Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We hope everyone is having a great weekend! We are using our first weekend of fall decorating the apartment a little and catching up on sleep (a lot!) We also decided to spend a little time in the kitchen and our favorite day of the week is making a comeback! We originally had another project planned that was supposed to be posted, but this is much better! The other night we were in the mood for some cupcakes and so we went with it. These little sweeties are pretty much fall in a cupcake!

These are our vanilla pumpkin mousse cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. We found an absolutely delish recipe for pumpkin curd, which is pretty much pumpkin, sugar, and butter (how can you go wrong?!) It's definitely one of those foods you can eat out of the jar with a spoon. Or a finger. The only thing that would make it better? Whipped cream mixed into it to make a mousse. The cupcakes are filled with this mousse. They are then topped with a basic cream cheese frosting, kicked up with a bit of cinnamon. They're a little "messy", but totally worth it! These pair quite well with some of the curd mixed into some freshly brewed coffee to make a pumpkin spice latte. It sounds like quite a bit of pumpkin, but it definitely isn't, especially in fall!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the weekend!

Cupcake Saturday!

Good morning!! We hope everyone is having a superb start to their weekend so far! It's another gorgeous day out here. It's a perfect day to open up the windows and do a little pre-summer cleaning and then enjoy the outdoors. We'll see what ends up happening :)
Anyway, it's been a while since we've had a Cupcake Saturday to share with you. The wait was definitely worth it, though! We made these for our birthday cupcakes but are sharing them a few weeks late.

We found these birthday cake M&M candies at Target and decided to make some treats with them. They are a vanilla cupcake base with a chocolate frosting. We didn't want to fill it with anything to keep it from being too sweet. Then we chopped up a handful of candies and top each with that. The hardest part of these cupcakes?? Trying to chop up the candy. We were so happy when we remembered the handy dandy coffee grinder we had- it made life much easier without having to chase M&M's all over the cutting board, etc. These were gone quite quickly.
Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Some More Birthday Wishes!

Good evening! We hope everyone has had a wonderful week! It's a sunny, "last Friday of School" day here and we couldn't be happier! We've finally caught up with all of our orders and side projects, and have some time for 'us' crafting (like yesterday's project in honor of today being "National Donut Day"!) Today's project is one of the birthday cards we made for our niece, who is celebrating(ed) her birthday today:

(Our pictures aren't doing the card justice. Unfortunately. They are much brighter in person.) The card was designed around the saying we found that was just too cute and fun to pass up. The inside of the card reads, "Birthdays are nature's way of telling you to eat more cake!" Because who needs a reason to eat more cake? Or cupcakes? Below is a close up of the little cupcake:

Of course, we used googly eyes and pop-dots to add a little dimension!
Thanks for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for another edition of Cupcake Saturday! It's been quite a while, but these are totally worth it!

Cupcake Saturday!

Welcome back to Cupcake Saturday!! It has been quite a while since we've made cupcakes, and they were totally missed. O our first Saturday back, we made a cupcake perfect for Valentine's Day. These are strawberry cream cheese cupcakes:

They are strawberry cupcakes, with bits of strawberries in the batter. Each is filled with a little of the cream cheese frosting, and topped off with some more. Luckily, we didn't make a lot of them because they were all gone in a few days (although there was a tiny bit of help eating them).
Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Happy Sunday afternoon! We hope you are all having a superb day so far. We've been getting ready to enjoy the short school week. Hopefully the kiddos will be on their best behavior this week. Today's project is another birthday card we made. This one is for our sister. It fits her personality quite well- bright and bubbly! And who doesn't like a cupcake on their birthday?! (Especially if you can't eat them in real life.)

