Cupcakes, cupcakes, and more cupcakes

I told you guys how I was going to be selling cupcakes at the local "trade days" for our little town.  Well....I stayed up all night finishing them.  They looked AH-mazing!  Then, we drove up there at 6 AM (well, it's technically, a hop, skip, and a jump in front of our neighborhood.), and it was raining.  There were about 3 of us at that point, who waited until about 7:30.  Then, it started raining harder and the thunder and lightning came, so I told Nate it was probably time to go home.  He was holding out that the rain would quit -- it didn't for the rest of the day.  His compromise was we could leave if we could go eat breakfast out.  So, we went and had a lovely breakfast at the Old West Cafe in Denton.

My mom came over and bought a bazillion cupcakes to take to my brother's house for his daughter's birthday.  Then we gave a couple boxes to the neighbors.  But, we still have about 3 dozen or so.  

Oh well, maybe next time. But I'll share pictures and recipes.

I found this idea on Pinterest for single cupcakes.  At Walmart, a bag of 40 of these plastic cups is a couple dollars, 100 pk of spoons is less than $2, a bag of 20 bags of these plastic bags was 97 cents, and the ribbon was 47 cents a spool.  And they are easy to stack together without ruining the icing.

I also made some cake plates with plates, candlesticks, and E-6000 glue.  Super easy and about $3 foe a tiered cake plate.

From left - Dreamsicle, Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel, Cherry Limeade, and Pumpkin Cheesecake. 

Cherry Limeade

Tart it up! Luscious lime cupcake drizzled in sweet lime syrup, topped with maraschino cherry buttercream frosting

Chocolate Peanut Butter with Caramel

Sweet & Salty! Chocolate cupcake with peanut butter cheesecake center, topped with salted caramel cream cheese buttercream frosting

Dreamsicle

Creamy orange and vanilla cupcake, topped with light and fluffy vanilla buttercream frosting

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Spicy pumpkin cupcake with cheesecake center, topped with cream cheese buttercream frosting

A couple of things I should mention:  

On the Cherry Limeade recipe, I used Key Lime Pie yogurt instead of plain.  I originally used milk and wanted to make it a bit more tart.  I also tried both cake flour and all purpose flour.  Nate felt the ones with all purpose were better.  Weird. 

On the Dreamsicle recipe, I used clementines.  I had 2 bags of them and no regular oranges and figured it would be a little twist.  I also added 1/2 cup of juice instead of the 1/4 cup in the recipe.  These were my favorite cupcake.  They were SOOO good.  My eldest daughter said these were her fave too.  

Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

I've been so busy lately, and it's just normal stuff.  Cooking, laundry, children, etc.  I stare longingly at my blog, but I just haven't had time to finish anything for it.

But, I have been creating new cupcake recipes this week.  My husband and his colleagues at work have been in love with my cupcakes for years.  In fact, he usually comes home with many people telling him I should sell my cupcakes because they are so good.  Well....I'm gonna do it this weekend.

We live in a tiny town - as in so tiny, we have no traffic lights.  The main road has one 4-way stop and that's pretty much it.  The city is trying to raise money to build a park right by our neighborhood.  They've instituted "fourth trade days" where the park is actually going to be built.  It's a flea market, farmer's market, craft fair, etc. kinda thing.  In fact, they even convo'd me on Etsy awhile ago to have a booth.  Since, it's only $10 to have a booth, we are going to try an experiment and sell my cupcakes - this weekend!

I'm not gonna lie.  I'm terrified, but I have my trusty husband to  be my wonderful salesman.  He is the one person who can talk me into believing I can do anything.

My plan of action is to make a few dozen cupcakes of 2-3 different flavors.  My first choice is my world famous pumpkin cream cheese cupcake.  I wasn't sure what other flavors.  I recently tried a Cherry Limeade -- not my fave, but my husband LOVED it.  I think that will be #2.  I'll share that one in a day or so on the blog.  But, #3 came out so wonderful, I had to share it asap.

(Here on out, I'm tired of writing "my husband," and he will now forever be known as Nate.)

It's a chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter cream cheese baked in the middle of it, then it's topped off with a Salted Caramel Cream Cheese frosting.  Nate really liked it -- and he REALLY REALLY REALLY liked the frosting.  I haven't figured out a short name for this one quite yet.  I wavered with adding a bit of coffee to make it more of a mocha flavor, but in the end, I didn't.  However, when you bite into this cupcake and get the frosting/cupcake taste explosion in your mouth -- I swear it takes like mocha.  I felt like I was eating a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate with a little bit of peanut butter thrown in.  So so good!

