Peppermint Cupcakes

My book group had a little Christmas party this past weekend. I was having troubles deciding on what food item to bring. I had recently purchased my very first stand mixer, so I decided that I should make something that uses a mixer.

Here's a picture of my beautiful new mixer. As I said, I have never had one of these before. I just used a hand-held one. I broke my hand held one a couple of months ago on some thick cookie dough. I bought a cheap replacement, but my husband suggested that I invest in a nice stand one. He didn't have to tell me twice! I soon bought one.

I decided on Peppermint cupcakes. I found a recipe by Candace Nelson (founder/owner of Sprinkles Cupcakes and judge on Cupcake Wars) for Vanilla Peppermint Cupcakes. The buttercream frosting was my favorite part.

Back to the Cupcake Store

Hannah pointed out to me that she had not been to the new cupcake store in downtown Powder Springs. Well, I had to remedy that, so we went Friday after school.

The Lily Torte Baking Company opened up a few months ago.


I adore the cute gable box that held our cupcakes. If we bring it back, we save 10% on our next order.

Here are the cupcakes we got this time. 

The top center one is the Simple Simon. It is just a basic chocolate cupcake. Going clockwise, the one with the candy cane is the Peppermint Twist. It is a chocolate cake with a delicious peppermint buttercream. The next one is the Almond Joyful. The buttercream and the cake had an almond flavoring. The S'mores one is next. There is another little chocolate bar inside the center. And the last one is the Red Velvet one.

The cupcakes were yummy. We gobbled them all up.

Cupcakes

There was a request of "sweets" for Hannah's dance company this week, so I made cupcakes!

I started with a batch of basic vanilla cupcakes and added caramel sauce. I've done this before and they turned out quite well.  This time, not so well. The batter was super thick and the finished cupcakes were all sunken in. They tasted alright, but I couldn't send them to dance. So they ended up in the trash. I reread the recipe and realized that I had forgotten to add the milk. That explains why the batter was too thick! I was multitasking that day and wasn't focusing on the recipe as much as I should.

I was out of caramel sauce and didn't really want to run to the store again. I noticed that I didn't have enough sugar when I started, so I had to run out and get some. I searched in the pantry and found a cake mix! I had purchased it with the thought of using them for cake balls, but hadn't gotten around to making them yet.

So I made milk chocolate cupcakes from a mix. But I did make a nice vanilla buttercream frosting! Hannah's dance company colors are zebra print & purple. I used zebra print cupcake liners that I had purchased from Sweet Estelle's Baking Supply

The buttercream is a light purple sprinkled with coarse sugar crystals.

Caramel Cupcakes

I think I have mentioned before that we eat dessert twice a week - on Fridays and Sundays. Sometimes I whip up something special for dessert, other times the kids just select a Skinny Cow frozen treat or something like that. This past Sunday I decided to do something with some leftover cupcakes I had from last month when I was preparing for my friend's cupcake battle. At the last minute, I had been doubting my Butter Beer cupcakes, so I made a batch of caramel cupcakes as a backup. In the end, I decided the Butter Beer ones would do, so I froze the un-iced caramel ones.

To create the caramel flavor cupcakes, I made a basic white cupcake batter and added a lot of Tastefully Simple's Creamy Caramel Sauce to it.  I had tried this the very first time I had played around with different flavors and it had been one of my husband's favorites. Chris was picky about the cupcake flavors and textures, so because he had liked it was the main reason I had it as my backup cupcake. Since I didn't end up using them, I tossed them into a freezer bag and stuck them in the back of our spare freezer.

It was so nice not having to make the actual cupcakes this time. All I had to do was make some butter cream frosting. I didn't even follow directions this time. I just combined some butter and powdered sugar. Instead of adding milk, I added caramel ice cream topping (not the Tastefully Simple one this time - it would have been too thick).


Here are the finished cupcakes. I drizzled more caramel on top.

This was so easy! I think I may freeze more plain cupcakes in a variety of flavors.

Cupcake Wars - Battle 1

Last night was the big Cupcake War that my friend Sue hosted. I had been practicing for the last few weeks. And to be honest, I am SICK of cupcakes! OMG! I could not even taste any of the cupcakes last night.



The rules: no cake mixes and no premade frosting. The theme was summer.



Here is my entry. I ended up with Butter Beer cupcakes. I got the recipe from the Cupcake Adventures blog.


Lemonade cupcakes made by Sue

Blueberry-Lemon cupcakes

S'more cupcakes


Corn on the cob cupcakes


Peach Bourbon cupcakes

A Day at the Beach cupcakes - pumpkin with orange cream cheese icing.

The judges had the fun job of tasting each cupcake.

Hannah & Tyler were special "kid" judges.


The kids choice award went to Jennifer for her S'mores cupcakes.

The winner of the "Best Tasting" cupcake went to me & my Butter Beer cupcakes!

Best Cupcake Appearance & Overall Cupcake winner went to the host, Sue

Sue graciously gave up one of her prizes so it was given to the 2nd place winner which was the Day at the Beach cupcake made by Susan. I didn't get a picture of Susan with her prize.

It was a fun evening! Though I am in no hurry to make any more cupcakes.

More Cupcake Practice

This evening I am going to a "Going Away Bash" for a neighbor. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to try out more cupcake recipes! And more importantly, get them out of the house!

