Yeah, they make a pretty good pair I guess...

As I mentioned before, I got an order last week for red velvet cupcakes. "Surprise me with a design," they said. 

I'm pretty indecisive, so I kept going back and forth on how I wanted to decorate these cupcakes. In the end, I couldn't decide between owls and snowmen, so I just made both!

Sure, maybe owls and snowmen aren't a classic duo that people think of, but I see a buddy cop movie in the future!

A slightly closer up shot...

In the end, they were pretty simple. Just some icing, oreos, mini M&Ms, chocolate chips, and sprinkles. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that the cupcakes themselves didn't turn out quite as planned. They tasted great, but they weren't so much "red" as they were "pink."

So... pretty successful pink velvet cupcakes?

Yay!

Merry Thanks-mas to All!

Once a year, a friend of mine celebrates the most hallowed of all holidays, Thanksmas. From what I can gather, it all started when a friend of hers moved away years ago. They vowed get together once a year, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to celebrate both holidays together. Over the years, their families have grown, and with it the festivities. This year, they were going to get together in Dallas, and to mark the occasion, I was asked to make the dessert!

I will say that "six cupcakes with different decorations, three Thanksgiving themed and three Christmas themed" is the most interesting order I've gotten to date. 

To honor Thanksgiving, we have mashed potatoes with gravy, peas and carrots, and cherry pie. To be clear, these just look like mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, and cherry pie. In reality, they're mostly just icing, skittles, and Starburst. I wanted to make a roasted turkey cupcake, but couldn't quite figure it out in the short amount of time that I had... it involves melting caramel squares or something crazy...

For Christmas, we have a Christmas tree, a snow man, and a reindeer (you may recognize the reindeer from last week). 

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking of starting a Thanksmas tradition of my own!

Also, look forward to this weekend when I get to fill an order for "decorate cupcakes - surprise me with a design."

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

What? I'm not super creative with blog post titles... so sue me!

Author's note: Please do not sue me.

Anyway! Last week, I was asked to make cupcakes for a girl's basketball team Christmas party! In keeping with the theme, I made reindeer and Santa Claus cupcakes.

Yes, Santa's face is a little horrifying. No, I don't know why.

I gave them six Santas and six reindeer... the ones shown above are actually just the extras I made in case I screwed any of them up.

Yes, there are two Rudolphs. I don't really have an answer for that either.

Are you looking at these and thinking "wow, that sure would send my Christmas party over the top"? Well good news! I'm offering one complete set of Santa and his Reindeer for $25.00! Set includes Santa on his sleigh, 8 regular reindeer, and Rudolph (the most famous reindeer of all). These cupcakes were chocolate, but the flavor isn't important to the design, so just let me know what you'd prefer. 

Good news, everyone!

After months of tirelessly daydreaming about having my own home bakery, I filled my first order today!

Below are eighteen rainbow-layered cupcakes made for a young boy's classroom birthday party!

I'll be honest... I was super nervous the entire time I was making these. 

1. This was my first time making cupcakes without liners... which was necessary to showcase the rainbow layers.
2. I only had enough batter for eighteen cupcakes, exactly. I had hoped to make a few extras in the event that a few were unusable (because I dropped it on the ground or it got stuck in the pan or something), but then I didn't have enough batter to create a cushion.
3. Because I didn't have any extra cupcakes, I couldn't do a taste-test to make sure the cupcakes weren't disgusting. Don't worry, though... I did lick the spatula (after I didn't need it anymore), and the batter tasted pretty good.
4. I had a plane to catch in a few hours, so if anything went wrong, I wasn't even going to be able to start over. 

Fortunately, all of my fears were unfounded. The cupcakes came out looking great, albeit not as cleanly layered as they could have been (which frankly, I think just makes them more fun). 

I packed my suitcase while they cooled, then packed the cupcakes up, all professional-like. Well, somewhat professional like. Well, they were packed up within the guidelines of the Texas Cottage Food Law... and I'll get better about making the presentation look nice in the future.

Now, I'm in New York relishing a job well done and sitting in my hotel planning out how to decorate the next order... Santas and reindeer. 

Yay!

Flutterbies

This summer, I spent about a month living out of a hotel in Houston. I work in construction management, and we happened to have a project starting up down there that needed some help getting off the ground, so with roughly 3 days notice, I packed up my car and drove south. 

While I don't typically like spending four weeks away from home (and away from my parents/friends/cats), I didn't mind this trip quite so much because my Grandma happens to live in Houston. Unfortunately, my office was on the very north edge of Houston and she lives just south of town (making it over an hour trip one-way), so I was still stuck with fast food and hotels during the week. The weekends, however, were a different story. Every Friday, I would pack up my crap, check out of the hotel, and spend a couple days with her. 

We spent most of our time relaxing and watching rom-coms. I saw My Fair Lady for the first time (and second and third time as well, because we really liked the scene when they're at the racetrack, so we just kept putting it on). I also watched Shop Around the Corner for the first time (I watch You've Got Mail roughly once a week at home, so it was nice to finally see what it was based on). We also watched more Hallmark Channel movies than I care to mention.

We didn't just watch movies, though. Much like when I was younger and spent vacations decorating cookies and cakes with Grandma, as almost every kid does it seems, we spent a fair amount of time decorating cupcakes.

... In case you were wondering why I was rambling about my visit with Grandma on a cupcake site, this is why.

And since I have much better hand-eye coordination than I did as an eight year old, we actually got to do some pretty fun things. I brought Hello, Cupcake and What's Up, Cupcake? (the best cupcake decorating books I've ever seen), and after perusing the contents, we decided to make butterflies!

Che bella farfalla!

Now, I didn't really know a lot of people in Houston, but Grandma didn't necessarily want a house full of cupcakes, so I had to take most of them with me when I went back to the hotel that Sunday. Do you know what's awkward? Trying to give home-baked goods to hotel concierges. Considering that people tend to be wary of strangers, especially of strangers trying to force-feed them food, I started conversation with "so, I promise I'm not creepy, but I made some cupcakes this weekend if you'd like one..." After some pretty concerned looks on her part, she took one, and I'm happy to say, on behalf of cupcake-wielding strangers everywhere, that she did not die of poison (or anything... she's alive and well). 

Awkward encounters aside, we had so much fun baking together that we decided to make some more cupcakes when I went back the next weekend! This time we opted for a more delicious looking theme.

It's not actually french fries, it's just toasted pound cake.

The toasted pound cake and mini "ketchup-cakes" turned out so well that I kept forgetting I wasn't looking at real french fries! Which, if I'm being honest, was actually a shame. I love baking, decorating, and eating cupcakes, but I'm a salty-snack girl at heart. These cupcakes ended up prompting me to order way too many actual french fries over the next week. Oh well...

That's all we made on that trip, but she's going to spend some time in Dallas this Christmas, so who knows what we'll whip up then.

Also, if you find yourself dying to try some of these cupcakes, just let me know (contact information can be found on the "Place an Order" page), and I'm sure we can work something out!