Now I love to make everything from scratch, but I was not in the mood to make caramel from scratch.  I made my frosting using Hershey's caramel syrup.  Maybe someday if I become a cupcake truck lady, I'll definitely be making it from scratch, but for now....meh.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

Peanut Butter Filling
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
4 oz room temperature cream cheese
3 tbs sugar
1 1/2 tbs milk

Add all ingredients to bowl. Then, heat for 10-15 seconds in microwave. Mix until well blended and set aside.

**I found the PB mixture was just dry and sticky enough that I could roll it into semi formed balls and put in the center.  This might be easier than spooning it because it's sticky.

Chocolate Cupcakes
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350. Mix first 6 ingredients. Combine last 5 ingredients, then slowly add while mixing to wet ingredients. (Be prepared for it to seem to runny, it's fine and will come out deliciously moist.)

1. Full cupcake liners 1/3 full with chocolate batter.
2. Add a small spoonful of peanut butter filling to center of each.
3. Add more chocolate batter until liners are 2/3 full.

Bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool. Then frost.

Easy Salted Caramel Frosting
2 sticks room temperature butter
8 oz room temperature cream cheese
1/2 cup caramel sauce
1 tsp sea salt
3-4 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter and cream cheese. Add caramel sauce and sea salt. Mix well. Then add sugar a cup at a time until it makes peaks. Then whip the frosting until its light an airy (about 2-3 minutes).

Preschooler Busy Bags

A long, long, time ago, in a galaxy far away I was a member of this cool website called Swap Bot.  When I left my husband I completely forgot about it.  I had no access to my former email and with all the things going on, it just slipped away.  I came across it recently again and decided I'd give it another try.  I signed up for a Preschool Busy Bag swap.

Busy bags are basically ziplock bags of fun for your child, that have everything in the bag to do the activity.  Prior to the swap, I had never heard of these and had to google them. They looked like so much fun, I decided to join the swap. I go volunteer at Mr E's school and I always bring a bag of fun stuff for Miss Molly.  I thought busy bags would be extra fun for her to play with while I'm doing projects or copies for the teachers.

Our theme for the bags was "winter," but I found this wonderful little cupcake busy bag instructions at Money Saving Mom's blog.  To keep it winter, I tried to stick with "winter" colors like blues and whites and sparkly felt.

If you want to make your own, it costs little of nothing.  Hobby Lobby has felt sheets for 4 for $1, 4 is enough for one busy bag, plus raid your own pantry for a large ziplock and a couple of small ziplock bags for the sprinkles and big toppings.  I added a glue stick to each bag, but these can easily be done without glue sticks so you can use them over and over.  Then print off the instructions from the link above and create your own.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcakes - the Yeti of cupcakes

I just completed the marathon cupcake-a-thon in my kitchen.   A total of 4 dozen, baked, frosted, embellished with sugar crystals, and prettily packed away in boxes for gift giving at dh's work.  And then, I realized I never have posted about these cupcakes.   These are like the BEST holiday fall/winter cupcakes EVER. 

I can't believe I have never posted the recipe for my world famous pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes before.   They are like the Yeti of cupcakes - seriously.  My husband has a bake sale at work to benefit a charity that buys coats for kids, and people get in bidding wars over these cupcakes.  Days before the bake sale, rumors begin to swirl about the elusive pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes.  It's crazy!

These are an amalgam of various pumpkin cupcake recipes I've used over the years with my own little cheesecake twist.  My secret weapon for these is two fold -- it involves extra pumpkin and ninja cheesecake hiding out in the middle.  The combination of these two things makes this cupcake so "magically delicious" it can't be contained.  Then, top it off with a cream cheese buttercream frosting, and you are in heaven. As proof to how amazing these are I give you my husband, who oddly enough does not like sweets yet will eat an entire batch of these if I let him. 

So try them out yourself. Here are the recipes:

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcakes

Yields 24 cupcakes

Cheesecake Batter:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg white
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.  Beat all ingredients together until smooth.  Set aside.

