiving. I was sick for an entire week after, so I didn't think baking was the best idea. All better now!
I made two Martha recipes yesterday, Chocolate-Peppermint and Gingerbread cupcakes. Yum! Very festive.
First, the chocolate peppermint. These are very much like her one-bowl chocolate cupcakes, with the addition of peppermint extract instead of vanilla. I made a dozen regular and 24 minis, and topped them with a peppermint buttercream frosting. I also added mini candy canes on the big ones, and candy cane sprinkles on the minis.

These were great, made the whole place smell amazing too! Next time maybe I'll add some espresso powder to make them mocha peppermint. Yum!



Next up was gingerbread. I usually don't care for the smell of molasses, which is crucial to any good gingerbread cupcake, but these were excellent. The batter was so rich and creamy, it almost looked like peanut butter. I got 16 regulars and 20 minis out of this batch, and topped them with cream cheese frosting. I added holly berry sprinkles and mini gingerbread sprinkles on these. I just love themed sprinkles!These are denser, with a caramelized top, not as soft on the outside, but still yummy on the inside!

I am now fully in the holiday spirit, and can't wait to make some cake pops or bites from the leftovers.
Next week I might try french macarons. Wish me luck!

Martha Challenge #47- Turkey cupcakes (fail)

So to get ready for Thanksgiving next week, I wanted to make cute turkey cupcakes. Turkey-looking, not turkey-tasting. Ew.

So Martha has a cute recipe in her book, I went out and bought all the ingredients, and got started.

These were the hardest cupcakes I've made in a long time. The first batch of chocolate cupcakes exploded in the oven. They all overflowed and merged into one big cake mess. Threw it out.

Second batch, I didn't fill the cups as much, but there was still some overflow, not nearly as much as before. I think it's because I used cake flour instead of regular flour. Weird!

So now I had chocolate cupcakes, and some leftover vanilla frosting from the vanilla taste test. I followed the instructions exactly, seen here. They look so cute, I couldn't wait to start decorating!
I couldn't find coconut marshmallows, so I used regular white marshmallows. I poked holes and inserted chocolate sprinkles for the eyes, came out perfect. Then I cut up the swedish fish and tried to attach the beaks. Didn't work. They didn't stick to the marshmallows. I tried wetting the cut end of the fish, tried attaching it with frosting, nothing worked. After seeing 21 droopy beaks, I gave up. Ate the marshmallows instead :)


I was tired and frustrated at that point, so I just made the vanilla frosting chocolate, spread it on top of the cupcakes, and rolled them in toasted coconut. So, turkey cupcakes became chocolate coconut cupcakes. Still yummy, less cute. OH well!

Vanilla frosting taste test challenge

Yesterday was National Vanilla Cupcake Day. I have been wanting to try out a few different frostings lately, so this was the perfect opportunity.

I made 68 mini vanilla cupcakes and 3 different kinds of vanilla frosting.

First up was 7 minute frosting. I halved the recipe so I wouldn't end up with tons leftover. This frosting is made of egg whites and a cooked sugar syrup. It wasn't too hard, it just took a while to get the sugar syrup up to the right temperature.

The frosting is super fluffy and white, almost like marshmallow. I mounded it on top of the cupcakes and used some festive fall sprinkles.


Second was traditional American buttercream. This is the easiest to make, with only butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

I tinted it purple to distinguish from the other frostings. This is the frosting I use most often, as it is easy to make and use. It can be too sweet for some, since there's usually 4-5 cups of powdered sugar in it. I also added a tiny squeeze of lemon juice.


Last was swiss merengue buttercream. This is the trickiest to make, although it was a lot easier than in the past. This is made with a warmed egg white and sugar mix, which is beaten to stiff peaks, and then butter (4 sticks!) is added in gradually. I usually have trouble with this frosting, but it was perfect this time. After adding the butter, it looks all goopy and wrong, but you just beat it like crazy for a few minutes and it's perfectly fluffy and smooth.

