Pumpkin Cupcakes!

I was craving pumpkin this weekend. For those of you who do not know me personally, I love Fall. Everything about the season makes me happy and content. From the cool, crisp air to the changing of the leaves, I love Fall. Did I mention that already? :) So due to my love of Fall, I enjoy the smell of pumpkin and cinnamon. I created a new pumpkin cupcake recipe that is super moist and full of flavor.
I know two people in my life that would love these: my best friend and my brother. They both love pumpkin and I love them!

I topped off these lovelies with a cream cheese icing. Nothing better than cold cream cheese icing. Definiately my fav of the flavors. But I found out the hard way it is almost impossible to decorate flowers using this icing. Need to stick to good ol' butter cream or royal icing. :)


I also decided to get a bit creative with decorating tips. I havent really tried to make flowers on cupcakes before so I whipped up some butter cream icing and had a go at it. Enjoy!





XXXOOO
The Cupcake Lady

Ideas

Hey there cats and kittens! I have not stopped baking, dont worry. :)
Sunday I am preparing three new cupcakes:
1. Death By Chocolate-Chocolate cake with milk chocolate icing
2. White Chocolate Mocha-Mocha cake (french vanilla coffee) with white chocolate icing
3. Reese's Cake-Chocolate cake with peanut butter icing

I will post pics as soon as they are made. I am sure I will post yummy statements shortly thereafter. :)

XXXOOO

The Cupcake Lady

The Jackson Pollock

I have always loved art history and had an appreciation for wacky artist. This beauty was inspired by the well known artist, Jackson Pollock. The cake features vanilla butter cream icing, vanilla cake, cherry puree filling & drizzled with dark chocolate.
Fillings & frostings can be chosen from our menu. Be creative!

__________________________________________________________

The weekend feature cupcakes as well. I made lemon cupcakes topped with lemon buttercream icing and the others featured a dark chocolate butter cream. YUM! Sorry for no pictures, they were eaten before pics could be taken. Thats a good thing, right? :)

XXXOOO
The Cupcake Lady

Cake for Client

Here it is! So this is the cake for my client. I thought it turned out well. Didnt rise much at all though. I checked my baking powder, and yup, that was the culprit. Expired baking powder. I had just purchased the powder a couple months back, but it must have been old to begin with. :( Darn. Besides this, all seems well.
Check back for more baking ideas!
I am working on cupcakes tonight. :)

XXXOOO
The Cupcake Lady

A Strawberry Passion

I have a new cake creation for all of my sweet tooth fans! This one is called Sinful Strawberry and it features a tangy lemon cream cake covered in FRESH Strawberry butter cream icing. The greatest part is the chocolate covered strawberry decoration.
Of course the cake can be any flavor, but I had a client request lemon so I went with it. :)
Enjoy the pic.....

New Recipe/New Tasting

Hello all!
Last night was a busy night of baking. I tried two new recipes (well three if you count the new icing recipe)
My first batch consisted of the old fashioned vanilla cupcake-BUT it was sugar free. So that was interesting. I will beging by telling you they turned out great. FYI-spoons & metal mixers dont mix! LOL A disaster was adverted, but interesting sounds came from the kitchen.
To make these babies sugar free I just grabbed Splenda in placement of the sugar. Now, according to the happy people at Splenda, you can sub equal amounts of the sugar substitute for the sugar in the recipe. I dont recommed this. I used one cup of Splenda, though the cake recipe called for two...this was plenty.

As far as the buttercream icing, it is SO much fun opening 120 packets of Splenda to make a recipe. It was late, store was far away, so I managed. It turned out yummy. I did not put alot of vanilla and added a teaspoon of raspberry preserves. It is called the Summer Breeze. (I will upload pics soon)

The same recipe was used for the second batch, but this was the full-on sugar recipe. I actually like the SF better. :P I used confectionar sugar (experimenting) instead of granulated sugar-I think this effected the consistancy & flavor a bit. Lesson learned. They were still good, just not as good as my last batch.
____________________________________________________________________

