Sugar Swings! Serve Some: August 2010

Monday, August 30, 2010

a month of cupcakes!

...the wrap up for Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Challenge....although I wasn't really planning on doing all the cupcakes for this challenge, it kinda fit in with other stuff going on that just *needed* cupcakes too...the theme was summertime fun.....

Week 1 Flavor: What flavor screams Summertime Fun to you? Create a cupcake with that flavor...watermelon cupcakes!

Week 2 Event/Activities: Did you visit the zoo or maybe go to the beach this Summer? Create a cupcake that shows the fun you had this Summer....baseball cap cupcakes!

Week 3 Cake Mix: Turn an ordinary cake mix into a special cupcake. Create a special flavor using a cake mix, post the recipe....flav-or-ice cupcakes!

Week 4 Candy: It’s all about Candy this week! Create a cupcake, using the Summertime Fun theme, using candy as decorations....lego dude cupcakes!

...this was really a lot of fun, and a distraction for me having to think about doing that iron man cake at the end of august (see previous post)....!

Cupcake Tuesday at HoosierHomemade.com

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Birthday party #3....

...so here's the Iron Man cake that was requested....decided not to go with the 3-D head, and just do flat, much safer option that way....


...1/2 chocolate and 1/2 lemon (who knew so many people liked lemon cake!)...cut out of stacked rectangle cakes.......also my niece's birthday too....here's her cake that my sister did...


....i thought it looked awesome....girlie cakes are so cute...!



...it was a beautiful day yesterday, great for a party with family and friends....!

Monday, August 23, 2010

legos legos and more legos...!


...that's what we do around here...especially this summer when school is out....i wonder how many of these....

we have...its got to be in the gazillions and if not it sure feels that way....i used to try to keep sets together (me and my type A personality and all), but now they just end up in the lego ether as we call it (along with the hundreds of dollars spent on them!)....i have to say the kids are really creative with them, so guess that's a plus...


...these were for the lego fanatic(s) around here...not sure who's the bigger lego maniac, the 6 y/o or the 40 y/o but either way they were fun to make and definitely had lots of candy and sugar to keep a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds going for a play date/birthday party.

...the lego dudes are made from candy melts (each color zapped in a plastic zip lock in the microwave for a minute or so) then snip a corner and "pipe" the candy into the lego dude ice cube tray, and freeze for a few minutes....you end up with a bunch of these:


...used a chocolate cake recipe (because most kids like chocolate cupcakes, right?) and topped with vanilla buttercream tinted yellow...edged in mini m&m's...oh yeah, also before baking added one of these inside each:


....which ended up looking like this:


...it gave the cupcakes a neat texture thing with some salty going on...i would have added more than 1 but wasn't sure how it would have turned out and since they were for 5-6 year olds I didn't want to chance the..."ewwww, i found something in my cupcake, yuk!" factor....in the end they were pretty tasty!

week 4 hoosier homemade's cupcake challenge

Cupcake Tuesday at HoosierHomemade.com

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Summer=Fla Vor Ice!



....so i'm a bit obsessed with colors...and multiple colors of the same thing...always have been and always will...so i *had* to get the kids ice pops for the summer cuz that's the thing to do (ya ya i know artificial flavors and colors....yada yada yada, i know but as long as it's in moderation ...)......and i've always loved the rainbow colors fla vor ice comes in (blue being my absolute fav).....so i was thinking....what about cupcakes with ice pops as the flavoring?...googled it but didn't really find anything so had to wing it....this is based on a boxed recipe...

You'll need these:


and:

1 box white cake
1 box of vanilla pudding (probably not needed but wanted to try it to see what the pudding did for the texture/flavor)
4 egg whites
1/3 cup oil

mix and divide equally (i eyeballed it) into 6 bowls...add one ice pop (unfrozen) to each of the bowls and mix (FYI 1 "giant" flav or ice is almost 40 mL):

and bake (aren't the colors pretty?!):


....i used a syringe and injected about 1.5 mL of flav or ice into each cupcake to give additional flavor....then iced them...i used homemade vanilla buttercream i already had made and used about 30 mL of flav or ice to tint/flavor the icing...


