Tag Archives: Cupcakes

Birthday Bashes!

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A few years ago, I was going to bridal showers, bachelorette parties and weddings every weekend.  Then it was baby showers, and now I’m at the age where lunch date topics with girlfriends include: spit-up, nipples, rash cream, disciplining, Dora and Ugly Dolls.  I don’t know where the time went, but it seems like yesterday we were guessing as to who would get married first and talking about crushes.

Now character-themed parties, goodie bags and smash cakes fill our weekends.  I’ve been privileged to have such trusting friends with young kids that have fun and colorful-themed parties.  These opportunities to play with flour, sugar, food coloring and fondant have been a challenge but also was fun to work on new techniques and practice baking.  Check out the photos below and their captions to see how it all came together.  Thanks to Christine, Paolo, and Zain for having such fun parties and their Mommies for being awesome friends!  I can’t wait to do a Justin Bieber themed cake!

Beautifully shape Mickey Sugar Cookies with a perfectly butter taste.  Recipe from Sweetopia found here!

Fondant Minnie ears and bow for the cake:  for the ears I rolled out black fondant to about 1/4 inch thick and then shoved in wooden skewers used for grilling; for the bow I followed this TUTORIAL which was much easier than I had imagined!

Finished Minnie Cake for Christine:  marble cake inside with Swiss meringue butter cream covered with fondant.

Birthday girl Christine enjoying her cake (sorry a little blurry).

Royal Icing decorated cookies as favors for the kiddies. I need to work on my cookie decorating skills.  Dark colored icing, like black and red are extremely hard to make!  It’s hard to prevent bleeding too.

Mickey rice krispie treats just like they have at the park! All you need is a pan of rice krispie treats (recipe per the cereal box), a Mickey-shaped cookie cutter, some chocolate chips melted and sprinkles!

Curious George party for Paolo!  Banana Cupcakes per David Lebovitz recipe with whipped chocolate ganache and caramel Swiss meringue butter-cream.

Paolo with his awesome parents.  The cake was decorated with hand-crafted fondant Curious George, big yellow hat (with cardboard in the middle to hold up the shape, leaves, balloons on floral wire, and banana runts (which were the hardest things to find, evidently nobody eats runts any more!).

Ugly Doll royal icing sugar cookies for Zain’s 1st Birthday

Ox smash cake with Ugly Doll cupcakes:  perfectly chocolate cake (by Glorious Treats) with chocolate ganache filling and perfectly vanilla cake (also by Glorious Treats) with butterscotch ganache filling.  These cupcakes were redone at the last minute due to a slight tip of the container and smooshed icing by a certain husband, but it was for the better as they look much better than the original!  They were also frozen 3 days in advance due to Labor Day weekend plans, which may have made the ganache filling a little harder than desired  (it didn’t ooze like I though it would) and perhaps the vanilla cupcake was a little dry.  Next time, plan to be around the weekend when they party is happening and make cupcakes within a day of eating.

Happy Zain with Mommy and Daddy

Some Pumpkin for a Lil’ Pumpkin

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First of all, let me apologize because this post will not be about roasted pears in Guinness syrup as promised in the last blog.  I got side tracked and instead decided to make something more portable for a visit with friends instead of indulging on sugar and beer at home in my sweat pants.  Don’t worry, it will be coming soon.

Photo courtesy of Bushra and Damon

On to the post!  My dear friends Bushra and Damon welcomed a baby boy about a month ago and I got to meet the little pumpkin last night.  He’s a cutie and a perfect fit to our multicultural friend-family.  We’re from all kinds of places, and almost all races are represented.  Basically, we are the melting pot of America.  We are lucky to be living in a time and place where our friendships are possible, and no one even gave a second thought on how and why we came together other than mutual values, humor, and same taste in clothes and food (as in we like it all).  The big mystery is usually “what are the kids going to look like?”  Well, I’m happy to report that all of them are perfect and beautiful / handsome.  OF COURSE!  Hopefully one day Zach and my little one won’t fuck up the gorgeous group.