The first one I did was a Mimosa cupcake from the Betty Crocker "Big Book of Cupcakes". It used real champagne in both the cupcake and the icing. It also used orange juice and orange peel in both parts.


Here is the finished Mimosa cupcake.




The other recipe that I tried was for a Pina Colada cupcake that I found on the Confessions of a Cookbook Queen blog .



Now here are the cupcakes all ready to go to the party tonight!

Lemon - Blueberry Cupcakes

So next Saturday is the "Cupcake Wars - Summer Theme" event that my friend Sue is hosting. The cupcakes are to be judge on 50% taste and 50% appearance/presentation. The rules are that you cannot use a mix or prepared frosting.

I've spent hours and hours trying to figure out what kind of cupcakes I am going to make and I've scrapped my cupcake ideas multiple times already.

I recently purchased the Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes for ideas and inspiration.

James and I made a batch of Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes from it. We put the batter into the muffin liners. Then the blueberries get floured up and then dropped onto the top of the cupcake batter. We weren't very careful about how we placed the berries. Next time I would try to put them in the center.


After they cooled, we tasted the plain cupcakes. They weren't lemony enough for me. They tasted more like blueberry muffins with a hint of lemon. They were good, but next time I think I would add some lemon juice. The lemon taste was grated lemon peel.



Then came the icing. I did end up adding fresh lemon juice to it and the results were delicious! The recipe called for coarse salt (such as Kosher) and I LOVED how that worked with the flavors.

I still need some more practice with icing the cupcakes. These turned out alright, but not as nice looking as I wanted. They were yummy, though. Still not sure what I'm going to do for the Cupcake Wars. I have a few more recipes to try out.

New Cupcake Store!

A new cupcake store opened in downtown Powder Springs this past week, so James & I decided to check it out.


The Lily Torte Baking Company is within walking distance of our house! However, with the 90+ degree weather, we drove for our first trip to the bakery. I didn't think the butter cream icing would stand up to the heat!

We bought 4 different cupcakes. James & I carefully selected one for each of the family members. They were packaged very safely, which was appreciated. Nothing like getting home and finding your cupcakes had fallen over.


James chose the Red Velvet cupcake. It had a nice cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with chocolate chips. He picked the Cookies & Cream one for his sister. (She's a big cookies & cream fanatic!). I tasted some of her frosting and it was absolutely delicious. It tasted like an Oreo!


I had the Key Lime cupcake. The butter cream icing had a key lime flavor and was yummy! I haven't played around with flavors in my butter cream yet. Will definitely have to try that soon. For Chris we got the Simple Simon which is just a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing.

The price for the 4 cupcakes was not unreasonable. I think it was about $10.50 for 4. We went to another gourmet cupcake bakery this past winter in Dunwoody and it was $14 for 4 cupcakes! At that price, I expect a whole cake!!! Anyway.....we enjoyed the cupcakes and will definitely go back to Lily Torte!

Cupcake Wars - Kid Edition

With all the hype about the upcoming "Cupcake War" that my friend Sue is organizing, the kids were getting really excited and wanted to have their own "cupcake war". So I volunteered to host a "Cupcake Wars - Kid Edition" at my house. It was more of a cupcake decorating party rather than a contest, but they all got into it and had an "epic" time. (Epic has been my 13 year old son's favorite adjective this summer.)

The kids all started with plain cupcakes and then were given icing, candies, and tons of decorating supplies.



I gave Hannah a lesson on using fondant icing. She caught on quickly and used fondant on most of her cupcakes. It must have been all that time I let her play with play-doh! Come to think of it, I didn't let her play with play-doh a whole lot because I didn't like the mess it made.

The boys took this very seriously.

James is using some edible spray paint.




Creating a masterpiece out of chocolate.


Creatively working with fruit roll ups.


The kids with their finished masterpieces.





And for those interested (I know my mom will be), here are close ups of the James & Hannah's finished cupcakes.


Here are James' cupcakes. He made the sea shells out of candy melts. He also played around with the fondant. The yellow duck was left over from his friend.


Hannah's fondant creations. She has a taco, volcano, bird's nest, watermelon and a lady bug on a leaf.

I was so impressed with all the cupcakes! James & Hannah decorated cupcakes a few months ago and they just poured on all the sprinkles they could find. They were really a mess! This time, all of the kids took their time and carefully thought out what they were going to do.

Cupcake Class

This week, I took a cupcake decorating class with some friends at Miss Mamie's in downtown Marietta.



The cupcake display in the store.


A view of our workspace.


Miss Mamie showing us how to work with the fondant icing. The theme for our class was "owls". I had never worked with fondant, so I was excited to get to play with it. I personally don't like the taste of it, but it was really easy to work with and opens up a whole new world of cupcake decorating for me.

Sue cutting her fondant owl pieces.

At the grown-up table, we worked by cutting out all of the owl pieces before assembling. The "students' at the other table were all school-aged. They took a different approach of completely assembling one owl at a time. Their owls were more creative than ours, but it took them a lot longer. I didn't think to take any pictures of their owls.

My assembled owls.



After our owls were done, it was time to ice the cupcakes with a giant pastry bag filled with butter cream icing.


Sue posing proudly with her finished cupcakes.

And Wendy with hers.

And me with mine.

Here's a closer look at the finished products.

Sue is organizing a "Cupcake War" for later this month, modeled ever so slightly after the tv show of the same name. I feel a little bit better about the event after taking this class.