Jojo & Leroy's Wedding

Jojo & Leroy

Some of the cupcakes

I wrote a few sentences to this post and forgot about it until someone reminded me that I have not yet posted pictures up of what I had made for Jojo & Leroy's wedding!

The wedding was on 5th May and it has taken me this long to remember and finish the post! How slack of me.

I baked over 300 of these mini red velvet cupcakes for the church reception - I still can't believe I actually baked over 300 of these mini morsels. I was lucky my mum & sister came over to help me assemble the cupcakes and put them into boxes for delivery. The flowers were done a few nights before after a late decision to make the flowers all one design and just have 2 colours. As usual, I had other grand plans of making roses to go with the cupcakes but I had only made 30 or so by the Tuesday so I knew there was no way I would be able to make it all in time unless I took a whole week off work and just made roses all day. This only highlights that I need to work on my time management skills - hehehe. I'm sure my husband couldn't agree more with this admission!

Enjoy!!

Caramelicious

I finally decided to try out a new caramel cupcake recipe this weekend. I made most of it in the mini size and some in the regular size.

The caramel didn't quite go 'wow' with this recipe - back to the drawing board to look for another caramel cupcake recipe. Perhaps I could add a few drops of caramel extract to add more flavour to it - make mental note to get some of the extract.

I was also going through my cupboards in the kitchen and decided to use up 'leftover' cupcake liners so I ended up with these orange coloured ones - I really don't like the colour, hence why they were the 'leftovers'. Wish I had photoshop to change the colour of those cupcake liners. The colour of the flowers are new to my lil' collection, as you can see I have a thing for pastels. I was thinking perhaps a blue rose - I'll get onto that as soon as I have coloured my freshly made flower paste from a recipe given to me by Miss J.

Enjoy!

A Beach Party

I know I know! I've been slow with updating of any sort.

Truth be told that I have not baked much in the month since I have been back. When I finally had an order for some Hawaiian beach theme cupcakes my beloved Kitchen Aid decided to throw a tanty. The paddle attachment was stuck and I couldn't get it out to wash and make the cream cheese icing to go with the red velvet cupcakes. I tried with all my might for about 30 minutes, cursing my bad luck. I gave up and my Kitchen Aid is now at the local Kitchen Aid Hospital awaiting surgery. I ended up borrowing mum's trusty Kenwood - 22 years old I might add.

It's got me thinking, maybe I should get a Kenwood to replace my Kitchen Aid. 22 years and mum has never had to take it in for repairs. 3 years with my Kitchen Aid and it's packed a sad.

All this drama was a little too much for lil' old me.

Anyway, back to the original story of these cupcakes. Miss M ordered these cupcakes for a Hawaiian Beach theme party for Ms K's 29th. Her actual birthday is tomorrow but they're having the party today. I hope the weather holds up for their BBQ. I made a sunbed and added a cocktail umbrella to one of my designs, the next is a stylised hibiscus flower and you can't go without a surfboard at the beach, so that was my third design.

Enjoy!

Happy Chinese New Year! 恭喜發財!

Happy Chinese New Year to all my family & friends! May the year of the water dragon bring you an abundance of luck, wealth and good health!

恭喜發財！ 龍年快樂。祝各位 身體建康，心想事成，萬事如意。

Less reading and more gawking. Here I present my Chinese New Year cupcakes.

I'm about to head back to my parents place for dinner tonight so I thought i'd squeeze in this little post first before I run out the door.

Enjoy!

Sweet Beginnings

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Raspberry Icing on the Red Velvet Cupcake

Honey Icing on the Red Velvet Cupcake

Salted Peanut Macaron

Cream Cheese Icing with Red Velvet Cupcake

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has had some time off to unwind & relax and spend some time with family & friends before the year kicks off. I am hoping this year will be the year of many great things to come...from my kitchen. :)

We had some friends come over this afternoon for lunch and desserts. I kept to my department of baking & decorating while my better half made all sorts of yummy pizzas to serve up - We've still got lots of ingredients leftover so guess what is for dinner tomorrow night?! YUMMMM

I baked a batch of red velvet cupcakes and made 3 different flavour of icing to go with it - Honey, raspberry and plain ol' cream cheese. I didn't end up serving the cupcakes with honey or raspberry as I had some 'unwanted guests' flying around the house and taste testing it before I could serve it to my friends. Just as well I had not yet pulled out the salted peanut macarons I made as well or there would only be red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing! Thank goodness for Miss B's fruit platter - I needed the fruits more than the sweets after all the over indulgence over Christmas.

Here are the pictures of the red velvet cupcakes I took before they went down the gurglers.

I'm in the middle of designing cupcakes for the Chinese New Year which falls on 23 January 2012 - watch this space for more news!


Enjoy!!

Banana Toffee Cupcake

There's a surprise farewell morning tea tomorrow for a colleague who is moving to Taranaki at the end of the week so I whipped up a batch of banana cupcakes topped with toffee buttercream for tomorrow.

I still have a bit of the buttercream leftover but not for long! Yummy for my tummy.

I was also making a tulip from scratch for another project but my tulip just doesn't resemble a tulip! So frustrating - I might go buy myself some tulips to 'study' before I make my next one.

Home Sweet Home...

I got a little side tracked over the weekend and did not finish my intended project of making animals for the SPCA cupcake day. *smack my hand*

I ended up baking cupcakes - coffee for mum and a mixture of red velvet & caramel for T&C. Mum rang at 3 pm to say she needed some cupcakes urgently for a birthday do she was invited to so I frantically went about baking and icing a dozen cupcakes by 5 pm.

