Sugar Swings! Serve Some

Monday, January 2, 2012

simple vanilla cupcakes....!

....so the first post of 2012! woohoo!...and figured it should be something healthy simple and something i've been meaning to do all last year...so i can scratch something off the 2012 to do list.....these are glorious treat's "perfect" vanilla cupcakes....

vanilla cupcakes with blue buttercream

....calling anything perfect is pretty ballsy right?....because what these days is perfect?....ok maybe bradley cooper (did you know he speaks fluent french???)....but aside from that not much is perfect, right..?

....and i've tried a couple from scratch vanilla cupcake recipes---but something was always not quite right....like i love the magnolia vanilla cupcake recipe but they never bake up nicely for me....i've tried 2 or 3 times....so i always thought its got to be me...not the recipe right?....these are my last attempt at the magnolia recipe...


....the flavor was really good....but they look terrible (i ended up taking the liners off for this post)....i had a feeling it was something about the butter---from scratch cupcakes with butter never bake nicely for me....but maybe i do something wrong...because i always end up with cupcakes looking like this!)...so then i always end up going back to doctoring up store bought mixes....


....but glorious treats promised an easy recipe with cupcakes that "looked beautiful and tasted perfect"...! so i pinned them awhile ago and finally got around to trying them....and guess what...this is what i got...!


....yay!....perfect looking vanilla cupcakes.....which i then could not wait to frost in some of my go to buttercream....(just tinted with a drop of liquid blue food coloring....because there is something about this color blue that i love, and i mean LOVE!)....

vanilla cupcakes

.....and then immediately tried....YUM!....they were fluffy with the texture of boxed mix cupcakes and not too sweet....very good and moist........and they really did bake up great....her recipe is simple and uses oil versus butter....so if you really like the butter flavor in cupcakes....you may want to keep searching....but i like this one and am going to try it again......i may add some vanilla bean next time or just use a better quality vanilla because i'd love to taste more of the vanilla flavor in them....but all in all a great recipe!...

vanilla cupcake

.....and you get some really simple and "perfect" homemade vanilla cupcakes to start off the new year right way....!

vanilla cupcakes

...thanks to glorious treats for going through batch after batch of vanilla cupcake recipe and taking the hard work out for me....! much appreciated!...and i'm sure you probably know her blog already (she's even been on martha!)...but if not swing by for lots of great goodies and awesome pics...!

...oh and if you have any tips on making from scratch vanilla cupcake recipes with butter or the technique to make them....please let me know what magic you whip up in the kitchen to get perfect looking cupcakes!...and happy new year...!...hope 2012 is off to a great start for ya....!

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Friday, December 30, 2011

2011 meme cupcakes....!



...so i was originally going to do the best news stories of 2011 for an end of year post....

....but really who wants to see a trio of bin laden, kim jong-il, and gaddafi death cuppie toppers, followed by a penn state scandal in cupcake form?...ummmm no one! ....so decided to go a slightly different route....and besides meme's are fun anyways....lots showed up over the year and if you are pinterest addict like me, you have probably seen a bunch of meme variations posted too....and in case you aren't familar with memes....a meme is (according to the all-knowing wikipedia) "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture"....it's usually something funny and people spread it as is or modify it to try to give it their twist...social media is a must for memes!

.....these are a bunch of my favs from 2011....
   

...planking!....(get it??....he's planking the cupcake....!!!).....google "planking"---hilarious!...don't know if some are photoshopped or not but funny either way....you know a meme is popular when it shows up in an office episode (btw-one of the best office scenes!)..and previous plankers are probably now tebowing...!

....occupy wall street...which i'm sure most people know or have heard of.....the groups in NYC and other cities protesting socioeconomic differences of the "99%" versus "1%'s"...lots of random funny occupy wallstreet signs out there poking some fun about how many have alot of free time and ipads or the pepper spraying cop ....(..the cupcake topper is made with a graham cracker...just written on with some edible food writer...makes a cool sign right?!)....


....60's spiderman!....love!....random pics of spiderman from the old cartoon with captions....hilarity ensues.....so funny because the artists of the time did put him in some unusual positions or predictaments!

....nope! chuck testa....ok i'll admit i had to look this one up....but it's a good one...a dude out in cali did a commercial for his taxidermy business...once peeps in the world got wind of this they took his tag line and added it to lots of other pics...(cupcake is a reindeer peep and a candy melt sign!)



