St. Paddy's Day

It's almost time, once again, for my most requested cupcake. I call it an Irish Car Bomb, after the drink, because it's a chocolate Guinness cupcake topped with Bailey's buttercream. It's amazing! A big hit with the fellows, for sure. These are pics of last year's, since I'm not baking this year's until Monday. They are super yummy, and the only cupcake that I make that I can eat more than 1 of. Although they're great any time of year, they're best enjoyed on March 17th. I even got some special decorations for this year's batch. Come back on Monday and check it out!

Absinthe cupcakes

Recently, my husband and I became obsessed with absinthe, and we ordered a few bottles. While I love the smell, I can't drink too much of it, unless it's mixed with something else. Since the traditional way of drinking it involves dissolving a sugar cube with water in the drink, I decided to make cupcakes with absinthe, since sugar already goes well with it. I took a regular vanilla recipe, added the absinthe, and made frosting as well. I tinted it green, because most versions of the drink are green, and added a little licorice bite on top, to reference the anise flavor. Oh, and I also used silver glitter :) Everyone loved them, and the flavor was much more mellow than the drink itself. A little unusual, but definitely tasty.

Deadly Creatures

To celebrate the completion of my husband's latest video game, Deadly Creatures, I made creepy crawly cupcakes! The technique was from the book, Hello Cupcake, and it was easier than I expected. The cupcakes themselves were chocolate, with a vanilla buttercream, and of course, creepy crawlers made out of M&M's and chocolate. Everyone loved them at the wrap party. There were scorpions, spiders, and centipedes. Scary!

Dulce de Leche

For my friend's wine and cheese party, I made Dulce de Leche cupcakes, since the party had a Spanish theme. The cupcakes were brown-sugar vanilla, slightly scented with orange, to tribute the famous Sevilla oranges. I filled them with pure dulce de leche, and made a dulce de leche buttercream. Then I sprinkled them with raw Demerara sugar. They were sooooooo rich and delicious! Everyone loved them. Although it was kinda hard to find dulce de leche, even being in Arizona. I went to a few specialty stores, but eventually found it in my local grocery store, in the Hispanic foods aisle. But you can also make it yourself, by heating a can of condensed milk for hours and hours. Maybe next time I'll try that. But for now, the store bought stuff worked just great.

Watchmen

I am super psyched for the premiere of the Watchmen movie tomorrow! I already have tickets and will probably have to wait in line forever. So I made Watchmen cupcakes! I must admit, I saw pics online of someone who had made these, and I thought it was brilliant. I'm going to let my husband take them to his office tomorrow, since he works with a bunch of comic book nerds :) The cupcakes are yummy moist chocolate, with a fudge buttercream frosting, and topped with fondant. this is my first attempt at fondant toppers, and it went fairly well! I may have to do this more in the future.

Sky Cake

So, a few weeks ago a bunch of friends and I went to see Patton Oswalt at the Tempe Improv. He's one of my favorite comedians, and in fact, he's my ringtone. Well, he did a bit about religion, and how some people decided when you die you get sky cake, and others decided you get sky cookies, and then others said you get sky baklava. It was hilarious, I don't do it justice. So I decided to make sky cake, or sky cupcakes. So I made rainbow cupcakes topped with swirly white frosting, with rainbow sprinkles and glitter on top. Super yummy! I think Patton would be proud :)

Long Time....

So I realize it's been a long time since I last blogged. update: I'm studying for my MBA now, and trying to get my business off the ground. I've been baking quite a bit, although not as regularly as before. It's been about a year since I started seriously testing recipes, and I'm pretty confident I can bake whatever whenever. I hope to have my own website up soon, and I just started posting pics on Flickr too.
I am still obsessed with everything cupcake, and in fact I made sure all my school supplies were decorated with cupcakes. I was the only person at my MBA orientation who was self-employed, and I was known as the cupcake lady! I even did a cheer with my team, Tania and the Cupcakes :)

So, here's to many more posts, with tons of pictures. Hopefully I'll be more consistent and not go months between updates.