Holiday Spices

 

After receiving an abundance of baking/cooking supplies for Christmas, I got in the mood to make some holiday cupcakes. So here they are: Gingerbread Cupcakes with a Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting, then topped with a homemade Molasses Cookie.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Along with an abundance of pumpkin pies, I made a Salted Caramel Apple Pie for Thanksgiving this year. The apples were simmered in homemade caramel and then sprinkled with sea salt (appropriate since we spent Thanksgiving by the shore) before being put into the crust. My mother then cut out the lovely dough leaves to top the pie with.

Owl Cupcakes; A Halloween Treat

I made these owl cupcakes for a Halloween party because I thought they'd be a cute alternative to the traditional pumpkins and spiders and all that jazz. They're made from my grandma's chocolate cake recipe (my favorite :)) and then the decorations are pretty obvious:
Oreos for the eyes and ears
Brown M&Ms for the pupils
Yellow M&Ms for the beaks
And then I piped more chocolate icing around the ears as feathers :)

Caramel-Apple Cupcakes- *Award Winning!*

Every October, my town hosts this huge farm show and as part of it, there is a baking contest. I entered these caramel-apple inspired cupcakes this year, and they won first prize in the cupcake category!

The cupcake itself is a spiced apple cake with chunks of fresh diced apple (yum!!) and lots of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. They're frosted with a caramel buttercream, and then garnished with more caramel. In the first batch I made, I attempted to stuff them with a caramel filling, but that idea crashed and burned. The caramel seemed like the right liquidy consistency, but after about an hour the centers of my cupcakes solidified, turning out somewhat like those hard caramel candies. This was quite disappointing, but a few batches of caramel later, I finally got the consistency down. The key is: follow the caramel recipe exactly.

In the end, the cupcakes were very time-consuming but absolutely delicious. Every time I opened the container they were kept in, the cinnamon smell just wafted out and made everyone's mouth water. If you are considering doing anything with caramel, I recommend allowing yourself a good few hours to perfect it, but in the end it will be so worth it.

Candy Sushi

I hosted an Asian-themed party a little while ago and this Candy Sushi was a big hit. All it is is Rice Krispie Treats rolled with Swedish Fish and then wrapped in Fruit Roll-Ups. Super simple but very tasty and impressive :)

Happy 4th!

To celebrate Independence Day, I baked up some Red Velvet cupcakes, iced them with cream cheese frosting, and topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries. I replaced some of the butter/oil with buttermilk, which gave them a light and fluffy texture. It took a whole bottle of food coloring to give them their color; that's a lot of Red dye 40!


Have a fun and safe July 4th :)