S’mores cupcakes

A few weeks ago Sweets & Treats Boutique was calling upon volunteers to test out their new grease proof cupcake liners.  I readily emailed my name and address.  What a perfect excuse to bake and have it showcased in pretty paper.

After eagerly waiting by my mailbox, they finally arrived.  (Okay, so it felt like forever, but I was ridiculously excited!)

I received 12 zebra printed cupcake liners and 12 black & white checkered printed cupcake liners.  At a glance they look and feel like everyday cupcake liners, but remember these are suppose to be grease proof.  After much debate, I decided to use a new recipe – S’mores cupcakes – to test them out.

Okay, so I’ve gone camping as a kid with my parents and my sister, and I’ve done the camping thing in my twenties with a group of my friends and my husband (who at the time was my boyfriend).  No I’m not talking about hard core camping, like go out hiking for 20 kilometeres deep into the forest, pitch a tent and heat up something that was dehydrated and may or may not resemble it’s picture on the package.

With my parents ,we camped at the KOA and they were happy we were together as a family, away from tv and near an electric outlet (for our rice cooker – I’m Filipino! – and our electric skillet.)  LOL.

With my friends we annually camped at various public camping sites in our large group of 10 – 12 couples.  The weekend was devoted to hanging out, swimming and just being lazy.  The evenings, if we were allowed to due to dry weather, get the campfire going.  Oh those summer days….

But I can honestly say, I’ve never really had a s’more.  (GASP!)

We tried to once, a group of friends and myself.  But the hunt for graham crackers that one night proved to be a wild goose chase.

So here I am, several years after the fact, feeling nostalgic for a treat I’ve never really eaten.

I have to admit one of my favourite parts of this cupcake was the homemade marshmallow.  Something I wouldn’t have attempted had I not had a stand up mixer.  Love that beautiful kitchen tool!!!  The other part I loved about this cupcake was torching the marshmallow to have that classic “burnt” appearance.  The cupcake itself is fantastic because it’s not just a vanilla cupcake with all the fixings of a s’more over it, but an actual graham cracker cupcake base.  And it was so lovely and moist.  Heaven.

As for the cupcake liners I was testing….fantastic!!!  They held the white colour of the zebra print.

Typically this is would just become a transparent piece of paper and there’d be no clear definition of what color paper was bought.  And seeing as some are a pretty penny, being able to see the paper does mean a lot!!!

Mini Diva Cupcakes

My best friend hosted a Party Lite party today and had asked me to make some cupcakes.  Of course I obliged her with some chocolate mini cupcakes.  Mainly because I had some kicking around and didn’t want it to go to waste.

But I wanted to give it that extra “umph”.  It would a room full of women with smart tasted, I wanted to try painting.  On fondant.

Nothing fancy.

I wasn’t trying to discover my inner Van Gogh.  Just some patterns on fondant.  I mainly wanted to see if I could do it.  Maybe I was tapping into my inner girlie-girlie.

I started out by cutting 1 1/2″ circles from white fondant and allowed this to completely dry out – approximately a day.  I cut out about 30 some odd circles – you start to get into a rhythm and begin to lose count after a while….

I dusted half of these circles in pink.  Then using a hot pink edible paint and a paint brush I started to paint on dots.  Nothing perfect – big, small, misshapen shapes.  Once these were dry I proceeded to paint the dark shadow – a la leopard print.  I really loved how this turned out!!

On the rest I just left them with complete black spots or zebra printed patterns.

The full effect – fondant circles topping cupcakes, caught me by surprise.

GORGEOUS!  Very worthy of a group of DIVAS at a Saturday afternoon candle party.

Mini Birthday Cakes

I have 2 friends who share the same birthday today.  I won’t say how old they are, because I’m sure one of them will cry and the other will smack me if I dare post it.  Hehehehe.

And for birthdays, I’m a firm believer that cake must be served.  I also believe ice cream should be served too, but one thing at a time….

So a not so late night up and 2 chocolate mini cakes later, I came up with these cute tasty treats.

Happy Birthday N!

And Happy Birthday J!

Pumpkin “pie” cupcakes – ooops!

Autumn.

It’s my favorite season of the 4.  I love how there is a coolness in the air.  The colour of the leaves before they fall to the ground.  The fact that I look great in sweaters over bikinis!  I’m just saying….

I also love pumpkins.  Really these are great orange things that seem to go well with anything and everything this time of year.  I love it in soups, as jack-o-lanterns at Halloween, and as something to prop up my kids against when they were babies.

(What?!  You haven’t done this to your child??  Well, get yourself to nearest farm and click away, my friend.)

So with pumpkin season underway, I was more than determined to incorporate this into a cupcake.  This is the first time that I’ve cooked anything using pumpkin, and after much research I found a great recipe of Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream through My Kitchen Addiction.  It had it all.  Pumpkin, sugar, sweet and spices – what could go wrong?  (Sigh – Murphy’s Law – when saying this, always expect that something will go wrong)

And it did.

I goofed.  It was a small goof.

It was an honest mistake.

Instead of pumpkin puree, I added canned pumpkin pie filling.  Yup there is a difference.  I realized it once I pulled the cupcakes out of the oven, and although they smelled heavenly, they were a little dense.

So I did what anyone would do in this matter.  I got my hubby to test try them.  He knew something was up when I literally stared at him as he took the first bite.

Hubby: “What?”

Me: “How was it?”

Hubby: (taking second bite) “It’s good….” (Pause, now staring at the cupcake for any hidden vegetables or tofu) “What did you do to it?”

Me: “I put in pumpkin pie filling instead of puree.”

Hubby: “Oh. (finishing off cupcake) Yay, it tastes like pumpkin pie, but without the crust.”

I took a bite of one at that very moment, and he was right.  It does taste like a tiny pumpkin pie without the crust!  Crazy.  So my goof fell in my favor.  Thank goodness!  It tastes just as great with the frosting too.

So word to the wise.  Make mistakes.  Some mistakes can lead to good things.  Tasty things that are perfect for autumn days and leaning against pumpkins.