Fall 2010 Cupcakes

It's officially the Fall season according to my calender, but it so hot here in Southern California. 100 degrees?!?! Oh, come on! For my women's bible study at Knott Avenue Christian Church, we are studying the book of Ruth for our Women's Connections Fall 2010. To continue the Fall look of our morning cafe sessions at church, I made sugar free chocolate cupcakes topped with milk chocolate leaves & vanilla frosting. I know cupcakes are not the exact breakfast snack you want at 9am, but cupcakes are what I do!

I handmade the chocolate leaves by melting chocolate, piping the leaves freehand onto wax paper laid out on a cookie sheet, then chilled the leaves in the refrigerator for an hour or so. I tinted the frosting light orange to give the cupcakes a "fall" effect. The cupcakes are sugar free because I substituted the sugar with Splenda for baking. Enjoy!!!

4 Leaf Clover Cupakes

My friend, Bradd, wanted to surprise his wife on her birthday with some cupcakes during our Newlyweds bible study session! Since she's a lemon lover, I made her lemon cupcakes with a lemon frosting decorated with chocolate 4 leaf clovers on top! Some of the cupcakes had white sugar pearls.

Although these were Irish themed cupcakes for the Birthday girl, Erin, I had to add something else to make them more personal! So, I added an edible "E" to some of the cupcakes as well! The birthday girl was surprised & sugared out by the end of the night! Yay!!!

Lakers inspired birthday cake

My uncle is a huge Lakers basketball fan & my aunt decided to surprise him with one of my pull apart cakes. His birthday cake was dark chocolate & vanilla creamy frosting. I decorated the cake with some marshmallow fondant dots & sugared basketballs. My daughter helped me make the mini cupcakes that surround the jumbo cupcakes.


Happy Birthday, Uncle Rey!

Girls Night In Brownie Cups

For a Favorite things party with the girls, each girl brought their favorite goodie under $5 for each girl that came to the party. Since there were 9 girls, each girl brought 8 gifts to give everyone! Weee! It's like Christmas in September! I came home with a movie night snack set, mani set & lotion, tea & dark chocolate, handy stationary, hand sanitizer & air freshener, hair ties & more chocolate, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, lip balm, & Halloween stationary!!!

Besides the gifts, everyone brought a little something to snack on during the night. My contribution was some truffle fudge chocolate brownies decorated for a girls night in!

Baby Gender Reveal Cupcakes

My high school friend was going in for her baby's ultrasound & decided she didn't want to know the gender of her baby just yet! She had the doctor's office call me with the gender & asked me to fill gender neutral white cupcakes with filling colored of her baby's gender. She later had a baby gender reveal cupcake party & with all her family and friends took a bite of my cupcakes & found out what they were having. PINK icing meant they were going to expect a baby girl and BLUE icing meant they were going to expect a baby boy.



what do you think they were going to have? BOY or GIRL?





CONGRATS! It's a BOY!

Burger Cupcakes

A friend of ours wanted lemon cupcakes.  He was a big burger lover, so I decided to top super lemony cupcakes with a mini burger made out of cookies.  The mini burgers were a bonus after eating the moist sweet, but lemony cupcakes. 

MINI BURGERS RECIPE
Vanilla wafer cookies = bun
Chocolate covered mint cookies = hamburger meat
Shredded sweetened coconut dyed green with food coloring = lettuce
Red & Yellow icing = ketchup & mustard

Take one vanilla cookie, place some icing on it to use as glue to hold the chocolate covered mint cookie in place.  Decorate with red & yellow icing, and a pile of the green coconut.  Add another vanilla cookie on top.  Ta da! A mini burger that will fool your taste buds!

*optional-For a sesame seed bun, brush lemonade concentrate on the top vanilla cookie, then sprinkle sesame seeds on the cookie. 