The cupcake is layered, to pop out a bit. The little banner is also positioned to pop a little. The inside of the card has a 'sweet' saying, "Your birthday isn't about the number of candles you have to blow out, it's about the number of cupcakes you get!" Finding the right sentiment was the hardest part of making this card.
The paper we used is actually from a super-adorable new Christmas stack. It's called "Fa La La La " paper stack from Recollections. It was one of those purchases that was just calling our names. ( And on top of that, it was on sale! How can you go wrong?!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great day!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We know it's been a while since we've popped on here, and now it's late (still Saturday, though, so it's all good!) It's been a crazy few weeks. There have been lots of random projects to work on and short afternoons after work. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to work on many of our own projects. Anyway, today's post is a cupcake in honor of the last (unofficial) weekend of fall- everyone knows that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of the Christmas season! (Yep, it has it's own season!!) So, here they are:

These are our 'fall leaves' cupcakes. They are chocolate cupcakes with toffee bits baked inside. They are frosted with a green buttercream.

The trees were made with melting chocolate. They were a little hard to make- trees can be tough to draw, let alone make them with chocolate. We added some colorful sprinkles to them before they were set. Then we stuck them into the center of the cakes and added more sprinkles to the frosting. From the pictures, it's a bit hard to see, but some of the sprinkles are actually blue. We are fully aware that there aren't any blue leaves- but that would be pretty awesome! These would be a pretty cute addition to any fall-themed party.
Thanks so much for stopping by today! Have an amazing day!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend so far. It seems as if this weekend will be a good time to be outside, see some color, and enjoy the weather. Hopefully. As long as it's nicer than last weekend, it's a winner! And we'll probably spend it inside...crafting. Oh well. We've been rather busy with orders. We finished two yesterday and have another three to work on now.
We have another cupcake to share with you today. It is an apple crisp cupcake:

We were having a discussion on whether it should be considered a cupcake or a muffin. The jury is still out, but under either title, they're delicious! One of our mom's favorite (and yummiest) things to make during the fall is apple crisp. We decided to make this one in honor of her. It has huge chunks of apples, to really get the flavor. They also help keep the cupcake nice and moist. We decided to top it off with a batch of crumb topping. We were always known to be the ones who would pick the biggest "crumbs" off the pies and crisps, and anything else that you could put it on. This was no exception! (We made a small cake and topped it with a good inch of the crumble, and then proceeded to pick off the top.)

These cupcakes would be perfect for those days when you are looking for a treat, but not something overly sweet. And it has fruit in it, so they have to be good for you, no?!
Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope you all have a great day!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We hope everyone has had a wonderful work week. We are definitely looking forward to the weekend, even if it’s filled with a ton of work to do! At least we have a few more days of sun and warmer temperatures before the rainy season is upon us. Anyway, since it is Saturday, we have another cupcake to share. Today’s cupcake is a very fall-inspired one: Pumpkin-stuffed vanilla cupcakes, with a pumpkin spice buttercream.

 

These are a basic vanilla cupcake filled with a little pumpkin-y surprise! These are like our valentine’s day cupcakes a while back, with a heart in the middle. The pumpkin cake is a pumpkin-spice bread mix, cut into the shape of a pumpkin. Or, what is supposed to be a pumpkin. All of our cookie cutters were much too big, so we had to cut them by hand. I guess they don’t look too shabby, for paper and a knife. The basis for the frosting is a basic recipe. However, instead of using cream and vanilla for the liquid, we had some pumpkin-spice liqueur in the fridge, so we used that. We didn’t use so much that it’s over-powering, but just enough to taste it. To top them off, we sprinkled them with a bit of pumpkin-pie spice and cinnamon-and-sugar.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend!

Cupcake Saturday!

I don't know about you, but this week went by super fast! We've been busy adding to our store, with new cards and banners. And we had our aunt and uncle over, which was great. It's been a few years since we've seen them, so it was nice.
It started to feel a little like fall, and by that, I mean, we had two days of rain. After almost 2 months without any rain, we had just a little. So for our first fall-inspired cupcakes of the season, we have a Spiked Pumpkin Latte cupcakes!

These cupcakes have pumpkin puree and coffee granules, and are spiked with pumpkin pie liqueur. The original recipe called for mudslide mix, but I couldn't find any, and found this instead. It works for me! The frosting is a buttercream, with the same ingredients mixed in.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday (on Sunday again)

Good afternoon! We hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far. We've finally (maybe) got over our super early morning the other day and got back to work on our projects. So, like we said yesterday, our Cupcake Saturday was pushed back a day. Today's treat is a jelly-filled donut cupcake.

