Teddy Trossett tees off as family and friends gather in support. Some cupcakes and cookies I made for the gathering.
Chocolate Truffle-filled white chocolate golf balls on chocolate or vanilla cupcakes with piped buttercream grass.
Cookie platters: Lemon Poppyseed, Coconut, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal, and Sugar.
“Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me”
I made these cute sail boat cupcakes for a little guy’s 2nd birthday!
The blue camo cupcake wrappers worked perfectly with the frosting waves and gum paste sail boats.
Happy 2nd Birthday, Little Man!
Jesse and Mathia have a beautiful little girl, Sophia, who is about to be a big sister! They asked me to make them some cupcakes for a baby reveal gathering. The cupcakes were to be a white cake with cream cheese frosting. In the middle, these cupcakes would have a surprise cream filling that would be colored either blue or pink. You see, nobody would know, until they bit into their cupcakes, what the sex of the baby was! I was thrilled to pieces to be able to make these cupcakes for this sweet family! I even had the envelope from the ultrasound technician in hand more than a week in advance and didn’t breathe a word of it-even to my husband! When it came time for me to color the cream filling and fill the cupcakes with it, I wouldn’t allow anyone into my kitchen! This was a top-secret mission I was on!
I filled the cupcakes, piped on the cream cheese frosting, sprinkled a yellow sanding sugar for a delicate, neutral, pop of color, and topped them off with white gum paste stars that were outlined with yellow edible ink and spelled BABY in the middle. Here’s how they came out:
Congratulations, Jesse and Mathia…
Sophia is going to have a baby SISTER!
Red Velvet is a very popular cake request. At first, I was not exactly sure why. The first time I made a recipe for Red Velvet cake, it was so oily that I couldn’t stand it. That’s all I tasted, all I felt. I couldn’t understand WHY anyone would like it. The slight chocolate flavor was overpowered by the almost soggy texture and the taste of oil. I decided that maybe that was just a poor recipe, as how could so many people love a cake that tasted like that? You could practically squish it and drip oil! I went on the hunt, testing one Red Velvet recipe after another. Guess what, folks? They are not all the same! Several were, but there were some that weren’t so soggy; and one that really stood out and ‘took the cake’, so to speak! Personally, I still wouldn’t say it’s my favorite; but I think the combination of the moist cake and the cream cheese icing is a big hit. The contrasting colors between the red and the white are pretty, too.
But what if you are allergic to red dye? Can you never taste that moist cake and cream cheese icing that everyone around you raves about? Ahhh, but you CAN! You COULD leave out the dye completely, and you would have a very light brown cake (from the tiny bit of cocoa you add)… OR… to make it more exciting, you could just add a different color that doesn’t contain red! Like BLUE, for instance! I made some Blue Velvet cupcakes for a friend and her family because her daughter (who is now all grown up and out of college) had never had Red Velvet cake before! I created these deep blue cupcakes with a white cream cheese buttercream icing (and even filled them with the cream cheese icing). Velvet cake may not be my ultimate favorite… but ya know what? Call me crazy, but I think the blue color just might make it taste even better than the red!
Sadly, I did NOT snap a picture of my blue velvet cupcakes… but they looked just like this one from: http://delightgourmetcupcakery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/delightbluevelvet.jpg
I have had the privilege of watching a little baby, named Jaxon, on Monday afternoons. My girls absolutely adore him and often fight over who gets to push his stroller, hand him his toys, or hold him. Jaxon will be turning 1 in a couple of days, but we won’t see him for a couple weeks… so I made him these cupcakes to take home with him today.
Isn’t he cute?
With his little bee hive…
And a flower.
Sweet display on a plate…
Or even in these clear cupcake boxes!
Happy Birthday, Jaxon!!
These cupcakes were not an original idea, but I wanted something easy to serve at a Super Bowl party. I liked how these looked like a food that would be served at a Super Bowl party. Nacho cupcakes:
These were a vanilla cupcake topped with ‘cheese-colored’ vanilla buttercream. The ‘chips’ were flour tortillas that I baked off with cinnamon and sugar. The ‘salsa’ was strawberry jam. The ‘peppers’ were pieces of rolled and chopped flavored Tootsie Rolls. All in all, a fun cupcake for a sporting event party!
Pomegranate is an odd fruit. I mean, how many fruits do you know of where you eat the seeds. That’s it… just seeds. The seeds are the fruit. You slice open the fruit with a large knife and there they are-in all their juicy glory. I love pomegranate. I remember my sister eating one a long time ago-picking out the seeds with her bare hands one by one… the red stains on her fingertips. There is an easier way to do it. A quicker way… where you won’t get stained! Slice the pomegranate in half, turn it upside down over a bowl, and hit it with the side your chef knife (or I like to use a little scrapbooking hammer that is used to set grommets). The seeds just fall out into the bowl!