Pumpkin Batter: 
2 eggs + 1 egg  yolk (leftover yolk from cheesecake batter)
1/2 cup oil
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
15 oz can pumpkin puree
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 heaping tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt

In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.  Set aside.  In mixing bowl combine eggs, oil, both sugars, vanilla, and pumpkin.  Combine until well mixed.  Gradually add in dry ingredients and mix until smooth. 

In cupcake liners layer pumpkin batter, then cheesecake batter, then pumpkin batter. Then, I jiggle them a teensy bit to smooth out the layers. Bake 15 minutes.**  Let cool and frost. 

**Because there is cheesecake in the middle, you can't insert a toothpick into the cupcakes to see if they are done.  When I cook them, they are always done in about 15-16 minutes.  Just make sure the top layer of pumpkin batter looks "done."

Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), slightly softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients until combined.  Then, beat for another 1 minute until fluffy.  This is enough to frost 24 cupcakes nicely. 

Tip - I have three sizes of scoops from Pampered Chef.  I've found if I use the medium scoop for the pumpkin batter and the smallest scoop for the cheesecake, it hides the cheesecake perfectly in the center of the cupcake. 

Pinterest for Dinner!

I could not think of anything for dinner tonight in my normal repertoire of recipes, so I went over to my Yum pinterest board and looked at the various things I've been collecting.

I had the ingredients for Pizza Cupcakes.  Everyone but my 13 year old liked them.  Even the toddler had seconds, which is a feat in itself.  For this one, since I read the original blogger's pizza dough was still raw in the middle, I decided to just use the picture as an inspiration and made my own recipe.  It's at the end of the post.

Then, I was still in a baking state of mind, so I finally whipped up the Reese's Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies for a late night stack.  Can I just say...OH MY GOD!  My girls and I had just had a taste test and I swear that is the best tasting cookie I've ever had.  Melt in your mouth, peanut buttery deliciousness!!  For this one I used the exact recipe, except I flipped the chocolate chip and Reese's Pieces amounts because I only had 1/2 cup of Reese's Pieces.  I also did not have a whoopie pie pan, so I just put scoops onto a cookie sheet.  One thing I liked better was not smooshing the dough down.  My first batch I did not, and I liked how they came out better.  The insides were all melty and gooey, while the smooshed ones were less gooey. 


Seriously...you gotta make those cookies.  You will think you have died and gone to heaven.  And, they are so rich, you really can only eat just one (with a tall glass of milk).

And now for the pizza recipe....



Pizza Cupcakes

2 rolls of Pillsbury pizza dough
1 jar of Ragu Robusto Garlic sauce
8 oz pkg of finely shredded mozzarella cheese
1 pkg of Hormel Pepperoni minis
1 pkg of Hormel beef crumbles pizza topping
chopped onions
olive oil
garlic powder
garlic salt

Yields 14 pizza cupcakes (in a normal cupcake pan, not jumbo)

Preheat oven to 425.  Mix 3 tbs olive oil with a teaspoon of garlic powder.  Coat each cupcake tin with olive oil/garlic mix.  Open the pizza dough rolls, but keep the dough in a roll.  Cut it into 7 slices (like when cutting dough for cinnamon rolls).  Take a slice, knead it out into a circle, then stuff into cupcake opening making sure to push sides of dough up along sides of cupcake.  Then, place a spoonful of sauce on each cupcake.  Next, add a big pinch of cheese.  We like ours cheesy, so I piled the cheese above the cupcake.  Next, add your toppings.  We used mini pepperonis, onions, and beef topping.   Because we are garlic lovers in this house, add a tiny pinch of garlic salt to the top of each. 

Bake for 13 minutes until golden brown and cheese is bubbly.

If you are baking in a jumbo cupcake pan, bake for 16-7 minutes, until golden brown and cheese is bubbly.

 

Enjoy!!

Jumbo Ombre Cupcakes

 

My son is still talking about the rainbow cupcakes I made from a few months ago, so I thought I'd try this ombre thing everyone is doing.  I could not get a decent picture, but they sure look cool in real life.  

It's super easy if you haven't done it before.  I was a bit worried they'd bake weird. 

I made 6 jumbo cup cakes.  Here is what I did:

1 box white cake mix

3 egg whites (no yolks to prevent yellowing of the batter)

1 1/4 cups water

1/3 cup oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Separate batter into 4 bowls. 