These are cinnamon-sugar and vanilla cupcake, topped dipped in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Once they were cooled, we cored them out and filled them with jam. They can be filled with any type of jam. These were filled with a huckleberry jam (which was surprisingly delicious!) but a strawberry would probably be awesome, too! And paired with a cup of coffee, these would be a perfect breakfast, in our opinion : D
Thanks for stopping by and joining us today. Enjoy!

Cupcake Saturday! (On Sunday)

How come Monday is so far from Friday and Friday is so close to Monday?! We had quite a busy weekend but needed to get our Cupcake Saturday in. I almost forgot about it yesterday, but on the way to pick up E & S from the airport it hit me! So here's this week's Cupcake Saturday Sunday.

This week, we made Mississippi Mud Pie Cupcakes. It's a good thing we did so much walking around yesterday, since these cupcakes are definitely not low anything, except gluten. We spent the day seeing just about everything they wanted to see in Seattle, which meant several hours of walking. Since S has Celiac disease, we needed to make sure that they were GF so she can enjoy them too! We started off with Betty Crocker's GF cake mix, put marshmallows and chocolate frosting in the inside, cooked them, and BAM! They made such a mess oozing out. The pan will need a heavy duty soaking tonight.

After prying them out of the pan, they were topped with more chocolate frosting, chopped pecans, and a mini marshmallow. Like I said, definitely not low-anything, but at least this week we have help eating them!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

I'm so excited to share these cupcakes today! The other day, we showed some of the adorable Baby Pooh things we are working on, and these go right along with them.

These honey pot cupcakes were so easy to make, but look awesome. These are just plain yellow cupcakes, frosted with lemon yellow buttercream, and stuck into a terracotta planter. They are decorated with paper cutouts saying "hunny," just like Pooh spells it. There is cupcake underneath there, but they're way too cute to dig through!

It could definitely be painted, or drawn on, but I'm much neater with paper. The honey around the top is just a strip of paper, trimmed to look like it's dripping down the sides. Again, could definitely be paint, but I'm just not that artistic, either.

No honey pot is complete without a buzzing bee or two flying around!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Welcome to another edition of Cupcake Saturday! Like we promised yesterday, today’s cupcakes are our Independence Day cupcakes we made for our family picnic. Before we begin, we would like to clarify- it was been 90-plus degrees out, so our cupcakes don’t look perfect. Unfortunately. But, like they say, don’t judge a book by its cover!

These are vanilla cupcakes with berry frostings. The blue frosting is a very berry flavor and the red is a strawberry frosting. We wanted to get the three colors onto our cupcakes, and I would say we succeded in that! We were looking online for some decorating ideas, we saw something similar to this. So, the first step is to cut the tops off the cupcakes and use a small cookie cutter to cut the shape out of the middle (or, in our case, a turkey baster. Ingenuity at its best.) Then you take some frosting and top the stump with it and then put the top back on. If needed, you can use a piping bag to fill the hole in some more. Our next issue was trying to cover up the cut in the cupcake. At first, we took the opposite color and made a ring around the cut. Within a few minutes, it started drooping, so we had to do something to cover it up. Fortunately, we had sprinkles we could use to make it look nice! These are nice because they aren't super-sweet. There isn't a whole lot of frosting, but just enough to add some pizzazz!

On a side note, we would like to thank everyone who reads us. Or at least clicks on our blog three or four days. Or those darn spammers (OK, not really them.) We have had 17,000 pageviews. It may not seem very exciting, but it makes us feel good! So, thanks! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope everyone has a wonderful day! Try to stay cool out there!

Cupcake Saturday!

