Thursday, July 29, 2010

Back from Bakation...


Sooo somehow my bakation turned into a blogcation too :) Just has been a CRAZY month - between going to Florida for a long weekend with my mom and sister-in-law (and Kellan of course - he was the only boy allowed!) and starting a new role with a new client at a new site and of course spending every Friday night at the SR concert series July has been pretty much been a whirlwind!

The Little Man ready to roll to Friday Night's Concert!!

Loving every minute of the girls weekend in Florida!!
One of the most exciting things about my first week at the new client site was finding out that they were holding a baking contest that Friday as a part of the annual Family Day Fesitivies - what timing!! Then even more exciting was clicking on the link to see that not only was it a baking contest but it was a cupcake contest!! Bakation instantly OVER! :) :) :)

After a quick email discussion with my favorite cupcake consultant Christy :) we agreed that due to the quick turn around time (being that it was already Tuesday), my favorite pie cupcakes - in a mix of cherry and blue berry (for a red, white and blue, effect) was the way to go as they are fairly easy and the only things I needed to get was a can of blueberry pie mix and the light brown food coloring for the "dough" icing. Of course, in the July craziness, it was suddenly Thursday night and I never made it to Michaels or the Party Store to grab the food coloring I needed. Thus was a bit unsure as to how to make the right color frosting. My first attempt involved trying "copper" which for some reason I thought I had used before - WRONG. At least for a pie crust look. Copper is really a skin color food color...so now I had a big batch of skin colored icing. Now what to do. Looking for anything brown in the cupboard I pulled out brown sugar and added it in - BAD IDEA. While it actually tasted pretty good - it made the color worse and gave the icing a terrible texture, so the icing went in the garbage and I was back to the drawing board.

Returning to my baking cupboard and feeling very DC cupcake like (if you saw the first episode, the Georgetown Cupcake girls were stuck trying to find out a way to color their large batch of icing without adding a bitter taste of too much food die, so they used fresh strawberries and blueberrys to help with the color in a natural way!) I pulled out cinnamon and vanilla, thinking I would try a Cinnamon Vanilla Buttercream. It took a lot of mixing and adding and tasting and mixing, etc to get it right, but in the end it was one of the best batches of frosting I've made and it looked perfect as pie crust - YAY! :)

Cupcake all ready for the big All American Family Day Contest!

The contest turned out to be a lot of fun - I enjoyed checking out all of the 10 or so sets of cupcakes entered. It was a mix of cute (pool cupcakes with teddy grahms swimming in lifesaver intertubes) and fancy cupcakes (double chocolate mint topped with green icing and a mint candy). My favorite entry though was a sweet potato cupcake with cream cheese frosting - which was absolutely AWESOME! I even emailed the contest coordinator to see if she could get me the recipe (luckily it was actually her husbands recipe so I am getting it next week and will be trying it soon!)

Of course, the best part of the contest was that I did win, overall best cupcake :) Thought that was a pretty fun way to kick off my new job, although now my new team knows about my little hobby and I am fairly sure they will be expecting more cupcakes soon...oh well just a great excuse to bake more!

 And last but not least here (as promised) is a quick picture history of some of my earliest cupcakes :)
My first somewhat "fancy" cupcakes. Made for Jeremy's friend Braden. These cupcakes made such an impression on Braden that he actually made reference to them during his toast at our wedding. The funny thing being that until after we were married, I really didn't bake much!!
My first office baking contest victory :) at the office Christmas Party 2008. The leaves are pre-made fondant so not my favorite taste, but they ended up pretty cute - and tasted good enough I guess!
First All-out Cupcake Effort (involved planning to make sure I had the gold paper, the littlemedals - which Kathy's son's LOVED, and chocolate molds for the faces, etc). Really I cannot even tell you how excited I was about these ones. They were for the 2008 South Riding Running Club Party! The things on the runners heads are supposed to be headlights!
Someone bought finally bought a starter decorating kit complete with tips and icing bags :) looks like things are getting serious! :) Cupcakes for my friend Katie's bridal shower. Though not my best work, they turned out pretty well (even making the trip up to LockHaven :) and more importantly I started learning how to use decorating tips and bags which turned out to be a BIG step in my cupcake career :)

Okay...well being that this busy month is not quite over, better get to bed so I have energy to take on the last few days of July and to kick-start an AWESOME August! Happy Baking :)

Continue reading...