Terence & Christy had asked me a while back to bake some cupcakes for their neighbours - I finally did it with some bad luck with flowers falling apart when I was packing them into boxes... :( but everything worked out fine in the end!

Now, back to my previous project - fondant animals.

Chocolate Vegan Cupcake

Choccy Vegan Cupcakes

My new toys

I borrowed a book from the local library and found a chocolate vegan cupcake recipe. The recipe was quick and easy to make plus the icing was...let's just say finger licking good. My next mission is to make it look a wee bit nicer than the quickie job I've done tonight.

My new butterfly plunger cutters arrived this morning so I ripped open the packaging and tested my new toy out.

So much for my list of cupcakes to bake from my previous post. I have all these recipes I would like to try out but there is only so many hours in a day and so many my guinea pigs can take before they have a cupcake burnout.

Thank You Cupcakes

  

The weekend went by too quickly and I was definitely suffering from Mondayitis at work today, the only cure for it is to create something pretty & delicious but a BIG pile of laundry awaits so no baking tonight.

I did however, manage to go along to a cake decorating event on Saturday. The ladies doing the demonstrations were amazing! Next to these whizzes I'm a baby who's just learning to crawl. I had my wallet cleared of all cash too - I simply couldn't resist buying more little 'helpers'.

I made some some "Thank You" cupcakes for a friend's work mate and used my new 'helpers' to create the flowers for these cupcakes.

The cupcakes are caramel with caramel icing and honey & pear with honey cream cheese icing.

What shall I make next?

1. Black Forest Cupcakes
2. Green Tea Cupcakes

3. Chocolate Mud Cake with a Chocolate Mousse Filling covered in Chocolate Ganache

Engagement Cupcakes

Congratulations George & Ashley

  

I couldn't decide what to get for our friends - George & Ashley who got engaged a couple of months back and we're catching up with them for dinner tonight so the 'easy' way out for me was to whip up a small batch of cupcakes.

The cupcakes are vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting - the recipe came out of the Hummingbird Bakery Recipe Book. It seems to be my favourite book at the moment as I am going through trying the yummylicious recipes.

And for desert tonight I made apple crumble...topped with custard or vanilla ice cream - hmmmm

Lemon Cupcakes

Lemon Cupcakes topped with Lemon Buttercream

I'm on a roll!

A friend rang yesterday to say she'll be arriving back in Auckland today for work so I decided I'd try out a lemon cupcake recipe I have found a wee while ago. This is a 'welcome back - we missed you' treat for her.

A Big Bunch of Flowers

I've been busy in the kitchen with making these cupcakes.


There's a few different flavours - carrot, red velvet and my favourite orange & almond. I had run out of time to whip up a batch of the white chocolate cupcakes! 


I made these cupcakes for a local temple's 10 year anniversary celebrations last weekend. The flowers took me quite a few nights to make and by the end of it I was all flowered out BUT the most important bit was that I enjoyed making the flowers.


I was supposed to have had the afternoon off from work to finish decorating the cupcakes and have them delivered by 4:00 pm before the 'Friday after work stand still traffic' but an external work meeting went right into overtime and cut into the precious hour I needed to pretty up the cupcakes so some of the cupcakes does not look like i've put much effort into them.


I've got heaps more of the flowers I made so I am going to whip up a batch of cupcakes, pretty them up and give some to my family.

                        

Happy Birthday Blue Girl

Blue Flowers

Cookie Monster

To the girl who is loves anything blue - and green sometimes....Happy 30th Birthday!!

Christy is sometimes known as cookie monster so my imagination department was given a rest and I whipped up a small batch of cookie monster cupcakes for her to have.

Since I was at it, I decided to make some swirls and blue flowers. I finally made use of my new toys - new as in unopened since last October. 

New Year Blooms

Chinese New Year Blooms

If only you could taste these cupcakes! They're so yummy...Orange with passionfruit buttercream. Since Chinese New Year is coming up soon, I thought I'd add some pink blooms to finish off.


I wonder if it will go well with just vanilla cupcakes. 


My brother's birthday is coming up soon and he wants a sponge cake with fresh cream icing...so, guess what I'll be experimenting with next?! I've never made a sponge cake OR decorated a cake with fresh cream so this may get interesting.

Blue Blue Swirls

I had this sudden urge to be experimental last night and decided make rosewater buttercream to cover my cupcakes. A rather interesting taste but I like it.

How does passionfruit icing with vanilla cupcakes for my next experiment sound?! 

More purple flowers

Gluten free orange & almond cupcakes with flower line designs

I whipped up a batch of gluten free orange and almond cupcakes this weekend. I added a layer of chocolate truffle below the icing for 6 of the cupcakes and according to my guinea pig he thinks it was delish though my preference was to have it without the chocolate truffle. Note : my guinea pig has a sweet tooth!


I tried not to overdo it with icing this time so I have spread on just enough so it levels with the paper cups and just used simple line designs with purple flowers again - I made a whole load of the flowers which I am slowly going through. I will have to use the yellow flowers up next so watch this space for when I create my next lot of little sweet temptations.

Spring time blooms

daisy n pansy bloom - butterfly swirl - daisy n apple bloom

It's now officially Spring! Yay!


I was busy in the kitchen making another lot of merry-go-rabbits and doggie bones SPCA cupcakes for a friend's workplace and decided to design the extra cupcakes with flowers and butterflies to celebrate the longer days and extra sunshine we will get - *crossing my fingers and toes it won't be all grey and cold*

I'm still trying to get the vanilla cupcake and chocolate mud cupcake recipes perfect so I'll be on the lookout for guinea pigs to taste test my little designs.