Thursday, June 24, 2010

Every morning deserves a great cup of coffee!


Or at least a cupcake of coffee...yummm caffiene and sugar!

Last Friday, I started the day with an AWESOME run. We had a break in the heat wave and it was relatively cool and humidity was low. Unfortunately I didn't have anyone to run with so despite wanting to stay in bed, I forced myself out the door planning just to run my usual quick 4 to just get the miles in before work - however I was pleasantly surprised with how great it felt to run - and ended up doing about 6.5ish. And had I not had to get myself to work for an early meeting I may have actually had my first long run of my marathon training (oh well that will have to wait for another day :) It just felt so good to be out in the early morning enjoying the sunshine and blue skies of the beautiful day to come.

For some reason, while enjoying the peace and quiet of the run, I found myself thinking about how excited I was to have my morning cup of coffee when I got back. I am essentially addicted to Dunkin Donuts Hazlenut coffee, so after being out of it for most of the week, I finally had time to stock up at DD's on the way to work Thursday, so I was super excited for my morning fix on Friday. It's funny I think I enjoy coffee even more nowafter being pregnant last year than before. I remember wondering while I was pregnant if I was missing coffee (not that I couldn't drink coffee it just didn't taste good) or red-wine more and I have since realized the answer is definitely coffee :) In any case, it is a part of my morning that I definitely look forward to every day,whether I end up drinking it on my way to work sitting in traffic or during my first hour of checking emails and getting things started for the day, it always seems to make my day start off on a positive note!
To that end, made these cupcakes a few weeks ago for the SR running club annivesary breakfast. And yes, they are frosted with Dunkin Donuts Hazelnut flavored coffee icing - what could be better cupcakes and coffee, right ?! :-) The cupcakes are just basic chocolate and vanilla - but the coffee icing definitely made them a special treat. And just for fun I topped them with chocolate hazelnut straws I grabbed at Costco for just this kind of cupcake! Not the typical morning treat, but think they still went over pretty well!
Continue reading...

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Shhhhh....it's a Surprise!


Who doesn't LOVE a surprise shower?? Well, unless you are the one planning it - then there's the weeks of tip-toeing around trying not to spill the beans - this would be why I do not host many (or really any)- surprise parties - I am tooo big of a big-mouth and am not good at keeping such a secret :) But that said, it's definitely fun when pulled off well, and my co-worker and friend Ginger went all out (ie printing fake invitations, making pseudo plans, calling her salon for them to help with the story, etc) in surprising her daughter Kim last week with a surprise bridal shower and from what I gather it was an all-around success and good time! And lucky me, Ginger asked me to be in on the fun and make cupcakes for the big day!!

I was especially excited to make these as I have never made bridal shower cupcakes before. The only direction Ginger gave me was that she wanted 3 dozen and Kim's colors were pink and black. Hmmmm. ALmost tooo much freedom...so what to do. My favorite cupcaking buddy, Christy and I googled pink and black cupcakes and wedding cupcakes, and talked about different options until we finally came accross a great picture of a bride and groom cupcake set. (http://www.giggyscakes.com/Cupcakes.html )
Sure, there are actually lots of pictures of these kind of cupcakes online, BUT the problem is most of them use fondant and neither of us are big fans of Fondant. Not that there is anything wrong with fontdant - please don't get me wrong I have seen AMAZING things done with fondant- it's just I have never loved how it tasted (probably the problem is I've never really had good fondant :) and it's just not quite my style. In any case, the picture we found  was super cute and used a little dipped icing (melted canned icing for a hardened surface) under regular icing but no fondant-score!

So here is my version of Giggy's cupcakes. I have to admit I was pretty excited how they turned out and the best part was they were super fun to make! I felt like a little wedding dress designer or something. At first I was making all the dresses the same but then I got a little adventurous and started making each one a little different! So the long and short of it, as I mentioned before I used melted canned frosting (because homemade frosting doens't work for melting) and dipped the cupcakes in it to get the smooth skin of the brides and shirts of the grooms. (basic technique from the Hello Cupcake book). Then I just used a star tip to do the tuxedo and dresses and a small round tip to do the bows and pearls. Then I added a few hot gum paste flowers (wish I could take credit for them, but I bought them at my favorite little baking shop in Western Pa last week :) and waalaa...It's here come's the Bride Time!!!
And here's the whole wedding party on parade...
all dressed up and ready to go!!! :) :)
And to coordinate with the bride and groom cupcakes I had fun with pink and polka dots :)

Here they are getting all boxed up...
 And all three dozen ready for the big surprise... 