Monday, July 5, 2010

Bakation :)


Sooooo for the past few weeks I have been taking a "bakation," rather just not really baking cupcakes - I say not really as while on our real vacation to Deep Creek my 2.5 year old niece and I made some fun cupcake monsters! I made the cupcakes before heading on vacation then we decorated them the first night - so fun!
Getting ready to make some monsters!
What a great helper!!

Cupcake Monsters on Parade!

Sprinkle Monsters!

Testing the cupcakes...eating the monsters eyes first!

And then today I made my favotie cookie dough cupcakes for a friend whose birthday is tomorrow  - but besides that I have not done any baking (well besides break and bake cookies I have to admit :)


 Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with a Cookie dough surprise inside!

While on the break from baking, we spent a week at Deep Creek relaxing and just enjoying the Mountains and Lake and mainly the extra time with Kellan! It was so nice to have all day every day with him for a change. He is at a really fun age - although his teeth are definitely coming in so he has been a bit clingy and fussy - but being that he is super smiley 90% of the time we still can't complain! He seemed to love the lake and all the time to play with his cousin Sydney! All in all a good time!

LOVING the LAKE! :) Such a beach bum already - guess that's what happens when your bedrooms decorated in surf-boards ;)

Chilling with Cousin Syd and helping Aunt Jodi make blankets by weighing it down for her!
Best seat by the lake...tuckered out after too much fun - then goofing off with Daddy

So as much as I love baking it has been nice to take a break both at the lake and here in VA! Think in another week or so will be ready to be back at it :) Until then may have to pull out some old cupcake pics...hmmm. That could be fun...seeing how it all started...exciting, I know bet you can't even wait. Hehe. For now happy Summer!
Continue reading...

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Back from Bakation...

Sooo somehow my bakation turned into a blogcation too :) Just has been a CRAZY month - between going to Florida for a long weekend with my mom and sister-in-law (and Kellan of course - he was the only boy allowed!) and starting a new role with a new client at a new site and of course spending every Friday night at the SR concert series July has been pretty much been a whirlwind!

The Little Man ready to roll to Friday Night's Concert!!

Loving every minute of the girls weekend in Florida!!
One of the most exciting things about my first week at the new client site was finding out that they were holding a baking contest that Friday as a part of the annual Family Day Fesitivies - what timing!! Then even more exciting was clicking on the link to see that not only was it a baking contest but it was a cupcake contest!! Bakation instantly OVER! :) :) :)

After a quick email discussion with my favorite cupcake consultant Christy :) we agreed that due to the quick turn around time (being that it was already Tuesday), my favorite pie cupcakes - in a mix of cherry and blue berry (for a red, white and blue, effect) was the way to go as they are fairly easy and the only things I needed to get was a can of blueberry pie mix and the light brown food coloring for the "dough" icing. Of course, in the July craziness, it was suddenly Thursday night and I never made it to Michaels or the Party Store to grab the food coloring I needed. Thus was a bit unsure as to how to make the right color frosting. My first attempt involved trying "copper" which for some reason I thought I had used before - WRONG. At least for a pie crust look. Copper is really a skin color food color...so now I had a big batch of skin colored icing. Now what to do. Looking for anything brown in the cupboard I pulled out brown sugar and added it in - BAD IDEA. While it actually tasted pretty good - it made the color worse and gave the icing a terrible texture, so the icing went in the garbage and I was back to the drawing board.