Tasting #2:The Busy Bakery on Stage Rd

Wow! Was my first response. Now this is what a bakery is supposed to smell like! As soon as you walk in you autmatically tell yourself, "I want one of everything!" :) But it is cupcake week only for this gal.
Unfortunately, cupcakes were not their high point. They only had three flavors:Strawberry, SF vanilla & SF chocolate. I opted for Strawberry. It did look quite yummy. And for a 1.50 you cant really go wrong.
So here I am with my cake and let me tell you....rock on! Fresh strawberry butter cream, fresh strawberry cake....oh my. This was one of the best I have eaten all week. AND NO SPRINKLES! Thank God! :)
Spoke to a young lady that works there and she stated one of the decorators left and they were a bit short handed-therefore no cupcakes. That's cool. I told her I was taking classes next door starting in Sept on Fondant decorating. (In other words...have some starting Sept!) :P

Nice work ladies....peace, love & cupcakes....

The Cupcake Lady

Cupcake Test #1: Muddy's Bake Shop

First of all, I am not a professional critic, just a plump "Foodie". :) I want to spend this week sampling cupcakes from local bakers and share in their knowledge of style and taste.

My first stop was at Muddy's Bake Shop in Memphis, TN.
My overall impression was "Fun!" Nice environment, fun, funky, hip, however people like to phrase it. Since these rockstars dont advertise, I will do a bit of advertising for them: http://www.muddysbakeshop.com/
Check them out if you are close to Poplar & Mendenhall!

Now, onto the testing:
1st up: Lemon cake with lemon buttercream icing. Yummo! I am very please with this one since the cake tastes exactly like my lemon cream for the Pink Lady. (I must be doing something right!)
The lemon icing is tart and sweet. Gotta love it.
The only thing I am not too fond of are the white sprinkles on each of the cakes. It has a hard, crunchy consistancy. I like smooth (but that is my personal pref, some prefer a mixed texture)

2nd: Chocolate Mint-Grasshopper
The mint icing is a little grainy but tastes okay. Might have put a touch too much mint, it almost tastes like a kind of medicine. Sorry! Can't love em all. Ahh more crunchy sprinkles. :P Oh my the cake is scrumdidilyumptous! Nice and moist. So whats your secret? :) Nice dark chocolate flavor.

3rd: Cappucino (I so know I mispelled, right?)
The icing is a bit hard, seems like it has been setting for a while (of course it is 4 in the afternoon. BUT the taste is yummy. Like I am drinking a smooth & creamy coffee. Right on. Oh bummer the cake is a bit dry. Nice vanilla cake flavor though! I also dig the espresso bean on top.

4th: Plain Jane
Yup, more sprinkles. :P
Not diggin the buttercream. Maybe a bit too much butter? Did I totally say that! WTcrap? I love butter....oh well. The cake is a bit more moist and is a solid vanilla cake. Do you put sour cream in there? Hmmm....

Over all I give Muddy's Bake shop 3.5 out of 5 stars. I bet if I go back early in the day the goods would be even better.

Nice job!

The Cupcake Lady

Recipe Update

I tried out the "Pink Lady" this evening. The first batch was a total bust. I used shortening instead of butter (what the recipe called for). I ditched the batch and made a new batch that contained cream cheese, butter, sugar and flour....basically. It was yummy. Light, fluffy but needed more lemon. I am going to pick up some lemon extract and add a couple of drops to the mix.

My goal to have the cakes scream LEMON!! Almost as if you are eating lemon pie. Right now there is a subtle after taste of lemon but nothing grand.

The raspberry icing rocked hard! I could eat that by itself. :) I didnt though...dont worry.

Still need to "perfect" the cakes. I should have it down in a couple of days. Wish me luck! :)

The Cupcake Lady
XXXOOO

The Pink Lady

I am working on a new "signature" cupcake called the Pink Lady. The cake will contain fresh lemon juice & zest while the buttercream frosting will consist of raspberry puree & cream cheese. Yum!
I will top the cake off with pink sugar crystals.

The following image was taken from: http://castsugar.blogspot.com/2007/10/pink-lemonade-cupcakes.html
I am "borrowing" this image since mine will look similar...until I get mine made this evening. :)
The Cupcake Lady
XXXOOO