classic chocolate cupcakes!

But as much as I love this recipe, I’ve been wanting to find something that’s just a bit sweeter and a little less time consuming to make. I know there’s only 6 ingredients in Martha’s recipe, but… have you ever melted a pound and a half of chocolate and had to wait for it to cool? It takes quite awhile!

So anyways, I’d been doing some research online for a few months when I stumbled upon this recipe from Joy the Baker’s blog. Let me tell you guys, I have NOT looked back since. What is so wonderful about this recipe is that it’s sweet enough for the kids, but not so sweet that adults won’t touch it. Plus, there’s actually vitamins in this buttercream. That’s right, V-I-T-A-M-I-N-S! The secret ingredient is the addition of Ovaltine which, as we all know, contains 12 vitamins & minerals and is a good source of vitamin E and iron.

Try it. I know you’ll love it.

Wedding tasting: Chocolate cupcakes with Ovaltine frosting!

Birthday cupcakes topped with this wonderful buttercream.

So far, this stuff has piped beautifully. You can easily control the consistency of the finished product by varying how much cream you choose to add to the buttercream. I’ve yet to try it with a sculpted cake, but for cupcakes and smaller cakes it easily gets my stamp of approval!

Even with my world spinning slightly off of its axis, I’ve managed to squeeze in a few different cakes/ cupcakes since my last post. Here’s what y’all missed:

whimsical college graduation cake

My good friend from college asked me to do a graduation cake for her younger sister. Within this cake, she asked for a variety of elements to be included. See if you can find them all: a grad cap, UC Davis colors, Banghra (Punjabi) dancing, elements of “college life,” and something relevant to dental school. This cake was a challenge, but very fun and every bit of whimsical as I’d hoped it to be!

25th birthday cupcakes (1 of 2)

bootie cupcakes (2 of 2)

In January, my friend R threw herself one hell of a 25th birthday party. She asked me to provide a variety of treats including 2 types of cupcakes (shown above), a few trays of chocolate whoopie pies and 1 large cupcake cutting cake. The vanilla cupcakes were topped with a marshmallow cream frosting, and decorated with handmade chocolate accents and edible glitter. The red velvet cupcakes were frosted with a thick swirl of classic cream cheese frosting and decorated with fondant butts.

Yes, butts. You heard me right. When I accepted this order, R had mentioned that she’d been working out really hard for the last year or so, and wanted everyone at her party to, “have a piece of my ass!” I love her confidence, enthusiasm and the fact she’s so secure in her own skin! You go girl!

PS – These toppers would be great for a bachelorette party too…

TokiDoki birthday cake

In March, my buddy G asked for a couple of cakes. For his wife’s birthday, he asked for a small, super chocolatey cake. He mentioned that TokiDoki is one of her favorite things, so I did some research and designed a simple cake with hand cut fondant TokiDoki accents.

Two of his friends also happened to have a birthday during the same week, so he asked for a casual cake for the guys to take on a weekend trip. I knew that this group of guys were all die hard Giants fans, so I couldn’t resist surprising them with a hat cake. Just like my earlier hat cakes, it was decorated in fondant with hand cut accents.

Giants hat cake

My cousin, M, is an incredible kid and I was super excited when her mom asked me to do her birthday cake a couple weeks ago. Along with the cake, she was going to be surprised with new archery equipment for her birthday. I designed the cake to go along with her fabulous birthday present, making the archery target out of fondant and the arrow out of gumpaste.

archery-themed birthday cake

A couple of weeks ago, one of my neighbors emailed and asked if I could do two dozen chocolate cupcakes for one of her employee’s birthdays. She requested the cupcakes to be as chocolatey as possible, and decorated in a “dog” theme. These hand cut fondant decorations might be my favorite cupcake toppers to date!

birthday "pupcakes"

1. Cooling racks with a small grid design.

Cooling racks are an essential for any baker, but what makes these puppies so special is the awesome grid-design! If you’ve ever used a cooling rack with vertical lines you’ve probably noticed those unsightly lines that show up on your cakes once they cool. That’s because when a cake is hot its very soft and can take on impressions easily and make decorating a bit difficult in the future. Ick.

Not my favorite kind of cooling rack.

One day while shopping at the Crate & Barrel Outlet in Berkeley I found these awesome cooling racks with a grid pattern… perfect! They were about $24 for a package of two racks, but worth EVERY penny. Ever since I’ve bought these guys there’s been no more trenches in my cakes! Also, these cooling racks have a pretty good weight to them so I’m less nervous of one collapsing with a heavy cake on it. (That has happened before…)

See the grids? THAT'S what you're looking for!

In store, I was able to purchase a package of two cooling racks by themselves. Unfortunately I can’t find that deal online, but 2 cooling racks and 2 cookie sheets for $24.95 is not a bad deal either! You can buy them here.

(Images from here and here)

2. Food Color Kits

Food coloring is a strong tool in any baker/decorator’s army, but unfortunately individual colors can be pretty pricey (about $3 per color). There are several vendors that sell food color kits, and I highly recommend them. Not only will you save a few bucks, but you’ll also have a nice array of colors to start working with.