...i really love the subtle color and ice pop-y flavor these have...there is tropical punch, berry punch (or blue!), grape, strawberry, lemon-lime, and orange....yum! They were pretty good and the pudding made them really moist.


Cupcake Tuesday at HoosierHomemade.com

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

How can it be mid-august already...??!


...remember when summers would go on forever?..when waiting for the next school season to start, for halloween, or for christmas to get here seemed to take an eternity?...i guess now we're grown up *adults* and time now moves in light years...and on Aug 10th, there is now halloween stuff on store shelves already...that said, i can see that "slow moving time" watching my kiddos--when they cannot possibly wait 5 minutes because that seems like forever....a car ride to an amusement park an hour away, seems to last for days to them.....and i LOVE it (for me anyway), and yep, time does slow down for kids (as it should, they are kids!)...and moves at warp speed for us....pretty soon, they'll be in school, graduating from high school, then college, and married with their own kids, lives and hopefully minor problems...but for now they are having the slowed down summer of 2010 when they are 5, 3, and 3....."life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it"...indeed very sage advice ferris....

...so what exactly are they doing this summer?...they are just being kids....no school, no camp, no formal activities...we're just taking it day by day...week by week....we've been to amusement parks, the beach, parks, gone swimming, the zoo, visiting family and friends, but in general just playing....and also watching baseball!!!...our 5 y/o thinks t-ball sounds good so we're getting him into the game and basic rules...he's really good at reading the scores while the games are on and is a little obsessed with pitch counts...he's actually got a really good arm (although hubby is bummed he's a righty)...you are definitely never too young or old to love baseball....no matter what team you root for...(however we all know the best team ;)

baseball cap cupcakes!

vanilla cupcakes with chocolate chips...the tops cut off a little, flipped upside down, and then iced in vanilla buttercream. Accents are m&m's on top and white buttercream stripes (hard to pipe even straight stripes with a kid hanging on your leg) and fondant brim....the kids loved these!

...one of the kiddos got to the orange cap!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Watermelon cupcakes=Summer!


I would have held off posting these had I known about a cupcake challenge!...but these are for Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday Cupcake Challenge.

When I think of summer I really do think watermelon really represents so well. These are watermelon cake with watermelon cream cheese icing with pieces of chocolate candy melts for seeds.

Watermelon Cupcakes:
  • 1 box white cake mix
  • 1 (3 ounce) package of watermelon jello
  • 1 and 1/3 cups cubed watermelon
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
Watermelon Icing:
  • 6 ounces of cream cheese
  • 1/4 c butter
  • 1/4 c watermelon juice
  • 3+ cups confectioner's sugar

the green wrappers are a must for the full effect....I also used enough confectioner's sugar until the icing was pipeable and even that was hard with the 98+ degree weather on the east coast....there really is nothing better than watermelon in the summertime...!


...and if you can't do this...

...these are the next best thing....enjoy!


sharing these at tidy mom!

Monday, August 2, 2010

Blue Moon Beer Cupcakes!


...yep beer cupcakes...these were for a visit to awesome friends @ lake wallenpaupack....wanted something a little different and my kids are totally sick of cupcakes so made them for the adults....the cake was made with real Blue Moon beer, orange zest, coriander, etc and the icing was cream cheese based but also with beer and orange zest..so kinda like a Blue Moon beer with an orange...!


...the logo is fondant, yup fondant....tinted shades of blue and royal icing for the details....i guess not too bad for my first attempt at using the stuff....not sure how'd I'd do with an actual cake and fondant...i never really liked play doh (the smell is really nasty) and I totally failed in high school working with clay (wish i had a pic of that travesty--but lets just say it looked like a cross between a mug and a sad gargoyle)...so I'm a bit fondant phobic and it's taste/texture is definitely no buttercream! ....but that said, you can do some neat stuff with it....


...overall these were good, the cake was more dense (kinda like muffin texture), maybe it was the beer and buttermilk combo....my worst critic gave them a thumb's up so that must be a good sign...!..ran out of steam a decorated the other half with pieces of oranges...



NOTE: you know Blue Moon beer has jumped the shark when your mother in law drinks it...