Sugar Swings! Serve Some: July 2011

Thursday, July 21, 2011

"watermelon" and "apple" waffles....!

watermelon waffles

...so when you think summer....don't you think watermelon???.....i've done watermelon cupcakes before, but was looking for some other fun "watermelon" treats....

.....i totally got this idea from random thoughts of a supermom....they were just too fun not to try....


...just use your favorite waffle batter or mix....and tint some pink and green...then throw in a few chocolate chips for "seeds" (although what watermelon these days has black seeds??)....

...or tint some red and leave some non-tinted....throw in a few chocolate chips for "seeds" and you have some "apple" waffles...


.....the kiddos loved these and didn't even ask for them to be drowned in syrup as they usually do...!

Friday, July 15, 2011

cupcake tower wedding "cake"....!

cupcake tower

...so this was my first attempt at a cupcake tower for my aunt's wedding a couple of weeks ago....with a 6 inch 4 layer cake on top....

DSCN1716

...roses piped on with a wilton #1M tip and then topped with large pearl non-pareils.....

cake with piped roses

.....the cupcakes are iced with vanilla buttercream tinted green, pink, or left plain white (make sure you use clear vanilla or you'll get off white buttercream)....some were also iced with chocolate fudge icing (store bought and mixed with about 2 cups of the vanilla buttercream).....all iced with the same wilton #1M tip.....

DSCN1719

...for anyone who may need to make a ton of cupcakes (i made about 150), this was my plan of action....started baking batches (30-40ish) of cupcakes that monday (wedding was on saturday).....as soon as the cupcakes were cool, put them into large zip lock bags (get as much as the air out of the bag)....then immediately freeze....did this on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday too...on wednesday, thursday, and friday made the icings.....i batch for each color (this ended up being the perfect amount...1 batch iced about 35-40 cupcakes).....on friday defrosted all the cupcakes and then immediately iced and topped with the same pearl non-pareils as on the cake....

.....these had to be transported about 2 hours so the best "container" i found were those big costco cardboard boxes they give you to carry all the bulk items home....pack the cupcakes tight so there's not a lot of room to slide....i finished icing all the cupcakes on the friday before the wedding so covered the boxes with plastic wrap and stored in our cool basement area overnight....


....i used a cupcake tower to display them on and assembled everything once we got to the location....the cupcake tower is just sturdy white cardboard...the edges are not finished so i covered it in ribbon (secured with white pins).....pretend you don't see the ribbon coming off the edge in the pic below! oh and if you are going to re-use the cupcake tower just know that the cardboard may get some stains because of the cupcake liners or if any of the frosting gets on it too....(think it's fine tho because you just cover the stain up the next time with more cupcakes!)

cupcake tower

...this was a lot of fun and for me it wasn't too stressful to make so many cuppies since i planned it pretty well and i wasn't up til 3 am frosting cupcakes (that said if i needed like 300 i may have been a lot more stressed!)....and most importantly....

CONGRATULATIONS SUSIE AND EBB!!!


thanks for letting me play a part on your special day!....(last photo by PB n' J Photography....they were AWESOME!)


Tuesday, July 5, 2011

donuts and cupcakes...!

donuts and cupcakes

...so these were some fun treats for a 4th of july party....i've made the mini donuts before here and since they were so easy and pretty tasty went with them again but tried a different recipe that i found on 100 cafe street for fluffy baked donuts....

mini donuts

....i had to substitute wheat pastry flour for the cake flour because i didn't have enough regular flour (go figure) and definitely didn't have the cake flour....and i needed to make these quick without time to run out to the store....so i modified the recipe a little (used 2 cups of the wheat pastry flour with about 1 tablespoon of cornstarch per 1 cup of flour)....needless to say these were not fluffy donuts, and ended up being more "cake-y" but still tasty---i also used fresh grated nutmeg so they had a good cinnamon/nutmeg flavor....!

...it's much easier to put the batter into a zip lock bag and then "pipe" into the donut pans versus spooning the batter in....it's quicker and you end up with more perfect little donuts when baked...

...the glaze is just 2-3 cups of powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon of milk, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla....add milk until you get the nice glaze thickness needed for dipping the donuts....also when you add the vanilla (not the clear kind) you get a kinda beige color glaze...when i added blue liquid food coloring...the blue i got was a teal color instead of royal blue....if you use the food gels (wilton, americolor) you might not have this issue....although i didn't mind since i actually love this color blue...(although it's not as 4th of july as I wanted!)


....and since i didn't want beige for the white...i used lemon extract to flavor the glaze instead of vanilla....then dip the donuts in the glaze and sprinkle immediately with your choice of sprinkles or other toppings....


...or you can drizzle on with a fork for some jackson pollack mini donuts....!


...or you can use them as toppers for some mini cupcakes....(i've mean meaning to make these since i saw just jenn's famous coffee & donuts cupcakes about 2 years ago!)

donut cupcakes

...and you end up with some double decker 4th of july donut cupcakes...!

...i hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, or just a great weekend in general if you are not in the states....we ended up in the ER on monday with our first trip for stitches...! my little guy fell and split his chin open...he is so awesome, barely cried and fell asleep while getting his 5 stitches...!

p.s. please email or leave a comment if you have found a "fluffy" baked donut recipe!