One of AmeriColors' many food color kits.

Wilton & AmeriColor are the two food color brands that I’ve used, but you can also get food coloring from Atecco and other baking supply vendors. AmeriColors’ product is what they call a “soft gel.” You can squeeze it out of a bottle, but the slight gel-ness of the color ensures you don’t accidentally squirt out too much. Wilton’s color products are the consistency of jello, and they require a toothpick or small spoon (depending on how much you’re using!) to get the coloring out of the container.

Overall I couldn’t recommend one brand over the other, but there are a couple things that you should be aware of:

1. It’s very difficult to color anything a true red. If you’re planning on coloring icing Santa Red, you may want to look into the “No-Taste Red” product from Wilton. Believe it or not, when you add enough color to icing you will start to taste a bitterness. With No-Taste Red you’ll have less of a chance of running into this issue.
2. Similar to red, it’s very difficult to color anything a true black! I’ve used both AmeriColor & Wilton’s black food coloring, and it always leaves my fondant looking a deep forest green instead of black. At this point, consider purchasing pre-tinted fondant, icing or piping gel.

You can purchase a lot of these color kits online through Amazon or other baking supply vendors. However if there’s not enough time for shipping, stop by your local baking supply store or a Michael’s Arts & Crafts store. Both of those places will usually carry food color kits.

(Image from here)

3. Tiny Cookie Cutters

When working with fondant, tiny cookie cutters are a girl’s best friend! Fox Run makes several different kinds of affordable sets of mini cookie cutters. I’d start with the basic shapes: circles, squares, rectangles and the letters/numbers set, and then branch out to some of the more ridiculous ones. I actually received one of these sets as an early gift this year! He was so sweet and gave me the 7-piece leaf set, so when next fall rolls around I’ll be ready to go with fondant leaves for all my cakes & cupcakes.

Fox Run's 7-Piece Leaf Set

You could also use these cutters to make decorations for pies, and I suppose you could even make super tiny sugar cookies if that’s your cup o’ joe.

I’ve found sets of these cutters at various different resellers: Williams-Sonoma, Sur La Table, local baking supply stores, etc. You can also find them online at Amazon, and I believe you can purchase from Fox Run’s website directly. Depending on who you purchase them from they can cost anywhere from $8-$15 for a set.

(Image from here)

4. Disposable Decorating Bags

If my cake decorating teacher knew I was recommending these, she’d probably ban me from her store forever! Parchment paper bags are wonderful and are great for doing detail work, but I’ll be completely honest: I am TERRIBLE at making them. No matter how much I practice, I always end up losing icing out the sides or the top of the bag. I also find them a huge pain to refill once you’re out of icing.

Disposable decorating bag. Easy to fill & relatively mess-free.

If your gift recipient regularly decorates with multiple bags, then you also might want to consider gifting them with a decorating bag holder. I actually don’t have one yet, but I’ve been eyeing them every time I pop into Michael’s.

Wilton's decorating bag holder

Both of these products are made by Wilton and can be purchased online (Amazon or Wilton.com) or at your local Michael’s store.

(Image from here and here)

5. Kitchen Scale

If you’ve watched the Food Network for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard Alton Brown argue about how it’s more accurate to bake by weight than to measure your ingredients in dry/liquid measuring cups. What he didn’t mention was how much easier it is to bake by weight instead of measure!

It’s relatively easy to convert your cups measurements into weight. Just remember that 1 cup = 8 ounces, and then reduce or double your numbers from there. Once you’ve got your ingredients converted you simply pour them onto the scale, and there’s no additional dirty dishes from scooping & leveling off measuring cups.

Taylor's kitchen scale. Found at Target.

I found this little bugger at Target for, at the time, $20 (I think). Target’s website now says it’s $30, but I don’t think I paid that much for it. Anyways, your recipient doesn’t need the most expensive scale ever. Just one that is accurate and can zero out added weight. Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and probably even Walgreens will sell an accurate kitchen scale.

(Image from here)

Bonus Gift Idea

Ok, I know I said 5 gifts under $50 but here’s an extra idea. Please note: I’ve not yet tried out this service. I just recently found it online, so that’s why I’m listing it as an “idea” and not a straight recommendation.

As many of you know I follow several baking blogs online, and they’ll often recommend good services & products to try. I’ve seen My Cake School featured on a couple of blogs, and decided to check it out. My Cake School is an online cake decorating resource and for $30 a year you get unlimited access to their video tutorial library, recipes and message boards. There’s also a blog that’s open to everyone to check out.

www.mycakeschool.com -- Check them out!

And just so you know I have no affiliations with My Cake School, nor do I have any affiliations with Amazon or any of the other sites I’ve mentioned above. I just saw their service and thought it was an interesting concept. I anyone out there tries it, please let me know what you think of their services! And if I decide to sign up I’ll definitely share my experience with you.