Love & Respect Cupcakes

I had a request to make about 30 cupcakes for our church's newest marriage bible study kick off party! Half of the cupcakes were dark chocolate & the other half were white cupcakes with a kick of sprinkles mixed in.  I topped these cupcakes with vanilla frosting & homemade marshmallow fondant in pink (for the wives) and blue (for the husbands).  I hand wrote letters "L" and "R" on each cupcake to represent Love & Respect! I hope these cupcakes got all the couples excited for this new and exciting study!

Adidas & Chelsea FC inspired cupcakes

For my husband's 28th birthday, I decided to make him chocolate cupcakes topped with cream cheese frosting.  For decoration, I used homemade marshmallow fondant to make the Adidas logo and a few Chelsea FC inspired jersey's since my husband is an Adidas fanatic.  Enjoy!

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Adidas & Chelsea FC inspired chocolate cupcakes frosted with cream cheese frosting.

Leopard print cookie bouquet

I went wild and stepped out of my comfort zone and created a leopard print cookie bouquet for my aunt's birthday.  I used homemade marshmallow fondant to create a leoprint print and placed them on sugar cookies made from scratch.  Surrounding the leopard print I placed by hand white sugar pearls.  These sugar cookies on a stick are perfect for my aunt! She loved them!

Wrapped up & ready to go! Happy Birthday Auntie!

First Attempt at fondant

I love to bake and frost cupcakes, but stayed away from using fondant.  I watch all those baking shows on tv and am amazed at the work these bakers do with fondant.  I have an upcoming "baby reveal" cake to make for a friend and wanted to make something a little fancier for her.  I used store bought fondant in my first attempt.  It was so much fun and easy to do!  With the help of a mini cookie cutter, I just tried some out on homemade chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  My friends from church loved my "practice" cupcakes at a potluck pool party.  Enjoy!

 

Lakers themed cupcakes

For my good friend, a huge Lakers fan, I made him chocolate stout cupcakes frosted with vanilla icing.  The chocolate, beer, & vanilla were a delicious combination.  I topped the cupcakes with homemade paper toppers inspired by the Lakers team's players & jersey's.  These yummy cupcakes were wrapped with homemade cupcake wrappers in the team's colors of purple & gold!

The birthday boy's personalized cupcake

Ube & White Cake Cupcakes

Surprise! They're ube cupcakes ( a Filipino fruit) and white cake cupcakes!  For my aunt's surpise party, I was asked to make these delicious and lovely cupcakes.  I used a white cake batter and added ube flavoring to the batter to half of the cupcakes.  The other half I left alone.  I topped them with cream cheese frosting dyed purple and topped with white sugar pears and edible glitter.  Since the party's color theme was lavender, I thought these were perfect for the occassion!

Ube cupcake

White cake cupcakes

Pandan cupcakes & cake

My mom has been bugging me to make pandan flavored cupcakes.  Pandan has the flavor of a banana tree leaf.  It is not very sweet, but I dusted them with powdered sugar.  Soft, fluffy, and slightly sweet.  No frosting needed!

Handy Manny Pull Apart Cake

My two year old loves Handy Manny, and so does her best friend! For her best friend's birthday, I was asked to make a Handy Manny cake!  I made chocolate jumbo cupcakes held together with cream cheese frosting to make the cupcakes appear to be one cake.  I also handmade paper cupcake toppers personalized with the birthday boy's name and age.

I didn't make these cupcakes, but I handmade the paper toppers.

Sesame Street Cupcakes

For my daughter's 2nd birthday, we celebrated with the Sesame Street gang.  I made chocolate & lemon cupcakes frosted with my signature cream cheese frosting for her pull apart birthday cake.  I also made cupcakes for guests to nibble on before the cake.  They were white cake but dyed with food coloring to match the different character's colors.  I topped them with handmade paper toppers with the Sesame Street characters, her name, and age.  These cupcakes went fast!

Cupcakes for dessert

The pull apart birthday cake!

Centerpieces for the party

Cookie Monster's Chocolate Chip Cookies were favors for the grown ups.  Toddlers received a sand bucket filled with healthy snacks as their favors.

Candy bar!!!