Breaking Dawn Part 1

I'm definitely not a movie critic so I won't give you my full review of the first Breaking Dawn, but I will say that really enjoyed this movie (and even more the 2nd time).  I wouldn't say it was my favorite but the series has definitely come a long way since the first Twilight which was just an embarrassment to great book. Instead of reviewing the movie I wanted to share all the awesome cupcakes and prizes my friend and I made for the midnight showing party she holds each year.  This was the third year in a row my friend has rented out a movie theater so that 120 of her closest friends can see and enjoy (or hate on) the Twilight Saga movies together.  She also makes sure there are plenty of cupcakes for everyone to enjoy before the movie and creates her very own trivia game. This year I was able to help make the cupcakes and a lot of the prizes for the trivia game; so for a good week before we scrambled to make prizes and eight dozen Breaking Dawn themed cupcakes.  It's going to be hard top everything we did this year for Part 2 next year.
Here are just a few pictures of everything we made.

The Cupcakes:

We know it's wrong but a half vampire baby being born cupcake was needed

"Why am I covered in feathers"

Werewolf cupcakes are a must!

Isle Esme

The Prizes (all made with vinyl and my Silhouette of course!):
Ornaments purchased from Michaels and wine glasses purchased from Cost Plus

 

It's a Bitter Sweet Ending

For those that don't know, which I'm sure there are few, the last installment of the Harry Potter movie series came out this past Friday.  Although the movie was great I'm slightly depressed now that it's really over.

Radish Earrings

Since this was the last movie we of course had to go to the midnight showing, we of course had to make shirts, and we OF COURSE had to have Butterbeer Cupcakes!!! Oh and you can't forget the Radish and Snitch earrings!

I hope everyone that saw the movie enjoyed it as much as we did!!!

Butterbeer Cupcake recipe courtesy of Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.  These cupcakes were delicious, you could really taste the cream soda and the butterscotch in the frosting was amazing!

Ruffled Flower Cupcake Toppers

As I was perusing the web I stumbled upon these adorable cupcakes toppers from Jessicakes Blog.  Once I saw these I had to try them, they were just so cute.

For my first attempt everything was going fine until I got a couple splashes of water in my Candy Melts as they were melting, I've heard this is a BIG NO NO, well turns out it's very true.  Once I poured the chocolate out to cool it turned into a rock.  I think I might have strained a neck muscle trying to roll it out, I gave up after seven flowers. The ones I  were able to make were also very brittle and cracked easily.

For my second attempt, I was tasked to make them for an engagement party so I had to make sure I got them right.  I was very careful when melting the chocolate to make sure that no water made its way in and let me tell you, it made all the difference.  I also poured the chocolate out very thin on the wax paper so that it would be easier to roll out.  After taking all those precautions the chocolate was much easier to roll out and I was able to get 16 flowers out of one batch.  It was a success! One great tip Jessicakes had for better presentation was to brush the completed flowers with vodka to clean of the left over cornstarch, it totally works and you can't taste the alcohol after.  I took a before picture of my second attempt but completely forgot to take an after picture so I've included an after picture from my first attempt that shows them all cleaned off.

Ready to be formed

Completed flowers before clean up

First attempt

To make modeling chocolate or candy clay you first melt one bag (14 ounces) of Wilton Candy Melts and then mix in 1/3 cup light corn syrup until until it's fully incorporated.  This may take awhile and your chocolate will seem kind of watery for a bit but after some stirring it will go away and you'll have a nice "ball" of chocolate that you can pour out onto wax paper to cool.  I let my cool overnight before I used it but you could probably use it after it's gotten to room temperature.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I wanted to make cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day that weren't just your standard cupcakes with green frosting, I wanted something unique.  So I do what I do best, I started searching the Internet, and it turns out there are so many for fun St. Patrick Day cupcakes.  The one that sounded the best to me was an Irish Car Bomb inspired cupcake, which just so happens to be my favorite St. Patrick's Day shot/drink.  For those that don't know what an Irish Car Bomb is it's a 1/2-3/4 pint of Guinness, 1/2 shot of Baily's and 1/2 shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey; mix the shots together and drop into the pint and drink away! It's delicious and tastes like chocolate milk.  Although I must warn you, be careful when making this drink at home, if not done right the Baily's can curdle (I've learned from experience). 
 
Anyway, I was talking about cupcakes and this recipe I found from Annie's Eats is fantastic! The Baily's Ganache was my favorite part. Since I was on a time crunch to get these done I've rearranged the recipe/directions in the order I did things so that I was able to get everything done in about 2.5 hours.  It also helps to have a husband that loves baked good and can be bribed into helping as long as he gets the first cupcake.
Recipe for Guinness Cupcakes with Baily's Frosting:
 
1. Guinness & Chocolate Cupcakes

• 1 cup Guinness
• 16 tbsp. unsalted butter
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  Combine the stout and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1½ tsp. baking soda
• ¾ tsp. salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup sour cream

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the eggs and sour cream to blend.  Add the stout-butter mixture and beat just to combine.  Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed just until incorporated.  Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners, filling them about 2/3 to ¾ full.  Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes.  Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