Lemons are another odd fruit. “Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet; but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.” Love that song… and love lemons-even though they are so tart!
You might think that these two odd fruits have no business being together. I mean, how could I possibly create something out of seeds and sour?
My mind, and taste buds, were so far ahead your thoughts right now! Lemon Poppy-seed Cupcakes to start!
One of my favorites! But how did I combine that with Pomegranate seeds?
I juiced them! Only, I don’t have a juicer. I just threw them in my food processor and then strained them with a small mesh strainer-keeping only the juice and pulp and discarding the seeds.
I added just enough sugar to make a simple syrup.
I brought the juice up to a boil and then turned the heat down. I let it simmer until it reduced by almost half.
I used the pomegranate syrup to make frosting!
Creamy pomegranate frosting on lemon Poppy-seed cupcakes with just a few whole pomegranate seeds on top. They are the perfect blend of flavors and the seeds on top add a crunch… and a squirt of tartness!
I even saved some for a lucky customer. Who wants some lemon pomegranate scrumptiousness?!!?
The girls wanted to take some cupcakes to dance class to celebrate a friend’s birthday. 
Another batch of Rainbow Swirl cupcakes… but this time, there was an added surprise when they bit into them!
The cupcake was rainbow, too! (For some reason it didn’t show up on camera, but the dark blue is actually a purple.)
Happy Birthday, Hazel!
My girls were invited to a joint birthday party for sisters and I was asked to make them some colorful cupcakes. That I did!
This photo was never meant to be mysterious looking. The haze that you see is because my camera was so cold…. and the party was an indoor pool party, so it was extremely hot in there. The difference in air and camera temperature made my lens fog up!
Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with rainbow swirl buttercream; each topped with a Gummy Bear! The kids were whistled out of the pool to sing Happy Birthday to the duo and then the line for cupcakes wrapped around the top of the pool! Although they were all rainbow swirl, not one cupcake was like another. The kids were all so excited to choose their cupcake-such a big decision to make! The line went fast, though, and soon the rave reviews were splashing in!
In lieu of gifts, the invitation asked for a donation to the local food bank. There were stacks of food and a total monetary donation of over $700!!! That’s actually worth over $7,000 worth of food for our local food bank (for every dollar given, the food bank can actually purchase 10 dollars worth of food)! Great job, kids!
Happy Birthday, Meagan and Melissa!
The 50’s were a time for Saddle Shoes, Poodle Skirts, sock hops, Jukebox Diners, and even the first Miss America! What a fun decade it must have been! For someone celebrating their 50th Anniversary, the 50’s had to have been such a blast for them! After all, they were getting married during such a hoppin’ time! Times may have changed, but going back to the 50’s (if only for a night) can bring the fun back instantly!
Checked table clothes, vinyl records, pop corn, lollipops, gum balls, balloons, and decade candy. Sounds like a pretty fun setting for a 50’s themed party right? And not just ANY 50’s themed party… a 50th Anniversary!
The plan for the tables was to have gum balls and swirl lollipops, so that theme was also to be carried out in the cupcakes. It was such a simple, yet fun design! Each of the chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, had a swirl of white buttercream, and were topped with a colorful little gum ball.
Instead of the usual small cake for the top of the cupcake tower, I used a swirled glass (to represent the path the gum balls travel through a gum ball machine) filled with gum balls and a giant swirl lollipop!
I made the lollipop out of Starburst* and flavored Tootsie-Roll candies that I colored red, green, blue, and yellow. After kneading and coloring the candies, I rolled them into short, thick ropes. Putting a large white core in the center and the 4 colored ropes on the sides, I rolled it until it was one long, striped rope. From there, I twisted the rope and ‘swirled’ it from the center out. Tootsie Roll and Starburst are too soft to hold up on their own once color has been added. Therefore, as I let the candy harden, I began to create a base for the lollipop so that it would be sturdy and not droop like it was melting. I melted some white chocolate into a round metal lollipop mold and put a wooden dowel in so that the top few inches were covered in white chocolate. Once the chocolate was slightly cooled, I placed the swirled candy on top and popped the mold into the freezer for a minute or two. Voila! A giant, swirl lollipop centerpiece!
Happy 50th Anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Hage! Here’s hoping for many more years full of fun and family!
*Believe it or not, Starburst and Tootsie Rolls were both 1950’s candies. The original chocolate flavored Tootsie Rolls were created by an Austrian born immigrant to the United States in 1896; but were still popular in the 1950’s due to their low cost. Originally known as Opal Fruits, Starburst were created in 1959. However, it wasn’t until 1967 that they were introduced to the United States.
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Feel free to leave a comment and let me know: What is your favorite memory from the 50’s? Or, for those of you (like me) that weren’t born yet: What is your favorite thing about the 50’s that you have read about or been told?
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