It's been a couple of days since we've updated our posts. We left the West Coast last Sunday and made our way back east this week. Sure, we could've flown and been here in a few hours, but if you ever get the chance to drive cross-country, I strongly suggest it. We have done this trip a couple of times now, but each time is a little different. What's not different is the feeling you get when you get a big giant hug at the end of the trip from your family! We didn't tell our parents that we were coming out here, party because we knew mom would worry the whole way, and partly to give them a big surprise. Well, it definitely was a big surprise. It took them a minute or two to realize what was going on. It was definitely worth it.
Anyway, enough about our trip, today is Cupcake Saturday! It's nice when we can make a batch of cupcakes and not have to worry about what to do with all of them, (or eating all of them ourselves.) We have help this week, which is awesome. I asked mom what they like, and she said "bananas and chocolate." Of course with these two flavors, we needed to make a Chunky Monkey Cupcake!

It is a chocolate-banana cupcake with chocolate filling, with banana whipped cream topping and chopped nuts. It's definitely a chunk-ifying cupcake, but so worth it!
Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Good morning on this absolutely gorgeous Saturday morning! We hope everyone is having a great day so far! Ours is looking to be busy, but hopefully we'll be able to relax a little tomorrow. Anyway, the cupcakes we are sharing with you today are the ones we made for our birthday last weekend. At the beginning of May, as we were watching the Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family for the umpteenth time, we decided that we really wanted to have a Harry Potter themed birthday this year. Honestly, who wouldn't want to live in a world full of magic and mystery?! (And who says 27 is too old for a birthday party?!) We had a whole bunch of ideas to work with , but unfortunately, life got in the way and we didn't get around to it. But, we did make cupcakes to celebrate! These are our butterbeer cupcakes, in honor of Harry Potter:

We took a shortcut with these, and used a butter cake mix. Instead of adding water, we added cream soda to the batter (it was kind of difficult to find the cream soda. Not too many stores out here sell it. Who knew??) Once the cupcakes were cooled, we took white buttercream frosting and added a package of butterscotch pudding to it. We mixed it to make a butterscotch buttercream. (This would probably have been better looking if it was a homemade frosting, but it tastes delicious!) These were exactly what I would imagine a mug of butterbeer to taste like.
If the cupcake form isn't quite your thing, there are a ton of other recipes out there for drink versions. We've tried the one from this website, which was surprisingly good. It's not the heathiest drink out there, and drinking a tablespoon of butter may not be on your top list of things to do, but it is tasty in small portions. (That's in the mug.) We also found a butterbeer frappuccino 'recipe' here for the coffee drinker who frequents the corner Starbucks. I wonder if the one at Safeway would make this for us. There are also cream soda-based recipes, too.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a magical day!!

Cupcake Satuday!!

We're back! It has been a few weeks since we've had the time to make some cupcakes. But, between work and orders and everything else that seems to take up our time, we found a few minutes to make these! This week's cupcakes are Nutella cupcakes with strawberry jelly frosting.

 These are kind of a mix between two recipes. The cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes with Nutella mixed in. I was a little surprised when they came out because there wasn't much of a Nutella-y flavor to them, even though I added more than the original recipe called for. But it might have added to the softness of the cupcakes. A lot of other recipes pipe some Nutella into the middle of the cupcakes, but I'd rather just eat it out of the jar (as you can kind of tell). Once the cupcakes cooled, we topped them with a strawberry jelly buttercream. This was a definite risk, but I think it worked out. It was a lot sweeter than we would normally make, but it balances out the cupcake nicely, especially if you make a sandwich out of the cupcake.
Anyway, we hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and that you get to do something fun and exciting! Thanks for stopping by!!

Cupcake Saturday!

Good morning! Unfortunately, it's been a few days since we've posted. We have been pretty busy with other projects that our blog has been a little quiet. We've been busily working on a set of wedding invitations (off of Etsy, which is super exciting because it's someone we don't actually know!) and apparently everyone and their father enjoys superheroes and have birthdays coming up. And, on top of that, we spend today working on some DIY tutorials we'll share in the upcoming days. However, since today is Saturday, we have a cupcake to share with you!
I don't know about elsewhere, but it was pretty nice here today. The sun was shining brightly and there wasn't a raindrop in sight! It was a bit chilly, though, but that's what layers are for! After the few days of rain we had this week, it was most definitely a welcome sight. It was one of those days that gets you ready for spring. Because of this spring weather, we decided to make a 'spring-y' cupcake for today. These are lemon cupcakes, filled with a lemon curd, and topped off with a mixed berry buttercream frosting.