Happy Shower Kim - Congratulations -  Happy Forever!

Continue reading...

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Welcome to the Future!


Went to Father of the Bride, with a girl back home.
We broke up before the sequel, so went to that one on my own.
Wondered who I'd end up with, what would our kids look like?
Guess I got my answer as I tuck them in tonight....

Heeeeyyyyyyy. Don't think Dream's come any truer.
Boys, welcome to the Future! ~Brad Paisley

We saw Brad Paisley a few weeks ago and while he did not sing this little extra verse from his song Welcome to the Future, I have been listening to his CD so much the past few weeks (because the concert was absolutely AMAZING and I am hooked on his music for the moment!! ) that this has been playing in my head pretty much non-stop while running, baking, driving, working, etc...I LOVE IT. Sure I did not marry one of the lead actors (or actresses in Brad's case) from Father of the Bride ;-) but the rest of it still resonates so perfectly I think. I mean who didn't wonder when they were younger who they would spend the rest of their life with, what they would be doing now or what their kids would look like?? I know I did. And while I look forward to life ahead and definitely have goals and dreams I still aspire to achieve, many of my dreams and hopes have already coming true in Jeremy and Kellan.

My three favorite minutes of my days right now are 1. Coming home from my morning run to see Jeremy and Kellan sleeping side by side (I move K into our bed after I feed him before running) they just look so sweet and K seriously looks like J's mini-me. 2. Picking up K from school - I stress and rush through traffic but it is all worth it when I walk into the infant room and he looks up at me smiling ear-to-ear. And 3. When J gets home from work and Kellan first sees him - and gives him a copy of the grin he gave me earlier in the evening. Just priceless.

Sure there are lots of not-so fun moments like washing bottles, emptying the diaper pail, never feeling like I have a moment to sit down after work until I'm in bed exhausted, but these three moments brief as they may be make it all okay (not to mention all the other wonderful moments mixed in throughout the day of course!!).  Then mix in a decent return to my fav hobbies of running and baking, great family in PA who loves to see K as much as possible, a pretty good job that is looking to get even better over the next few months, and yeah would have to say "Don't think Dreams come any truer" and I am indeed pretty excited to welcome my little guy to the future! :)

And going back to the weekend of the Brad Paisley show when I was not at the AWESOME concert and tailgate, I did make a bunch of Birthday Boy cupcakes I wanted to share. The first cupcakes were blue pick up trucks and traffic lights. Looked and looked for ideas on how to make pick-up truck cupcakes but did not have much luck finding anything. Guess it is not a popular request :) Thus headed out to the party store last week in search of any ideas and short of just putting match-box trucks on top of cupcakes I did not find much. Although while there I stocked up on tootsie rolls, m&m's and blue air-heads to see if I could do anything with them - kind of like how I made the trains out of tootsie rolls and m&ms a few weeks back. Tooks a bit of candy sculpting...but the end result somewhat resembles pick up trucks. Some of them may looks a little more like tractor trailors (as my mom thought I was making - haha) but think together the general idea is there. Hey it's like abstract art :) and making trucks out of candy ended up being a bit tougher than I had anticipated!




Then for the party on Sunday - I ventured into the super hero world of Batman and Spiderman! Again did a bit of internet searching for ideas and also found fun Batman and Spiderman cupcake papers. For these ones stuck with straight icing work - with the exception of using mini-marshmallos for the Spidey eyes. The one trick I have been doing quite a bit lately though - is buyin Wilton's pre-made black icing because I cannot seem to make a good black (not to mention it's super messy and a pain to deal with :) so that made things quite a bit easier since black was the main detail color for both Spiderman and Batman. In the end they turned out pretty well and the birthday boy seemed to love them and really - that's all that mattered!! :)

And last but not least...here is the Birthday Boy Making his Birthday Wish...
So heeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy...hope you find your dreams don't come any truer too..Welcome to the future! :)
Continue reading...