Returning to my baking cupboard and feeling very DC cupcake like (if you saw the first episode, the Georgetown Cupcake girls were stuck trying to find out a way to color their large batch of icing without adding a bitter taste of too much food die, so they used fresh strawberries and blueberrys to help with the color in a natural way!) I pulled out cinnamon and vanilla, thinking I would try a Cinnamon Vanilla Buttercream. It took a lot of mixing and adding and tasting and mixing, etc to get it right, but in the end it was one of the best batches of frosting I've made and it looked perfect as pie crust - YAY! :)

Cupcake all ready for the big All American Family Day Contest!

The contest turned out to be a lot of fun - I enjoyed checking out all of the 10 or so sets of cupcakes entered. It was a mix of cute (pool cupcakes with teddy grahms swimming in lifesaver intertubes) and fancy cupcakes (double chocolate mint topped with green icing and a mint candy). My favorite entry though was a sweet potato cupcake with cream cheese frosting - which was absolutely AWESOME! I even emailed the contest coordinator to see if she could get me the recipe (luckily it was actually her husbands recipe so I am getting it next week and will be trying it soon!)

Of course, the best part of the contest was that I did win, overall best cupcake :) Thought that was a pretty fun way to kick off my new job, although now my new team knows about my little hobby and I am fairly sure they will be expecting more cupcakes soon...oh well just a great excuse to bake more!

 And last but not least here (as promised) is a quick picture history of some of my earliest cupcakes :)
My first somewhat "fancy" cupcakes. Made for Jeremy's friend Braden. These cupcakes made such an impression on Braden that he actually made reference to them during his toast at our wedding. The funny thing being that until after we were married, I really didn't bake much!!
My first office baking contest victory :) at the office Christmas Party 2008. The leaves are pre-made fondant so not my favorite taste, but they ended up pretty cute - and tasted good enough I guess!
First All-out Cupcake Effort (involved planning to make sure I had the gold paper, the littlemedals - which Kathy's son's LOVED, and chocolate molds for the faces, etc). Really I cannot even tell you how excited I was about these ones. They were for the 2008 South Riding Running Club Party! The things on the runners heads are supposed to be headlights!
Someone bought finally bought a starter decorating kit complete with tips and icing bags :) looks like things are getting serious! :) Cupcakes for my friend Katie's bridal shower. Though not my best work, they turned out pretty well (even making the trip up to LockHaven :) and more importantly I started learning how to use decorating tips and bags which turned out to be a BIG step in my cupcake career :)

Okay...well being that this busy month is not quite over, better get to bed so I have energy to take on the last few days of July and to kick-start an AWESOME August! Happy Baking :)

Monday, July 5, 2010

Bakation :)

Sooooo for the past few weeks I have been taking a "bakation," rather just not really baking cupcakes - I say not really as while on our real vacation to Deep Creek my 2.5 year old niece and I made some fun cupcake monsters! I made the cupcakes before heading on vacation then we decorated them the first night - so fun!
Getting ready to make some monsters!
What a great helper!!

Cupcake Monsters on Parade!

Sprinkle Monsters!

Testing the cupcakes...eating the monsters eyes first!

And then today I made my favotie cookie dough cupcakes for a friend whose birthday is tomorrow  - but besides that I have not done any baking (well besides break and bake cookies I have to admit :)


 Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with a Cookie dough surprise inside!

While on the break from baking, we spent a week at Deep Creek relaxing and just enjoying the Mountains and Lake and mainly the extra time with Kellan! It was so nice to have all day every day with him for a change. He is at a really fun age - although his teeth are definitely coming in so he has been a bit clingy and fussy - but being that he is super smiley 90% of the time we still can't complain! He seemed to love the lake and all the time to play with his cousin Sydney! All in all a good time!

LOVING the LAKE! :) Such a beach bum already - guess that's what happens when your bedrooms decorated in surf-boards ;)

Chilling with Cousin Syd and helping Aunt Jodi make blankets by weighing it down for her!
Best seat by the lake...tuckered out after too much fun - then goofing off with Daddy

So as much as I love baking it has been nice to take a break both at the lake and here in VA! Think in another week or so will be ready to be back at it :) Until then may have to pull out some old cupcake pics...hmmm. That could be fun...seeing how it all started...exciting, I know bet you can't even wait. Hehe. For now happy Summer!
 

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