DC Cupcakes

A friend of the family brought me a 1/2 dozen cupcakes from DC cupcakes yesterday. Not impressed. lol.  I tried the peanutbutter/chocolate first, since these are one of my best sellers  Mine are better. lol.  The cake stuck to the cupcake liner, and if anyone watches Cupcake Wars, this is a big no-no.  The cake was dry and the icing was way too sweet. The peanut butter was good, but the chocolate was sweet enough to make your teeth hurt.  I'm trying the cinnamon one this morning. Dry,dry,dry... And it has a weird after-taste. Not quite sure what it is.  I just hope he didn't have to stand in line for a long time to get these.  In my opinion, definitely not worth all the hype.

Buttermilk

I wish they would sell buttermilk in pint containers. The only thing I use it for is cakes and a quart is way too much to use before the expiration date.  I've seen on pinterest to put the excess in ice cube trays and freeze it, which I have done, but then I have to look up how many I need for 1/2 cup. The smart thing would be to write it on the recipe, but I'm usually not that together.lol.

So, I started to freeze it in my 1/2 cup pyrex measuring cup, then I pop it out when it is frozen and put the pucks in a freezer bag. Much easier.

 I don't usually bake on the spur of the moment, so thawing the buttermilk is not a problem.  This is the easiest way I have found to freeze most things. While the ice cube tray is a good idea, I like this one better.

Visiting local cupcake shop

I knew there was a cupcake shop near my hometown, so I decided to look for it today.
Not sure I should have wasted my time or gas. After finding it and walking inside, it was immediate disappointment.  I was expecting to find a bright, lively shop. Instead, it was in bad need of a paint job, and the front window was in bad need of attention.  I'm not saying I'm an expert on how it should look, but if I was disappointed before even tasting the cupcakes, that isn't a good sign.  I think if you are going to go to the expense of opening and maintaining a shop,  you should make it look as good as you can. First impressions are everything.

The cupcake I got wasn't that great either. It was supposed to be a pink lemonade cupcake. The cake was really dense. Not light and fluffy at all.  I didn't notice any lemon flavor either.. I just have this nasty taste in my mouth 3 hours after I ate it. Not sure what it is, but it's not a good taste.

I don't like to complain about businesses, but, like I said before, if you are going to run a business that you want to do well, appearance matters.

Silicone Ice Cube trays

I've always seen these seasonal ice cube trays at the craft stores and thought, what else could I do with those?  Well, here is one of my ideas.  This tray is from JoAnn fabric.  I love the little flip flops.  I also wanted small flipflops for a decoration on top of my cupcakes.

These will be the perfect size for cupcakes. You can make them whatever color you want. I just happened to have some yellow candy melts in a squeeze bottle that was the perfect size for small lines.  I'm also going to do some chocolate covered oreo's in the mold. It's great to get 10  from one mold.  You would use the mini oreo's in them.
I'm going to look at decorative ice cube molds in a whole new way now.  They always have such great shapes for holidays as well as seasonal.  So many ideasssssss.......

btw:  You only need to fill them with a little chocolate for decorations for cupcakes. Just enough to fill the bottom, but not so little that they might crack when you take them out of the mold.
I pulled the sides of the mold to release it around the sides of the chocolate before I pushed on the bottom of the mold to release them.  Trial and error is the best way to find which way works for you. I was lucky that none of them broke on my first attempt.

Autism Awareness Week

To celebrate autism awareness week, I did these cupcakes. I wish I had been able to find a smaller puzzle piece candy mold, but these will have to do.

Easter cupcakes

Easter really came fast this year. Here are a few of the cupcakes I did for the occassion.

a few more

a few more'

finally...

Cubcake Wars

I did the Norwin Lions Club Cupcake Wars this weekend. It was done to help the Kitty Sack program at Norwin School District. This is a program that helps out kids who may not have enough to eat weekends when they aren't in school.

This is the first time I have done any contest like this. It was a fun time. They raised over 4000.00 dollars to go to the fund.  All the contestants made cupcakes for all the attendees to sample, and then made special ones to be judged. This was my cc to be judged.  It was a lemon/blueberry cc.

This is a pic of my table of treats for all the visitors.

It's not a very good pic. It was hard to get close enough to get a good one. My kids don't look happy here, but they had a good time helping out.

And finally, I won 2nd place!!! First time I have ever gotten a trophy. Yeaaaaa!!!

The trophies were for the judges cupcakes. There were also awards for the kids choice,most donations..

New cupcake toy

I was in Sur La Table a few days ago and saw Cupcake Creations icing duets.

I thought this would be a great way to do the two color icing. Look at how beautiful the cupcakes are on the package.

This is what mine look like.

I am not a novice piper, believe me.  I piped out a few stars with the beginning of the bag.

Even worse in my opinion. I kept the icing to a minimum on both sides of the bag. 

There was no problem squeezing the bag. It's just the chocolate side wasn't coming out . I pushed the chocolate down into the bag by massaging the bag while pushing up on the marshmallow side.  The outside ring of the piped stars are the first ones to come out.  Even when I made it to the inside, the chocolate still isn't an even amount with the white.

I am not happy with this product. I thought it would be easier than using the two small bags inside the larger decorating bag.  I will go back to the two small inside the larger one. You can't use the bags with a regular coupler and tip either. I may try them without either and see what I get.

New gadgets

I've purchased a few new 'toys' for baking since Christmas.

First, the new pan from Wilton that makes little cupcake 'pucks' for all kinds of uses. I bought it to make the cupcakes to use in the 'push-up' containers.

  I love it for this. They are the perfect size for the push up containers that I have. Plus, you can fit 3 of them in with plenty of icing.  I used to use cake balls, but I definitely like the pucks better.  Neater presentation.



                                                                    

Next:  The Batter babies. These are a partition for making different color/flavor cupcakes.  While I love the idea of two different flavors or colors, they are difficult to use.  Maybe if there were more room to put the different batters in it would be a little easier. I don't use box cake mixes so that may be the problem.  Box mix batters are much thinner, thus, easier to put in with the batter baby in the place.

It does make a neater division of color than just putting the batter in with no divider.

The cupcake on the right is the one the batter baby was used with. 

They may look neater with the batter baby,  but it was not worth the time to use it.  Plus, there are only 6 in the package.  The cupcake pans I have and use have 12 places for cupcakes.  Takes too much time for me.  I'm sure they would be great for someone who doesn't bake and sell their cupcakes.

Finally, the cupcake measuring cups.  You get three measuring 'cups' for mini, regular, and large cupcakes.

These are nice, and they do measure out the correct amount for each cupcake, but, they aren't as fast as using an ice cream scoop.  You need to use a small spatula to get all the batter out. Again, if you use a box mix, it may be easier.  But for scratch mixes, I will stick with the ice cream scoop.

These are only my opinions on these products, so please don't buy or not buy based on these.  I like to read other's opinions on new products, so I thought I would give mine.

Happy Baking!!!