1 bowl: white

1 bowl: 3-4 drops food coloring

1 bowl 6 drops of food coloring

1 bowl 10 drops of food coloring

 Then I layered the cupcakes.  I used a regular ol' flatware spoon and but 2 spoonfuls of each color batter starting with dark, then medium, then light, then white.  I filled these up about 3/4 full as I wanted big tops.  This yielded 6 jumbo cupcakes (which is probably about the same as about 18  regular cupcakes only filled 2/3 full of batter. )

Bake for 20 minutes.  

And Voila! Ombre cupcakes. 

I also made a cream cheese butter cream frosting

6 oz cream cheese

3-4 tbs butter

3-4 cups of powdered sugar

Allow cream cheese and butter to sit until close to room temperature.  Then beat together until smooth.  Gradually add powdered sugar until the frosting makes stiff peaks.  

I used a large star tip and swirled it on the cupcakes.  Then, I dusted them with pink sugar crystals. 

Enjoy!!

Wow!! My pattern is trending at #1 on Craftsy.com!!!

I woke up this morning to check my email and find the Craftsy.com sewing newsletter for fun patterns to beat the heat, and in it is one of my patterns!! Out of curiosity, I go see if I've broken the top #20 on Craftsy's pattern trending list.  Lo and behold, mine is all the way up at #1.  I'm so excited!!  Wow!!!

Cupcakes and Ice Cream Appliques

I had to make some new baby gifts in the last few weeks and thought I'd share my appliques. I love to make applique onesies, and these just came out perfect!

Download the tutorial here.

Usually, when I make onesies for gifts, I tiedye them before the applique, but I thought these would be better in white -- to really make those colors pop. Plus, this ice cream cone and cupcake are sprinkled with hot fix Swarovski crystals.

These are adorable cupcakes and ice creams appliques. The ice cream on this onesie is a double dipper, which I think came out totally adorable.

You can easily make these.  The tutorial has lots of helpful hints to applique.  It can look daunting, but once you've learned, it's so much fun!

 I've updated my applique tutorial to include the pattern for both this ice cream and the cupcake.  You can find them at the end of the digital pattern.  Just click on any of these pictures and it will take you to the PDF to download. 

My next post will have the boy appliques...but my sewing room has been in a bit of a frenzy with my microboutique and pattern designing, so...they are currently missing in action.  As soon as I locate them, I'll create a boy version of my applique tutorial with those patterns.  My favorite is the octopus with crazy eyes. 

Enjoy these! I hope you have as much fun making them as I do.

I'll be disappearing for a few days as we're taking our first roadtrip vacation as a family next week.  Last year, we had the house fiasco with the queen of bankruptcy and all funds we had saved to go on an awesome vacation last year were diverted to the "let's pay 2 months of back mortgage and a month of rent all at the same time" fund.  This time, we're going to San Antonio and Corpus Christi.  Living in the upper part of Texas, we don't see the beach around here.  We are all very excited to get to the beach, especially hubby -- he grew up on the coast.

The kids have never seen the ocean up close and personal.  I can't wait to see what Molly is going to do.  We're stopping in San Antonio for Miss Em, as she has had to make two dioramas of the Alamo, and I felt that she probably needs to see the real thing.  Mr E is so excited to go on a real vacation, he can barely contain himself.  Plus, we have a surprise trip to Sea World planned.  I think my dear husband is going to scare them into believing we are going to volunteer to pick up trash on the side of the road that day.  I'm going to have to video their reactions. 

And I almost forgot!  Be on the lookout for a post in the next week or two, I'm almost to my 500th post on my blog.  I can't believe it's been 6 years since I first started!  Anyway, I'll be having a few giveaways to celebrate.

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Peppermint Frosting

I had this weird craving for a cupcake to taste like a peppermint patty, so the other day I picked up some peppermint extract while at the store.  

Sunday night, I made some chocolate fudge cupcakes, and then made some yummy peppermint buttercream frosting.  It came out wonderful, tasted just like a york peppermint patty.  They were so yummy, my family devoured them.

Peppermint Buttercream Frosting

4 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter
6 tbs of milk
3/4 tsp of peppermint extract. 

Cream butter until fluffy, then add 1 cup at a time of powdered sugar while continuing to mix.  Add milk and peppermint extract until fluffy and well mixed. 

Makes about 3 cups.