If you have a 12 cup cupcake pan make the Ganache while the first batch is cooking

2. Baily's Chocolate Ganache

• 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp. butter, at room temperature
• 2 tsp. Bailey’s Irish cream

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan until simmering, then pour it over the chocolate.  Let sit for one minute and then whisk until smooth.  If the chocolate is not completely melted, place the bowl over a double boiler or give it a very short burst in the microwave (15-20 seconds).  Add the butter and Bailey’s and stir until combined. Place in fridge to cool, stir every 10 minutes for even cooling

While your second batch of cupcakes are cooking make your Frosting

3. Baily's Buttercream Frosting

• 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 4-8 tbsp. Bailey’s Irish cream

Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.  Gradually add the powdered sugar until it is all incorporated.  Mix in the Bailey’s until smooth.  Add more if necessary until the frosting has reached a good consistency for piping or spreading

Once you've made all your cupcakes and they've had time to cool a bit you can pipe the ganache into your cupcakes, I used the Wilton tip #230.  Once all your cupcakes are filled you can frost them how ever you like. Makes 24-30 cupcakes


I was also able to use my new Silhouette to make custom St. Patrick Day cupcake wrappers...so fun!!!

 

S'More Please

Who out there doesn't love S'Mores?  All that chocolate, marshmallow melted goodness sandwiched between two graham crackers, they're delicious. I thought these looked a lot more difficult than they turned out to be, but I took them step by step and they turned out perfect, and not that difficult.  I especially liked the Marshmallow Frosting, it was so light and fluffy, definitely one I'll be using again.

Fresh from the oven

Perfect layers

Yummy marshmallow center

 


















For full recipes of the cupcakes and frosting click here and here

For next time:
- I might try taking the graham cracker crumble (crushed graham crackers, brown sugar, and butter) and make it the bottom layer so it's more like a crust

Margarita Cupcakes

I love the idea of taking your favorite cocktail and turning it into a cupcake, they are almost more fun than the cocktail itself, almost.  A friend of mine was having a "Fiesta BBQ" and of course I jumped at the chance to make the desserts because I had the perfect pairing for a Fiesta.  I saw these cupcakes a long time ago on another one of my favorite blogs Hostess with the Mostess, but never really had any reason to make them until now.  What made me choose this recipe over others was that it included both Tequila and Grand Marnier, and of all the margaritas out there I love Cadillac Margarita's the best.  A nice compliment to the cupcake was the Lime Buttercream Frosting, it was very sweet and brought out that lime flavor of a margarita. And check out those straws...they are my new favorite cupcake decoration.

For the full recipe click here.

Vampire or Werewolf?

Yes, I am a Twilight fan.I love the books and love the movies (well maybe not Twilight as much, let's face it that was a bad movie).
When New Moon came out a friend of mine invited me to go to the midnight showing where her friend had coordinated a theater to be rented out for all her Twilight friends to enjoy the midnight showing together.  She also coordinated a pre-movie trivia game where people could win prizes and she made Twilight inspired cupcakes. They were amazing and so creative, there were vampire and werewolf cupcakes.  For Eclipse this past year she planned to do the same thing and I jumped at the chance to help her make the cupcakes for the midnight showing. Since I work longer hours I wasn't able to help bake the cupcakes but I was able to decorate, it was so much fun and I got to make my first werewolf which I had seen in Hello, Cupcake! but had been too intimidated to try.
On top of the the werewolves, we also made Fire & Ice cupcakes, Tent cupcakes, Forks, WA cupcakes, newborn cupcakes, and cupcakes with fangs.

Here are just a couple pictures of the cupcakes we made for Eclipse:

 

 

 

I can't wait to see what we can come up with for the Breaking Dawn in November!!

Hamburger Cupcakes?

Sounds strange, but they are delicious!! I made these last summer for a BBQ and I can't think of a better cupcake that pairs with a BBQ.
I first saw this post on one of my favorite blogs Bakerella , if you have not visited this site I highly recommend it. Hamburger Cupcakes have three parts; cupcake (bun), brownie (meat), and frosting (ketchup, mustard, and lettuce).  They are ingenious and the blend of cupcake, frosting and brownie are amazing.

Follow these easy steps for assembling your "Hamburgers"

1. Bake your cupcakes (yellow cake tends to look more like a bun), let them cool completely and then cut in half
2. Bake brownies, let them cool completely and then cut out 1 1/2" circles
3. Separate a tub of store bought cream cheese or butter cream frosting or your own creation into three bowls, color one green (lettuce), yellow (mustard), and red (ketchup)
4. Build your burger: add brownie to the bottom half of a cupcake, pipe on your condiments, add the top half of the cupcake, and lastly add a couple sesame seeds to the top to really make it look like a hamburger.
5. Makes 20-24 cupcakes

Here is a picture of the end result:

 A couple tips:

•  Make sure you let the cupcakes cool completely so they don't fall apart when you take them out of the wrapper
•  Add a little bit of purple to your red frosting to make it a deeper red

For next time:

• I might try to add some orange to my yellow next time to make it a little bit darker
• I might also make the French Fries that are also shown on Bakerella