We used fresh lemons (and some bottled lemon juice) for the cupcakes and filling, and a mix of freshly-unfrozen mashed berries, including blueberries and raspberries. With all the fruit in these, they have to be good for you, right?!
Thanks for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for one of our DIY projects!

Cupcake Saturday!

Welcome to another Cupcake Saturday! We hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. We've been having absolutely gorgeous weather- just chilly enough to remind you it's still February, but sunny enough to not miss all of the rain! And on top of it, we have seen the first flowers of spring! There's a little patch of crocuses that popped up at the park.
Anyway, for today's cupcake, we were inspired by the warmer weather. Although summer is still months away, this cupcake reminds us of summer.

These are our "coffee-shop inspired" mocha coconut cupcakes. As residents of this great state, we might be one of a few that would prefer a coffee from Dunkin Donuts, but since we don't have any here (unfortunately) we work with what we have. This drink is probably our favorite warm-weather drink, and on our road trip a few summers ago, it was pretty much how we got all of our calories in (along with our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the trunk).
These cupcakes are chocolate with a hint of coffee. We were kind of nervous when we made the batter because the coffee flavor was too strong. Luckily, the flavor mellowed out a bit once they were baked. There is also some coconut in the batter. Once they were cooled, we topped them with some lightly-sweetened whipped cream, toasted coconut, and drizzled with some melted dark chocolate. They may not taste just like the drink, but they're excellent, none the less! And even if you're not a fan of coffee, the topping is good on its own!!
Thanks for stopping by!!

Cupcake Saturday!

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a super weekend and getting excited for the big game tomorrow. We had actually been planing on doing a whole week on the Super Bowl, or at least football-related projects, but decided Valentine's Day was more our thing. Or, maybe we would have if the Seahawks or the Patriots were in it. OK, or the Giants, because I feel the need they should be mentioned. However, today's cupcake is sure to please everyone, no matter what team you're rooting for.

These are our rendition of a chicken wing cupcake. It is a cornbread muffin with a fluffy mashed potato frosting. To top it off, we added a little buffalo chicken wing on top. (Serving 'cupcakes' with veggies makes them healthy, right?!) Our favorite part of the cupcake is the chicken wing, but the ranch potatoes were a close second! They would be a great addition to any tailgate!
Now, we can't take all the credit for this idea. They were somewhat popular last year during football season. We were watching the news the other morning and there was a quick report on a cupcake baker in New York City who has done a small line of manly, football cupcakes, including some (possibly) tasty ones like a chocolate pretzel, or a not-so-sweet pepperoni pizza cupcake. Those would be two fun ones to try some time!
Um, so before we sign off for today, we would like to wish our track team back at home good luck today at their meet! It's their conference meet, and it's the biggest of the season for most of them. We, meaning they, should have some good performances today, and we wish we could be there with them! Good luck, kids!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend!

Cupcake Saturday!

Yay! It's finally Saturday! We hope everyone has had a wonderful week. It's been pretty chilly and foggy here all week, but it isn't snow, so it's OK. (Although we still hope for those snow days.) We are definitely looking forward to this three-day weekend. So, since it is (still) Saturday, we have a new cupcake to share with you. This is Valentine's Day-inspired cupcake, with some strawberries and lots of chocolate, and a nice surprise. You'd be sure to get on anyone's good side with these.

 

There is so much chocolate in these little guys. They are a chocolate cake, with a dark chocolate frosting, and a chocolate-covered strawberry on top! The surprise is in the wine we used. I don't know if anyone has tried this, but it is called 'Chocovine', which is chocolate wine. It's like a grown-up chocolate milk. We used some in the batter and the frosting. And another surprise is found inside the cupcake:

 

They are filled with a strawberries and cream mixture. It is a lightly sweetened whipped cream, with strawberries folded in.

How delicious do these cupcakes look?? They can get the attention of that special someone, or they are can just cause a 'death by chocolate'.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful (long) weekend!!