Saturday 29 October 2011

Week 30- DUO COMES TO LIFE (Halloween vs. UFC)

Week 30.... What the??? How did I make it this far? I mean I am happy I have, but really, have I made 30 batches of cupcakes this year, that's over 360 cupcakes and 30lbs of butter. That's a lot of butter. Hence why I jump at the chance to get these suckers out of my house. It just happened this week, I had two chances. First a Halloween party (which we couldn't make it to, due to illness, boooo) which I was so excited to make cupcakes for. Second a UFC party my hubby was going to.
I started by making the Devils Food Chocolate cupcakes, I swear by these now. Although, I made them Friday night and froze them for freshness. Dumb idea. I should of just put them in a sealed container overnight, I think they would of been more fresh. I don't like making them a day ahead, but I thought the UFC party goer needed them at 9am, which he didn't. So, not my fault if they were eating stale cupcakes over Mr. Universe vs. Mr. Hulk.
Due to the illness that's been lingering around the house and within the girls all week, I wasn't sure if I would be able to pull off the Halloween cupcakes. Of course, the morning of my dear friends party, I call and say 'so you want some cupcakes?'. I realized I would be able to pull it off, with some help. Help from a little thing called 'snack trap'. Load my kids up with snacks in the snack trap and they are happy and out of the kitchen momentarily leaving me to make icing.
I made plain vanilla icing. Which I wasn't too happy with, tasted boring to me today. Maybe I am just sick of icing. Anyways, then iced the cupcakes with a butter knife to give the tops a smooth flat surface.
Rewind: On Friday night, I melted the chocolate, put it in a zip lock bag and made the bug outlines on wax paper. Then attached m & m's, smarties and jellies while they were still wet. Refrigerated overnight.
Easy pasy, next took the bugs off the wax paper and attached them to the cupcakes. I think they were cute. I still wanted to try the skeletons. As you will see in my photos, the skeletons didn't turn out amazing. I didn't have time to melt icing, and colour it for the skeleton face, so i used washable marker. Sorry, hopefully no one ate those marsh mellows, and if they did rest assured they were none toxic washable:)
I packed them up and my adorable, super helpful, awesome Mom, stopped by and delivered the cupcakes for me. Thanks Mom.
Later in the afternoon, I made more, slightly crappy vanilla icing. Iced 12 more cupcakes with a butter knife. Then coloured some icing to an orange colour, which I was hoping for a red orange (didn't happen). Went through my five billion icing tips to discover, of course I don't have the right tip. My husband "you never have the right tip'.  I don't, I am always finding something that just isn't right. So I wrote UFC on individual cupcakes (as per my husbands request, I don't think he realized how hard it is to right UFC over and over with the wrong tip on tiny cupcakes instead of writing it once, large, like in the picture i posted on week 29) one at a time. I think they looked crap, but what are you going to do. Packed em up and sent them off.
I liked the double challenge, but think my heart was on Halloween and the bugs. I might dedicate the next few months to Christmas cupcakes, I just love Christmas. I can't even think of it today though. Here are the pics.






Week 29 Oct 27th

Again, because this is my blog, my rules. I am breaking them. I am sort of pairing two weeks into one, in a way. Today was all about prep, and will count as Week 29. I am prepping for Halloween cupcakes for the weekend, and UFC cupcakes for the weekend. I went to Bulk Barn today and purchased a few things. (see picture)

I have this idea for Halloween cupcakes, actually two ideas. One a super cute skeleton cupcake
and two a bug adventure cupcake. The skeleton idea, I found from a picture on the internet. See below.
Except, it didn't come with any directions. I am in week 29, I can improvise......right???
Clearly this meant buying yogurt covered pretzels, suckers and some marsh mellows. I think. Then the bug adventure cupcakes, i found in one of my cupcake books. They came with bug outlines.
For the UFC cupcakes, i found another picture on the internet. Boring but achievable.
Stay tuned for Saturday, the big duo unveiling.

Thursday 20 October 2011

Week 28 -Pampered Chef meeting

Going to another meeting tonight for pampered chef, what a great opportunity to get the cupcakes out of the house. Again, I still didn't have the few key ingredients. Silly me. I also didn't have a chance to make them until 6:38pm when I had to be at the meeting by 7:30pm. (Sigh) I made chocolate chocolate. Only because I wanted to nail out the chocolate icing, once and for all! I finally decided that it needs less icing sugar. Makes less icing but tastes way better. Next time I do the chocolate I need to double the recipe to see how it turns out. I batch is not enough for 12 cupcakes. Butter is somewhat expensive, for good butter anyways, and I am finding I am going through sooooo much. I should be tracking my expenses and butter usage. Not to self for later:)
Oh the funniest thing this week. I again did not have the key ingredients. Ha, get it together Kathy. I didn't taste the cupcakes before taking them to the meeting. I did, however, taste them later. Bla, the actual cupcake tasted so dense and boring. No wonder nobody commented on the cupcakes at the party. Good selling feature Kath:(
Coming up, special Halloween cupcakes!

Week 27 Tuesday morning play date:)

First of all, I'm more than halfway there. Holy smokes, where does the time go?
Our friends came over this am to play. So fun. So of course while they are arriving I am starting to make cupcakes:) Chocolate with white icing. I thought it would be nice to have a treat. It was messy and busy to make them with 4 kids running around. I think this is how I thrive making cupcakes. I didn't have a few key ingredients. Baking soda, vanilla, oops.
Anyways, it was great to send some of the cupcakes home with our friends. Get them out of my house:)

Week 26- Early Thanksgiving!

Like I said, my brother was home and my Dad came home from the hospital, so we celebrated. Early thanksgiving. So yummy. Guess what I was in charge of????? Can't guess, dessert. Yummy. This week I made pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing. A new recipe I found, with a few surprise ingredients. They were moist and very rich. Cream cheese icing was a great topper. Good reviews from the fam.

Week 25 Thurs September 29th (Distracted and feeling yucky)

Well, with my Dad in the hospital into this week. I was a little distracted. I also wasn't feeling so great this week, plus my brother came home and it was fun to do some visiting. Challenge challenge challenge! Thank you to my hubby who put on the apron and lent a hand this week. I got out the good old banana chocolate chip recipe, got out the mushy mashy bananas and off he went. This is where you say, ahhhhhh that's so sweet. I am allowed at least one of these in the year right? Too bad, i make the rules and I say yes. So no new news, this week.

Tuesday September 20th Chocolate Ginger

I was on my way to a Pampered Chef party tonight. So I made the Pampered Chef chocolate ginger cupcake recipe. Fresh grated ginger. It was supposed to have a lovely chocolate ginger glaze on top. I say supposed to because I never got that far. My Dad needed to go to the hospital, so off I went with my Mom. Poor Dad. He's since out and on the road to recovery. Feel better Dad.
Needless to say, I didn't even try the chocolate ginger cupcakes and a few of them were wasted. Oh well, next time.