And They Called it Cuppie Love

On Bakerella's site yesterday, she was having a giveaway for a diaper bag that was call Red Velvet Cake. After seeing that I decided to once again try my hand at making a red velvet cake, or cupcake as the case may be. I'm not a huge fan of red velvet, but I figured if I ever do get to open a business up, I should have a good recipe all ready to go. Plus, Iron Cupcake Earth is here again, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and set about whipping up a batch of cupcakes yesterday.

As always with the IC Earth challenge, the prizes are wonderful. And just like last time, you all get to vote and maybe help me win. What are the wonderful prizes you ask, well to begin with there is The Demy by Key Ingredient (check it out here http://www.mydemy.com/). And then there are the books Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson (http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com/) and The Cake Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne (http://www.workman.com/products/9780761129615). Plus fun cupcakes accessories from Bella Cupcake Couture (http://www.bellacupcakecouture.com/), the Cupcake Stacker from Gourmac (http://www.gourmac.com/custset.html) and Beautiful Bakeing Liners by Vestli House (http://www.vestlihouse.com/index.htm). And last but certainly not least Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply (http://www.acupcakery.com/info.html). How could you not want to enter this challenge with all these goodies up for grabs.

This month the challenge was passion. So I had to make something based or inspired by love or passion. I decided that, as of late, cupcakes have been my passion, so I created the following cupcake.



My red velvet batter ready to be made into cupcakes. I didn't add a ton of red food coloring and as a result, got more of a red garnet velvet batter.

Ready for the oven.

Not as red as I had hope for. Next batch should probably have more coloring.

I filled the centers of the cupcake with cherry preserves. To cut out the centers, just use a circle cutter and then hollow out some more if you want a deeper center.

I topped the cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream, making sure to get a nice and high crown of frosting. Then I put them in the freezer.

And the reason I put the cupcakes in the freezer was so I could dip them in yummy ganache. I double dipped my cupcakes to get a nice coating, putting them back into the freezer between dippings.

Here's one cut in half so you can see the whole make-up of the cupcake.

After adding a few fondant pieces, I achieved Cuppie Love!

So if you think this looks good, please go vote for me. (please, please,please) Voting will begin no later than Sunday, February 28th 8:00pm and last until Thursday, March 4th at 12 noon CST. You can go to Nobody Puts Cupcake in a Corner at http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/ to vote for me (please,please, please). And if you would like to find out more about IronCupcake Earth, please go to http://www.ironcupcakeearth.com/.

The Cake Blues

For this week's blog, I once again got to go under the sea. Birthday girl Lizzie told her Mom Sharon, that she wanted a cake with Ariel the Little Mermaid on it. And not only did she want Ariel, but she wanted the cake to be blue inside and out. I decided to make a Kool-aid cake to achieve the blue color without killing it with food coloring. To make Ariel and Flounder for the cake, I used marshmallow fondant. I also used the fondant to make some coral and seaweed to decorate the sides.


Blue buttercream covering a blue cake.

After cutting all the pieces out of fondant, I used a food coloring markers to outline Ariel and Flounder. I added candy pearls to make bubbles.

Bright color coral and seaweed to complete the sides.

Under the Sea for birthday girl Lizzie!

A Super Dessert

First I must start out by saying I had planned to do a little more with my dessert for the Super Bowl, but this past weekend brought a lot of changes at our house. Instead of having a busy weekend full of parties and friends, we had a weekend of hospitals and surgery. My husband had his gall bladder removed on Saturday. This was in no way planned, and a total surprise to both of us. I am happy to report that everything went great, and he is recovering nicely. With him at the hospital, I also got to spend my day there, so nothing got done at home for our Super Bowl party. Yes, believe it our not, we still had the party. Crazy, I know, but true. So Sunday morning before picking him up from the hospital, I threw together the dessert. You might remember from a previous post, me talking about making dirt dessert. Before, I made it with white chocolate pudding and vanilla wafers to make it look like sand (or desert as I was calling it). Well this time around, I decided to make turf. I figured it was only right with the big game and all. So this dirt dessert was made with chocolate pudding and crushed Oreos. Below is the recipe, which you can adjust to make whatever flavor or look you want, and a picture of the finish product (in my rush to get things done on Sunday, I only got one photo).

Dirt Dessert

1 package instant pudding
1 1/2 c milk
8 oz cool whip
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 package Oreos, crushed

Prepare the pudding mix with the milk. Set aside.
Whip the softened cream cheese, and then combine with the cool whip.
Stir the cool whip mixture into the pudding.

Layer dirt filling and crushed cookies in a pan, making sure to end with a layer of cookies.


Now to make the turf, I took some sugar cookie dough, dyed it green, and then baked it off. After that, I crushed it just like the other cookies, and I then had my field, or turf. The lines on the field, I just piped royal icing to create half a football field. I bet players wouldn't mind a face plant into this turf.

Some Like it Hot

Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs that have some of the most beautiful cookies you have ever seen. This week, I decided to try my hand with the technique they use to decorate the cookies. Now, I have done this way of decorating once before, just never on a cookie. So, with a special person's birthday coming up, I went to work on the cookies. My sister-in-law, who has a birthday this Thursday, recently moved to Flagstaff, Arizona. To celebrate that and her birthday, I made some cactus and chile pepper cookies (not in taste, just in looks). Now I know that I usually don't post pictures of things I have made for people before they get to see them, but I'm sure Katie has seen these, as I sent them out a little early for her birthday (just wanted to make sure I didn't miss it).

Anyhow, here are the cookies, and how to decorate by flooding your cookie.


First, with a stiff royal icing, pipe your outline of the cookie. Let this dry to form your border.

With the chile peppers, I worked with two colors to make them look real.

Two tone borders. Pretty, but not quite done yet...

Now, thin your royal icing with some water. If you apply the 5-10 count rule, you will know if you consistence is right. What I mean by this is, after mixing in the water, run your spatula through the icing and count to 10. If the icing comes back together and looks smooth while you are counting from 5 to 10, it's good. If it is under 5, add a little more powdered sugar to thicken it up. If it takes longer then 10, add more water.

Fill your borders with the royal icing. Give your cookies a little shake to help smooth out the icing. If you have any air bubble, pop them with a toothpick or pin. If you let them pop on their own, they will create a hole in your design.

And there you have it. Cookies with a smooth glossy finish that look as good as they taste.

I liked doing these cookies, and plan to make more, as there are other tricks with this type of decorating that I would like to try...stay tuned.