I tinted this pink. It's much less sweet, but richer than other frosting. When Jason tasted it, he said it tasted fattier, and that's due to the pound of butter. This is also a recipe that I can easily adapt to be sugar-free.

Anyhoo, took these to be tasted this morning. The 7 minute frosting had flopped overnight, so I knew that wasn't going to get good reviews. I think most people like the american buttercream, which is good, since it's easier and cheaper to make than the swiss merengue buttercream. I'm glad to know that I can produce any of these frostings rather easily.

Johnny Cupcakes lecture in Denver- with cupcakes!

Last nite I went to a lecture at the Denver Art Museum held by Johnny Cupcakes, the T-shirt entrepreneur. It was very informative and really pumped me up to listen to him talk about how he started his business with no start up loans or investors. I left all fired up and jazzed to get started developing my own business.

Before the lecture, 6 local cupcake shops had samples for everyone and there was a contest to vote who was the best. The bakeries were:
Mermaids Bakery, Lovely Confections, Living the Sweet Life, The Shoppe, Cake Crumbs/the Denver Cupcake Truck, and Happy Cakes. I've tried a few before, so I was interested to see how the rest were. Everyone chose 1 mini cupcake from each place, and then we all voted.


From Mermaids Bakery, I chose the mexican chocolate cupcake. They also offered a vanilla-strawberry cupcake. The chocolate cupcake was great, but the frosting was best- chocolate cinnamon! It was a light chocolate, and was super fluffy and airy, but still with a lot of flavor. I could have eaten just the frosting!

From Lovely Confections, they only had sugar cookies with frosting. It was ok, nothing special. Kind of disappointed they didn't have cupcakes!


From Living the Sweet Life, they offered red velvet, chocolate, and carrot cake. I chose the red velvet. It was very red, the cake wasn't flavorful, and the cream cheese frosting was super tangy.


From The Shoppe, which I've tasted before, they had the biggest selection. Cookies n cream, banana caramel, pumpkin spice, strawberry, and chocolate salted caramel, which I chose.

Presentation was great. The chocolate cake was not flavorful and a little dry, plus there wasn't enough of it. I know these are minis, but there was 3 times the amount of frosting as there was cake. Speaking of the frosting, it was amazing! Super rich dark chocolate sprinkled with fleur de sel, piped over a caramel. Yum!

Cake Crumbs is the retail storefront of the Denver Cupcake Truck. They only offered one flavor, pistachio. I almost passed it up, but decided to try it to be fair. The cake was good, I liked the pistachio flavor, and there were bits of nut chopped up inside. The frosting was too sweet, I could barely tolerate one tiny bite.

Happy Cakes also had a good selection. They had a sweet potato cupcake topped with a mini marshmallow, a pumpkin one I think, and a chocolate peanut butter, which I chose. The cake was great, the peanut butter frosting was crazy rich, super thick. I like that it was topped with a chocolate covered peanut.

After much deliberation, I chose Mermaids Bakery as my favorite, although Happy Cakes came in a close second. Unfortunately, not everyone else agreed with me. The people's choice was The Shoppe. I'm just not impressed with their cake, although the frosting is very good.

After the cupcakes and the lecture, there was an after party outside where people could meet Johnny and ask questions. Before he came out, there were a few food trucks parked outside. One was a pizza truck (sorry I didn't get the name), and one was the The Biscuit Bus, operated by the Denver Biscuit Company. They served sandwiches on buttermilk biscuits. Yum! I had a fried chicken biscuit with a side of sweet potato fries. It was super yummy, although the chicken wasn't very flavorful, needs more seasoning.

Then I got the chance to talk to Johnny, and he posed for a picture too. It's a terrible quality picture, but I'm glad I got the chance to ask him a few questions, and he gave me some good advice.
All in all, it was a great night, learned a lot, stuffed my face, and now I'm ready to get going!