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Every morning deserves a great cup of coffee!

Or at least a cupcake of coffee...yummm caffiene and sugar!

Last Friday, I started the day with an AWESOME run. We had a break in the heat wave and it was relatively cool and humidity was low. Unfortunately I didn't have anyone to run with so despite wanting to stay in bed, I forced myself out the door planning just to run my usual quick 4 to just get the miles in before work - however I was pleasantly surprised with how great it felt to run - and ended up doing about 6.5ish. And had I not had to get myself to work for an early meeting I may have actually had my first long run of my marathon training (oh well that will have to wait for another day :) It just felt so good to be out in the early morning enjoying the sunshine and blue skies of the beautiful day to come.

For some reason, while enjoying the peace and quiet of the run, I found myself thinking about how excited I was to have my morning cup of coffee when I got back. I am essentially addicted to Dunkin Donuts Hazlenut coffee, so after being out of it for most of the week, I finally had time to stock up at DD's on the way to work Thursday, so I was super excited for my morning fix on Friday. It's funny I think I enjoy coffee even more nowafter being pregnant last year than before. I remember wondering while I was pregnant if I was missing coffee (not that I couldn't drink coffee it just didn't taste good) or red-wine more and I have since realized the answer is definitely coffee :) In any case, it is a part of my morning that I definitely look forward to every day,whether I end up drinking it on my way to work sitting in traffic or during my first hour of checking emails and getting things started for the day, it always seems to make my day start off on a positive note!
To that end, made these cupcakes a few weeks ago for the SR running club annivesary breakfast. And yes, they are frosted with Dunkin Donuts Hazelnut flavored coffee icing - what could be better cupcakes and coffee, right ?! :-) The cupcakes are just basic chocolate and vanilla - but the coffee icing definitely made them a special treat. And just for fun I topped them with chocolate hazelnut straws I grabbed at Costco for just this kind of cupcake! Not the typical morning treat, but think they still went over pretty well!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Shhhhh....it's a Surprise!

Who doesn't LOVE a surprise shower?? Well, unless you are the one planning it - then there's the weeks of tip-toeing around trying not to spill the beans - this would be why I do not host many (or really any)- surprise parties - I am tooo big of a big-mouth and am not good at keeping such a secret :) But that said, it's definitely fun when pulled off well, and my co-worker and friend Ginger went all out (ie printing fake invitations, making pseudo plans, calling her salon for them to help with the story, etc) in surprising her daughter Kim last week with a surprise bridal shower and from what I gather it was an all-around success and good time! And lucky me, Ginger asked me to be in on the fun and make cupcakes for the big day!!

I was especially excited to make these as I have never made bridal shower cupcakes before. The only direction Ginger gave me was that she wanted 3 dozen and Kim's colors were pink and black. Hmmmm. ALmost tooo much freedom...so what to do. My favorite cupcaking buddy, Christy and I googled pink and black cupcakes and wedding cupcakes, and talked about different options until we finally came accross a great picture of a bride and groom cupcake set. (http://www.giggyscakes.com/Cupcakes.html )
Sure, there are actually lots of pictures of these kind of cupcakes online, BUT the problem is most of them use fondant and neither of us are big fans of Fondant. Not that there is anything wrong with fontdant - please don't get me wrong I have seen AMAZING things done with fondant- it's just I have never loved how it tasted (probably the problem is I've never really had good fondant :) and it's just not quite my style. In any case, the picture we found  was super cute and used a little dipped icing (melted canned icing for a hardened surface) under regular icing but no fondant-score!

So here is my version of Giggy's cupcakes. I have to admit I was pretty excited how they turned out and the best part was they were super fun to make! I felt like a little wedding dress designer or something. At first I was making all the dresses the same but then I got a little adventurous and started making each one a little different! So the long and short of it, as I mentioned before I used melted canned frosting (because homemade frosting doens't work for melting) and dipped the cupcakes in it to get the smooth skin of the brides and shirts of the grooms. (basic technique from the Hello Cupcake book). Then I just used a star tip to do the tuxedo and dresses and a small round tip to do the bows and pearls. Then I added a few hot gum paste flowers (wish I could take credit for them, but I bought them at my favorite little baking shop in Western Pa last week :) and waalaa...It's here come's the Bride Time!!!
And here's the whole wedding party on parade...
all dressed up and ready to go!!! :) :)
And to coordinate with the bride and groom cupcakes I had fun with pink and polka dots :)

Here they are getting all boxed up...
 And all three dozen ready for the big surprise... 

