that's what she baked.

It’s March, and while I’m not making anything Irish themed, I am thinking green with my zucchini cupcakes. I am more behind in my blogging than I would like to be, these (and some upcoming posts) are from a week and a half ago. I made what felt like a gazillion big and little cupcakes for a few different occasions. Sadly, I don’t have any good pictures of them finished (outside of tupperware).

Zucchini cupcakes are definitely a favorite of mine. I’m very happy with how the cream cheese frosting came out, too! I based it off a different recipe than I usually use, and I think I’ve found what I’ve been looking for… I especially was thinking about this when I went to East End Cupcakes (back in February).

Side note referring to the middle picture: I recently redeemed a coupon at an online baking supply store and found myself drawn to buy 500 gingham tiny cupcake liners… because one never knows when they’ll need a surplus of teeny cupcakes for a picnic.

East End Cupcakes, Portland Maine

Last weekend my friend Kendra and I drove to Maine to visit our dear friends Anthony and Emily (you might remember them from a recent post) who moved to Portland last fall. It was really cold so we did a lot of being inside and hanging out and playing games and also going to some FANTASTIC places to eat. As my friends are aware of my interest in baking and sweet things, they knew about East End Cupcakes, which was apparently on Cupcake Wars, and thought it’d be a nice Portland place to visit. I’ve only seen Cupcake Wars a handful of times, but still like to visit cupcakeries and bakeries in my travels. The store was very quaint, but only had a small selection of flavors to choose from (which I didn’t have a problem with). However, for getting on (although not winning) Cupcake Wars, their chocolate cake with salted caramel buttercream (the bottom right picture, on the right) was not something I would order again. The frosting was too heavy in butter taste, and not much of anything else. I did enjoy my strawberry cupcake with cream cheese frosting, and want to experiment more with my own cream cheese frosting to make it more firm. The cupcakes were also pretty tiny, and were 2.50 a pop, which makes me feel like it’s about time I get to selling my cupycakes if people would at least pay 1.50/2.00 for them. All in all though, it was a happy experience, and I’m glad I got to go. 

Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

These (very delayed) birthday cupcakes were made for co-workers last week. Originally, I wanted to make cupcakes for, or close to people’s actual birthdays, but timing and life often doesn’t work out like that. I asked for preferences and both of the teachers said they like almost everything I’ve made, but are partial to cream cheese frosting. I didn’t want to have to go food shopping so I decided to work with what I had in my cabinet. While pumpkin season has passed, I thought I’d use the can now, instead of waiting again for the fall to come. I had toasted pecans from these pies and some chocolate chips hanging around so I thought they’d be great to mix in the pumpkin batter (a Martha Stewart recipe) topped with a creamy cream cheese frosting (also, Martha). I didn’t turn my Kitchen Aid on at all and mixed everything but the frosting, with a whisk and my muscles. 

I was not happy with the fact that I under-filled the cupcake liners, but nobody complained. Whenever I think I know how much to fill, I have a different recipe and it has a different weight and consistency, etc. That’s what’s happening right? I’m not too too worried about it. However, under-filling did give me the opportunity to make some babycakes, which gave me the ability to taste the cakes and share with more friends.  

I had almost forgotten about this! Here are some pictures from week 4 baking class: cakes. This was the first weekend of December.

I was quite bummed that it was the last week of the class, but that didn’t make me enjoy it any less. I baked, iced and constructed and decorated a simple layer cake. Something I oddly enough, have never done before. I’ve made tons of cupcakes, but never a whole cake from scratch. Pictured above are other peoples cakes, demos and tests. 

A tip from this class (it might even be common cake-sense): Slice the top of the cake (layers) off for 2 main reasons.. One, so you have a flat surface to ice, and two, so you have scrap cake to test the frosting with. 

Cupcakes and cookies, ohmy! 

Monday (one week ago, not today) was my biggest night of baking. I made the cookies and the cupcakes and the frosting, kind of all at once. I was worried I was going to mix something up, or forget something was in the oven, but I didn’t Also, dinner was being made at the same time so the kitchen was full of brussel sprouts and salmon patties and rice and sugar and flour and more!

I made chocolate sour cream cupcakes with a Nutella buttercream frosting. If these cupcakes sound familiar, it’s because I’ve made them before, only this time I made up the frosting and didn’t fill the cupcakes with Nutella. I had a lot of batter left over after filling my regular-sized cupcake pans but didn’t have any mini cupcake liners (what a predicament.. right?!) Don’t worry, I solved this problem by spraying Pam into the mini pans and made cupcake nuggets. It was such a perfect, all-in-one-bite, sweet. 

Also, I made oatmeal raisin cookies for one of my bestest bestie’s, Taylor. Her birthday was last Thursday and if I can find the picture, I sent her a birthday package… Because, sometimes I get my act together in time to do things like that. 

More pictures of my banana chocolate chip cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from last Friday evening. I decorated them as dinner was being made for me (lucky me!).

Saturday morning I had a school event which is kind of like what field day is like at other schools, but really different… Anyway, this year, the school is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary and our school colors are yellow and blue so I got a little cutesie with the sprinkles. Also, I put them in the cupcake stand that I got for my birthday. I didn’t bring the stand to work, I just wanted to put them in it to see what it looks like. I still haven’t had a very good reason to use it yet. Someday…