Strawberry Cupcakes

My neighbor has been asking if I could make a cupcake with strawberries. Since I've been having great luck finding really juicy and sweet strawberries at Whole Foods, I decided to give it a try.  I made the cupcake using a Vanilla Buttermilk batter.  In the meantime, I chopped up fresh strawberries, mixed with a little granulated sugar and let sit for about an hour.  The frosting I made was vanilla cream cheese buttercream with a little bit of the syrup that came off the strawberries.  Last, I topped it with the chopped strawberries.  I love everything about these cupcakes.  The cake was nice and light, the frosting was rich but not too sweet and the strawberries were sweet and fresh tasting.  These are officially in my top 5 favorites!

Decided to pipe roses using the same frosting.

Marzipan and Modeling Chocolate

It's been a while since my last posting.  In that time I took a class with Master Cake Designer Toba Garrett at Institute of Culinary Education.  We worked with different types of buttercream, marzipan and modeling chocolate.  I had a tough time with the modeling chocolate but it was my very favorite part of the class.  I'm definitely planning on practicing more so I can master it.

Before adding the finishing touches.

After

My first chocolate modeling experience. Not too shabby;)

Making the ribbon wasn't nearly as tough but I just positioned my rose in such a way that I could hide the imperfections.

Cookies n Cream Truffles

I've been wanting to experiment with truffles for some time.  I'm a fan of any bite-sized desserts.   I made the batter and frosting from this post from scratch.  I got great feedback from these and will definitely be adding this to my "list."

Baked the batter in 2 8 inch pans

Let cool completely. Then break into small crumb-like pieces using pastry blender.

Mixed in frosting then scooped out using small ice cream scoop.

Shaped into balls.

Refrigerated for 15 minutes.

Used Candy Melts from Michael's and melted using double boiler method. ** I won't be using these again because they're a little too sweet and contain artificial ingredients.

 Dipped cake balls into melted Candy Melts. Allowed to cool on wax paper.

Daycare Christmas Party

I did an order for one of my favorite little girls:)  Miss Abigail is 2 years old and LOVES cupcakes!  Her mom ordered a variety so I stuck to chocolate and vanilla (with vanilla and chocolate cream cheese buttercream).

Holiday Office Party Cupcakes

These are some of the pics from an order I did for a holiday party on a unit at the United Nations.  4 flavors: Chocolate with Swiss Meringue frosting, Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Buttercream frosting, Coconut with Malibu Cream Cheese Buttercream and Vanilla Buttermilk with Caramel Icing.

Billie's Black Open Mic

Last night I did giveaways at Billies Black open mic.  It was veeeerrry SEXY;) Everyone was so friendly and cool and the owner was also very nice.  I had some fried chicken and fish-DELISH!  I put Red Velvet and Chocolate mini cupcakes under their Christmas tree.  I packaged them individually so they'd be easier to give out.  A couple more pics from the night:

Mini White Chocolate Amaretto Cupcakes

I did a "recipe remix" using one of my favorite alcohols and my love of chocolate.  Some people do not like white chocolate but I do not discriminate when it comes to chocolate. I have love for ALL of them:). Searched online for some and nothing seemed like it would work so I took the recipe from the Caramel Cupcakes, followed pretty much the same exact steps but made a few ingredient changes and stirred in the melted white chocolate right before baking.  Overall, I thought these were just OK. Kinda too sweet and not moist enough for my taste.  I got good feedback about them but not so sure about making these again.

INGREDIENTS (makes about 36 minis)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp amaretto
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp milk
3/4 cake flour ( make my own sifting cornstarch and AP flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter
5 oz melted white chocolate (cooled)

I did these for a graduation (nursing) celebration so I made cupcake picks to liven them up a bit.