....clean ALL the things....or X all the Y!..... cartoon to motivate taking on all the mudane things to do...which morphed into lots of other things or modifications of the cartoon....

and....

...nyan cat---a pixelated cat made of pop tart and rainbow shooting from it....yeah it's a meme kinda like the first meme i remember the peanut better jelly time banana or like badger badger badger where the formula is a bad cartoon and a repeating song verse, that's a bit annoying but catchy....i like nyan cat because it satisfies the rainbow cute loving thing side of me...and to top it off she's made out of a pop tart! (the cupcake topper is also made out of mini pop tarts (or crips) and candy melt....yes i especially made a trip to the store to find these little gems...)


...and you get some 2011 meme's in edible cupcake form...!


....anyway i think that's it for me for 2011....this has been a great year and i can't wait for 2012 and all that it brings....thank you to everyone of you that reads the blog...this started as a fluke and i enjoy it more than i thought i ever would...and i've said it before but it's much cheaper than therapy!....have an awesome new years and "see" you in 2012!


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Sunday, December 25, 2011

snow monster cupcakes.....!



....so who do you think would win in a fight....rudolph's abominable snow monster of the north (aka bumble)....

OR

.....the star wars wampa...?


....these are the things i think about....that's normal right?.....and are there other well known "snow monsters"...?.....well regardless....i tried making these 2 in cupcake form...!.....these were for my nephew who is also a star wars fan but also has one of those dreaded december birthdays....which kinda gets lumped in with christmas....happy birthday jarad!.....

...started with a red velvet cake mix then iced cupcakes with some melted candy wafers in blue for the bumble and black for the wampa.....(btw if you are not a fan of icing...this is a great way to ice cupcakes as an alternative)


....the inspiration for the bumble is from the Candy Valley Cake Company's FB page...made with coconut and candy wafers for the detail.....also did some mini's because abominal's have families....right?

abominable snowmonster cupcakes


....and inspiration for the wampa cupcakes are from geeks are sexy sent in by a reader...made with coconut and the detail also done with candy melt....(and man i totally forgot i did a wampa cupcake before as part of this post! who what have thunk someone would do 2 wampa themed cupcakes and forget about one....duh, i do too much star wars related stuff!!!)

wampa cupcakes


....and you get a bunch "cute" snow monster cupcakes.....and realistically the wampa should win the fight....but since the bumble is really good at heart versus those man eating wampas.....i'll say the bumble wins....and he's just goofier too!....

wampa and bumble cupcakes

.....merry christmas to everyone out there who celebrates!!!....my kiddos are young so it's really fun this year....2 out of 3 could not fall asleep tonight....ahh i remember that feeling when the next christmas day just could not come fast enough and it was impossible to fall asleep that night......fun to live that again through them now....thanks again for stopping by during this busy holiday season!!!

ps if you have never seen the old rudolph tv special or star wars this post is probably very confusing to you....sorry!
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Sunday, December 18, 2011

merry christmahanakwanzika.....holiday madeleines......!

christmas madeleines

.....i am totally getting some mileage out of my madeleine pan.....after making them for halloween here.....decided to try them again for this holiday season because they just look so pretty.....!


...red, green, and white for christmas (or to show your italian or bulgarian pride!).....used a simple madeleine recipe found here....and separated batter into 3 zip lock bags....1 tinted red, 1 green, and 1 left without any tint....


...then just fill colors into 3 sections (fill a little at a time of each color then go back and refill a little...it's really pretty simple).....once baked and cooled...sprinkle them with a little powdered sugar.....


....or you can just do 2 colors if that's easier.....still pretty!


....again these are really simple, and recipe mixes up nicely....it's so simple....that i did some for my hanukkah celebrating friends....


...with just some batter tinted blue and some not tinted....


....and also for kwanzaa celebrating friends....!


....i really like the black contrast in these...


....then packed them up for a par-tay...!...and you get some colorful madeleines for the season....


.....so merry christmahanakwanzika!!!!...not sure if i'll have any other posts before the holidays start (although there may be one left in me).....so thank you all for stopping by periodically and hope you have a great time celebrating your particular holiday with your family and friends...!


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Sunday, December 11, 2011

disney princess gingerbread cookies....!


