it's cupcake time in the city

So for Christmas this year, I decided to make some Christmas cupcakes for friends and for a Christmas party last weekend.  I'd have to say, I had a ball.

Very Vanilla Snowflake Cupcake

For this cupcake I just used a vanilla box mix.  I know, I know, but I'm in grad school okay.  I made these little snowflakes with some white royal icing and some pearl sprinkles.  The icing in just vanilla buttercream tinted with a little bit of Wilton royal blue icing.

Cran-Orange-Pecan Cupcake

This is pronounced pee-can, not pe-caun, just FYI.  I used the other half of that vanilla cake mix and added in some orange zest, chopped cranberries, and chopped pecans.  The icing for these was a vanilla-orange buttercream and the garnish was a whole pecan and half a berry.

Hot Coco Cupcakes

These were done with a chocolate box mix, mini marshmallows glued on with some vanilla butter cream and a pepper mint stick in the top.  Really simple, but super cute.

Peppermint Chocolate Cupcake

For these I also used the left over chcolate mix from the last set.  I just added some crushed candy canes to the buttercream.  You have to crunch it pretty fine, or it will get stuck in the tip.  I tinted it pink and put some more crushed candy cane on top.



Gingerbread Cupcake

These tasted SO good.  I got the recipe off of Martha Stewart.  It makes 24 cupcakes.  I frosted them with cream cheese icing and some simple sprinkles or some cinnamon.

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar

1 cup unsulphered molasses

2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 muffin tins with paper baking cups, and set aside. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. In a bowl, combine boiling water and baking soda; set aside. In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground spices, salt, and baking powder; set aside.
2. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light. Beat in the brown sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the molasses, baking-soda mixture, and flour mixture. Beat in the eggs.
3. Fill the cupcake papers three-quarters full, making sure that the batter is divided evenly. Bake cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center of them comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cupcakes cool a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.



Egg Nog Cupcakes

I'm not sure if these tasted better or if the ginerbread ones did.  They definatly looked beautiful.

Ingredients

• 1  (16-oz.) package pound cake mix
• 1 1/4  cups  eggnog
• 2  large eggs
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2  teaspoon  vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Beat all ingredients together at low speed with an electric mixer until blended. Increase speed to medium, and beat 2 minutes. Pour into a lined cupcake pans.  Makes about 16.
2. Bake at 350° for about 18 minutes.

Frosting

1/2  cup  butter, softened

1  (3-oz.) package cream cheese, softened

1  (16-oz.) package powdered sugar

1/4  cup  eggnog

1/2  teaspoon  freshly grated nutmeg

1/2  teaspoon  vanilla extract

 Beat butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar alternately with eggnog, beginning and ending with sugar and beating at low speed. Add freshly grated nutmeg and vanilla extract; beat until smooth. Spread over cupcakes.

I garnished these with a cinnamon stick.  I found these in the mexican food's section.



Pink Flowers!

Another good friend of mine had a very special birthday on Dec. 6th...

This cake was 5 layers of yellow cake with a semi-sweet chocolate ganache inbetween.  I used butter cream to dam the filling and crumb coat the cake and then covered the whole thing in pink marshmallow fondant.  The little back ball border is fondant (I had dye on my fingers for about a week) and the flowers and topper are made from a white and very dark gray royal icing.  

My picts of this didn't turn out that great, but the cake was quite pretty! 

Birthday #24

My birthday was on Sunday and that called for a really nice cake.  I started making it on Saturday and it was going to be this awesome 10" yellow cake with chocolate cream filling.  Well, after a series of small disasters, I ended up throwing that cake away and starting over.  I guess I have been watching too much Cake Boss or something.  

Anyways, the cake I made ended up pretty awesome.  I also tried out marshmallow fondant for the first time and it was SO FUN!!!  Sticky, but really fun.  I will make some sort of tutorial looking post for it later because it is definitely something that should be tried.  I just made the David's yellow cake that I love, filled it will raspberry and chocolate (I didn't have enough chocolate to fill the whole thing b/c of that dumb cake that I threw away) and frosted it with a quick crumb coat.

I made the fondant and dyed it all yellow.  My yellow turned out a little bright, but it's my favorite color so it was perfect.  I put some nice white flowers and green leaves on there with royal icing and a brush, and then I stuck all these nice little pearl sprinkles on. 
My friends also gave me a beautiful red cake server and my cake looked pretty nice on it.