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 :)

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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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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!

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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!

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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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Margarita Madness and Sponge Bob Silliness :)

So life has been busy - between craziness at work, trying to up my running, baking away, and of course keeping up with my boys - just trying to stay on top of things lately. Thus not much time to write this week...but did want to share a few new fun cupcakes

First, just in time for Cinco de Mayo...Margarita Cupcakes topped with Lime buttercream Frosting!

(and yes in case you are wondering...there is tequilla in them :)

Then...for a two-year old birthday party this past weekend - had fun making Sponge-Bob Square Pants cupcakes! Half of the cupcakes were actually crabby patties :) and the other half were topped with mini-Sponge Bobs...both ended up pretty tasty and were well received by the kids (of all ages :) at the party!

Mini Sponge-Bob's! :)

 

The Many Faces of SpongeBob - in cupcake form!

Actually the SB faces are decorated chocolate covered graham-crackers (which i had leftover from the Graduation cupcakes and realized they were the perfect Sponge shape and size!! ;) Worked out pretty well!

 And here are the hamburgers (crabby patties in Sponge-Bob land!) one of my favorite cupcakes to make!

Like I said...life is busy so gotta rest up for another crazy day ahead - the 5am run seems to be coming faster and faster lately! In any case, look for more fun cupcakes this weekend: 2 more little boy birthday parties coming up (should be really ready for Kellan's first birthday in the fall!) as always should be an adventure!

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A Tough Race...but an Amazing Day!

So the race was...hot, humid, hilly, super pretty (think 4 different bridges with AWESOME views of the city), rainy (rained from mile 2 on...) hard, long, hmmm what else, an adventure, and yes, it was fun (a little at least - especially when I finally finished and they had Eat n' Park Smiley cookies for everyone - best post race treat ever!!!). Needless to say the race was a lot of things - my best race it definitely wasn't - not even close. But I have been super spoiled in my races to date - usually having perfect weather and a super flat course, so suppose I was due for a tough course and a less than ideal day. It was challenging from the first two miles when it was super hot and humid to the following 11 miles in the rain. At about mile 4 my Garmin started going crazy in the downpour - beeping non-stop and refusing to show me my pace. At this point I had already realized there was no way I was going to make my goal time so the Garmin was just in the way - so just gave it to my dad when I saw him and my super fans (cheering me on out in the rain!) at mile 6. Speaking of the super fans ;) It was pretty awesome to have so many of the people I love standing there smiling in the pouring rain - proud of me even though I wasn't running my best race - realizing (even though I sometimes forget) that just being able to run 13 miles regardless of time is still an acomplishment.

And I did it. I ran the 13.1 miles - not sure I have been so glad to be done with a race in a long time - as I was definitely struggling, but bottom line I finished. Like I said I was less than thrilled with my time, but my number one fans found me immediately and gave me big hugs and it made it all worth it. Then we found my uncle who finished shortly after me and gave him a big hug as well! All of us soaked at this point - but all still smiling...just enjoying the day and being together surrounded by the excitement of such a great race. Wierdly for me - before we even made it home I was over the race. Usually I think and rethink what I could have done better or how I should have pushed longer for that last mile or so - but by the time I had gotten out of the shower I was no longer even thinking about the race. Just not sure I am into racing right now - think I really am in a cycle of my life where running is just not a top priority - and strangely to me as well I am totally okay with it. Please don't get me wrong, it's not like I am going to stop running, I am definitely going to keep up with my 5am runs with my best buddy Colleen, and hope to try to keep up with my other running buddies, Shelly, Kathy and Karen (when she is back from having her baby girl - due any day!) among others, but think I am going to take a break from real racing for a while. I may get suckered into a few local 5 and 10Ks over the summer - but nothing big for a while until I am mentally and physically ready and rearing to go again.
That said, plan is to just keep my focus on my family, on work, my house and yard, and of course on cupcakes, then fitting in running with my friends as much as I can!

Back to the real event of the weekend though - I have to say my mom's graduation was simply AWESOME. I knew it would be a special moment and definitely knew I wanted to be there - but I never imagined how cool it would really be to see her be hooded for the PhD she has been working on for so long. She actually started working towards this degree when my bro and I were little but put it on hold to focus on us. Then a few years ago she picked it back up full-time and now has finally completed her thesis and is officially Dr. Mom! :)

Dr. Grandma and her Number 1 Fan!

Mom being hooded for her PhD!

We are just so proud of her and seeing her beaming smile up on the big-screen at the Peterson Events Center at Pitt was just one of the coolest moments ever. Making it even more special my grandparents and my Aunt Sally and my cousin were all there along with us cheering her on. Just was a really fun afternoon - at the ceremony and then at a fun celebration dinner at Max and Erma's one of our fav Pittsburgh places! YUM! Sadly we had to hit the road back to VA but think the rest of the fam continued the celebration back at my mom's house with the cupcakes I had brought for the big day! Haha....you didn't think I'd miss the opportunity to try out fun graduation cupcakes did you??? Just simple Vanilla and choco cupcakes with white frosting - but topped with pretty fun graduation caps :) they didn't travel quite as well as I would have hoped - and were a bit rushed - but word is they tasted yummy and still looked pretty cute. Take a look :)

A little messy...and wish the grahm crackers were a little more square...but worked out pretty well!

And really, good cupcakes or not, good runs or not, at the end of the day how could everything not be right in the world when my little man smiles :) :) :)

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