Happy Shower Kim - Congratulations -  Happy Forever!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Welcome to the Future!

Went to Father of the Bride, with a girl back home.
We broke up before the sequel, so went to that one on my own.
Wondered who I'd end up with, what would our kids look like?
Guess I got my answer as I tuck them in tonight....

Heeeeyyyyyyy. Don't think Dream's come any truer.
Boys, welcome to the Future! ~Brad Paisley

We saw Brad Paisley a few weeks ago and while he did not sing this little extra verse from his song Welcome to the Future, I have been listening to his CD so much the past few weeks (because the concert was absolutely AMAZING and I am hooked on his music for the moment!! ) that this has been playing in my head pretty much non-stop while running, baking, driving, working, etc...I LOVE IT. Sure I did not marry one of the lead actors (or actresses in Brad's case) from Father of the Bride ;-) but the rest of it still resonates so perfectly I think. I mean who didn't wonder when they were younger who they would spend the rest of their life with, what they would be doing now or what their kids would look like?? I know I did. And while I look forward to life ahead and definitely have goals and dreams I still aspire to achieve, many of my dreams and hopes have already coming true in Jeremy and Kellan.

My three favorite minutes of my days right now are 1. Coming home from my morning run to see Jeremy and Kellan sleeping side by side (I move K into our bed after I feed him before running) they just look so sweet and K seriously looks like J's mini-me. 2. Picking up K from school - I stress and rush through traffic but it is all worth it when I walk into the infant room and he looks up at me smiling ear-to-ear. And 3. When J gets home from work and Kellan first sees him - and gives him a copy of the grin he gave me earlier in the evening. Just priceless.

Sure there are lots of not-so fun moments like washing bottles, emptying the diaper pail, never feeling like I have a moment to sit down after work until I'm in bed exhausted, but these three moments brief as they may be make it all okay (not to mention all the other wonderful moments mixed in throughout the day of course!!).  Then mix in a decent return to my fav hobbies of running and baking, great family in PA who loves to see K as much as possible, a pretty good job that is looking to get even better over the next few months, and yeah would have to say "Don't think Dreams come any truer" and I am indeed pretty excited to welcome my little guy to the future! :)

And going back to the weekend of the Brad Paisley show when I was not at the AWESOME concert and tailgate, I did make a bunch of Birthday Boy cupcakes I wanted to share. The first cupcakes were blue pick up trucks and traffic lights. Looked and looked for ideas on how to make pick-up truck cupcakes but did not have much luck finding anything. Guess it is not a popular request :) Thus headed out to the party store last week in search of any ideas and short of just putting match-box trucks on top of cupcakes I did not find much. Although while there I stocked up on tootsie rolls, m&m's and blue air-heads to see if I could do anything with them - kind of like how I made the trains out of tootsie rolls and m&ms a few weeks back. Tooks a bit of candy sculpting...but the end result somewhat resembles pick up trucks. Some of them may looks a little more like tractor trailors (as my mom thought I was making - haha) but think together the general idea is there. Hey it's like abstract art :) and making trucks out of candy ended up being a bit tougher than I had anticipated!




Then for the party on Sunday - I ventured into the super hero world of Batman and Spiderman! Again did a bit of internet searching for ideas and also found fun Batman and Spiderman cupcake papers. For these ones stuck with straight icing work - with the exception of using mini-marshmallos for the Spidey eyes. The one trick I have been doing quite a bit lately though - is buyin Wilton's pre-made black icing because I cannot seem to make a good black (not to mention it's super messy and a pain to deal with :) so that made things quite a bit easier since black was the main detail color for both Spiderman and Batman. In the end they turned out pretty well and the birthday boy seemed to love them and really - that's all that mattered!! :)

And last but not least...here is the Birthday Boy Making his Birthday Wish...
So heeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy...hope you find your dreams don't come any truer too..Welcome to the future! :)
 

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