Most of us also live quite far from our immediate families and some are located halfway around the world, so we try to take care of each other as much as we can.  It has become tradition in our friend-family to bring a big meal (with plenty to freeze for the next month) to share while we visit and meet the new munchkin.  This time, we brought family-sized Maggiano’s and I made punkin (that’s how Zach says it) cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting.

Actually, I’m not a big fan of pumpkin pie, and I don’t like the texture of pumpkin or squash in my pastas or as soup, but it is rather tasty in carb form!  Maybe because it’s complimented (or masked) by the trinity of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves) and has a bouncy moist texture.  This recipe from What Megan’s Making is delicious and super moist.  I love the frosting too because it has a hint of maple syrup, which cuts in the creaminess of the cream cheese without making it too sweet.  My frosting did come out a little softer than I would have liked it, but I was too lazy to measure out the powdered sugar exactly, so that could have caused it to have a higher liquid to solid ratio.  If and when you try this, let me know if it was soft for you too!

Here’s to the lil’ punkins in our lives and punkin in carb forms!

Butterbeer, butterbeer, oh..how I miss thee

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Summer is winding down, kids are heading back to school (or already have, like my brother-in-law, Kuyler, in Bright IN), and I still haven’t had a proper vacation yet!!  I’m just itching to get a week or more out of the cubicle, shed myself of the normal day-to-day, have a small adventure (I don’t relax on vacations) and forget about reality for a moment.  We’ve left Chicago on small weekend excursions here and there this year, but nothing substantial enough to call a true VACATION.

I was spoiled from the time I was born.  My Dad insisted on at least 1 true vacation a year, frequently more than 1.  Even when money was tight, we still managed to pile into the car (equipped with lots of fruit and the electric pot for rice porridge for breakfast) and drive up and down the East coast, even wondering into the Midwest.  My parents worked extremely hard, they deserved more than a few weeks in the year to get away.

As I sit here evil-eyeing everyone’s “On Vacation” signs on their office doors and computer monitors, I reminisce last year’s vacation to Florida.  We spent the majority of our week at the Happiest Place on Earth, but we did manage to peel away from Mickey for a day at Universal Studios.  The Wizardly World of Harry Potter had just opened and we had to check it out.  IT WAS AWESOME.  I’m not even a huge Harry Potter fan and I thought it was super cool.  We even waited for what seemed to be 3 weeks (probably 2.5 hrs or so) to what a drunk guy called a “magical experience, best FUCKING ride EVER”, the ride “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey”.  Zach got himself a wand, and the best part, we drank BUTTERBEER!!  It’s amazing how this fictional drink can come to life so perfectly.  They serve it frozen (slushy-form) or just cold like soda and it comes out of this huge red beer barrel.  So, I Googled it to see if we can recreate the refreshing beverage at home and transport back to vacation for an evening.

There are quiet a few recipes out there, but the one that people think is most like the secret recipe at Universal Studios is this one, published by Fox News, AP, MSNBC, etc. when the theme park opened last Spring.  You’ll have to add ice and blend it for the slushy version, but I think it’s spot on!  I didn’t even add the whipped cream (as the soda created enough foam to make it authentic).  We paired it with this awesome recipe for Butterbeer cupcakes.  It’s a little bit on the sweet side (which Zach doesn’t mind), but you can cut down on the sweetness by not injecting the cupcake with the butterscotch ganache, but just drizzling it a little on the top.  I also made mini cupcakes too so that I didn’t feel as guilty eating them (even though I shoved 2 in my mouth immediately after I made them).

Well, it was great reminiscing for a few days.  Maybe next week I’ll look through old photos of our Paris trip?  How about you?  You can have a staycation around the world!  Now if I can only keep my mind still until October when we go on our amazing trip to Taiwan and China (I know, you don’t feel bad for me now)!