...so i think i mentioned that i think i do way too many posts geared toward the geek chromosome...(not that girls aren't geeky....but since my oldest is a boy....and the 40+ year old was an engineer in a much earlier life....and was and still is a rush fan....i don't think i need to say anymore....the kids are bound to be into star wars and super heroes and such.....but that said....we also have boy/girl 4 year old twins...and my little guy is pretty much like my 7 year old....but my little girl...is pretty much a girlie girl.....and she's just starting to get into princesses....not that we had all that much girl stuff either....but she gravitates towards more girlie things.....so funny....nature versus nuture thing....not sure but we just try to make the kids happy regardless....she likes pink and purple....the boys would go nuts if i picked them a pink shirt out....they say they want every boy toy commercial and she the same for the girl stuff.....we don't push them one way or the other and continue to let them know boys can like pink and girls can like trucks...no biggie....but they definitely have a preference and pick traditional girl and boy stuff.....(however they all like lego building bricks....actually what a great toy for anyone...!).....

....anyhoo thats a long intro for me to say i made some girlie princesses for my princess...(and princes however they want nothing to do with these particular cookies....candy coating and all....!)....earlier this month i did super hero gingerbread cookies....(which of course were a huge hit around here)....but figured i'd do some princesses too--since my little one loves princess belle....

....to speed up the process again just used a boxed gingerbread cookie mix and cut out gingerbread men shapes.....i sketched out the "princesses" just so i could see what colors went were....detail is mostly wilton candy melts since i have all the colors already....i did use some royal icing tinted skin tone for that part and added that detail first.....eyes/mouth are drawn on with food writers.....

princess gingerbread


....some have asked how long this process takes.....i did all 8 of these last nite (the super heroes i did over a couple nites).....you just have to think about what detail needs to go on first....then let the candy melt harden if you need to layer on other detail on top (like belle's dress).....oh and i melt all my candy wafers in a zip lock baggie and snip off an end to "pipe" it on....

....here's princess belle and ariel.....

belle and ariel cookies

....alice from wonderland and princess jasmine....

jasmine and alice in wonderland cookies

...princess tiana and aurora aka sleeping beauty....(for tiana i didn't have the right color royal icing for skin tone so i used candy melt for her---in hindsight i would have either tinted the royal icing the right color or tried coloring with a food writer....sorry if anyone didn't like the way she came out....in the end these are "experiments" for me to see what works and doesn't work).....

tiana and sleeping beauty cookies

......and snow white and cinderella....

snow white and cinderella cookies

......and you get a bunch of disney princesses all dressed up in gingerbread form....!

....on another side note....my daughter doesn't really know the stories that well....and thats kinda ok by me, because the disney stories are mostly about down and out princesses looking for prince charming to come and save them....but i'm not too worried....hopefully she'll know they are just stories and she'll have better role models in real life versus fairy tales....but for now she's only 4 and thinks they are shiznit....so if she likes princesses, here they are in cookie form...!

disney princess gingerbread cookies

....and i am loving all the holiday posts out there in the major blogosphere.....so easy to just click around for hours checking out posts....too bad i have a full time job....because this is much more fun!....thanks for checking and in have a great week!!!....

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

super hero gingerbread men and women.....!


....so what's better than super heroes and gingerbread..?...super hero gingerbread men (and women) cookies of course!....

superhero gingerbread men

....these were so much fun to make and ever since doing the star wars gingerbread men last year here....and the kids loving the actual gingerbread man shaped ones better....i knew i was going to do some type of super hero one this year....

....to make the process a bit simpler, i just used a gingerbread cookie boxed mix.....then sketched them out so i knew what colors went where......all the detail is done with wilton candy melt/wafers....only because i'm a bit too lazy to make royal icing in all the colors and i already have candy wafers in all the colors.....(did make some royal icing in white and skin tone for those parts).....


...and ok i know so they are a little plumper than normal superman and aquaman....



.....and wonder woman and spiderman....(and stop judging wonder woman because she's a little more chunky....spiderman is just cute and stocky right?.....but poor wonder women has to deal with her image and what not even in cookie form...sheesh....!)


....and ok maybe green lantern does look like cartman from south park.....but wolverine may be my fav....


.....invisible woman and captain america.....(did anyone get that invisible woman is disappearing...?...had to explain that to the hubby too...sigh)


.....batman and robin....

batman and robin gingerbread men

...iron man and thor....


....and you end up with some super cool super friends in cookie form....just in time for the holidays....!

superhero gingerbread cookies

....anyway, thanks for stopping by....off to visit all the fun holiday treats and these cool blog hops...love this time of year!....have an awesome week!....

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