(Image from here)

To each of you that has read my blog and is following OmNom Treats, thank you. Thank you for all the love and support, and for giving me the courage to try something new. I wish each and every one of you a very happy holidays, and may 2011 be the best year for us yet!

xoxoxo

Is it orange enough for pumpkins?

I got an order last week to make some halloween inspired cupcakes, but the trick was they needed to be Happy Hour-inspired cupcakes (AKA: FULL of booze).

So how do you combine pumpkins and booze?!

I did some research… and then some thinking… and then some more research… before I finally decided that a spiced rum would be the most complimentary alcohol to pumpkin treats. I finally decided to make Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple and Rum based on a recipe from the Cupcake Project.

Fresh out of the oven!

I topped the cupcakes with Martha’s trusty swiss meringue buttercream that had been flavored with a heavy dose of spiced rum. Combined I thought the cupcakes tasted just a hair on the buttery-sweet side. They were really good, but maybe just a bit rich for my liking. In the future I’d consider adding a hint of maple syrup to the buttercream to enhance the flavor in the cupcakes and to mellow the afterbite of the rum.

OmNoms indeed...

That night I baked 2 dozen Pumpkin Rum cupcakes, 2 dozen Irish Delight cupcakes, and 6 dozen pumpkin whoopie pies. The whoopie pies were absolutely adorable and alcohol free…

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies... Mini-sized of course!

… but I think I was most proud of the cupcakes. The flavors were spot on, but the fondant pumpkins and witches hats really made them shine!

Fondant pumpkins & witches' hats atop Pumpkin-Rum cupcakes.

Finished Irish Delight cupcakes

Lots of OmNom Treats...

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!

Photos by Maurice Trudell

Cute, right?

(Image from here)

From what I can tell these treats were created & perfected by the fabulous baking blogger, Bakerella. I’d stumbled across her blog last year when looking for halloween treat ideas and was COMPLETELY blown away by her array of halloween cake pops.

The mummies were my favorites.

(Image from here)

After the halloween pop find I began following Bakerella’s blog, but didn’t try to make any of her treats. Then maybe a month or two ago, I noticed that my friend Megan began making cake pops. She did some AWESOME Mr. Potato Head pops, and these super cute Ferdinand the Bull type pops too.

(I’d show you a photo, but the only ones I’ve seen are on her private Facebook page and I don’t want to compromise anyone’s privacy.)

I talked to Megan about her pops, and decided that I’d finally give them a try. I had held off because I wasn’t sure how I felt about using candy melts (aka. fake chocolate), but in the end I decided to give it a shot. I could always find a way around candy melts later.

So I go into my kitchen today armed with the necessary fixin’s: Red Velvet cake, cream cheese frosting, chocolate-flavored candy melts, and red non-pareils. And much to my dismay, I’m sorry to report that today’s attempt at Red Velvet cake pops was an EPICCCCC FAILLLLL.

Everything started fine! The cake baked up nicely and the frosting tasted rich and creamy. I crumbled the cake into extra-fine pieces, and mixed in the frosting per Bakerella’s instructions. Then I had a taste and…

…I was NOTTTT impressed.

Maybe I used too much frosting?? Maybe it was too hot of a day for baking, and I was turned off from sugar?? Maybe I hate the texture of mashed up cake & icing?? I have no idea, but something about the filling just wasn’t jiving for me.

Still, I trudged along. I told myself I was going to dip a couple just to see how they tasted.

To be completely honest, I kinda wish I had just stopped there.

While the centers were chilling down in the freezer, I worked on the candy melts. I melted them in the microwave per the directions on the packaging, but the consistency was still too thick. I thinned it down with some oil, but it still wasn’t thin enough for actual dipping. Using a spoon I lowered the pop into the melted coating, and spooned coating onto the pop until everything was covered

Unfortunately the heat of the candy melts combined with the chill of the cake pops did not work out in my favor. The hot candy coating made the cake pops melt a little, and crumbs of the cake ended up in the coating! Blobby and crumb-ey.

Pun intended.

So how did this all taste? Believe me, I was praying to the cake gods that somehow all of this would taste good together. Did they answer my prayers? HELL NO.

My gut instincts were right: the center was too ‘wet,’ and the texture was not appetizing at all. The candy melts were overly sweet, and the fake chocolate flavor was really distracting. I literally spit out my test bite, and promptly shoved everything in the trash… only THEN realizing I should have taken some photos for you.

Oops.

Have I sworn off of cake pops?? Absolutely not. I’m going to try them again one of these days, and I’ll get them figured out! I do think I’ve sworn off of candy melts though… Next time I’m going to find some white chocolate and color & flavor it rather than use the fake stuff.

Cake pops... I'll conquer you someday!

(Image from here)

For my Grandpa’s memorial services last month I decided that a cake shaped like a baseball cap would be a fitting tribute to the person that never went anywhere without one. Here’s the steps I took to make the hat cake – enjoy!

How to Make a Hat Cake

1. Bake your cake. You’ve got a couple of options with this one. I chose to bake the cake in 3 layers and then carve it into the shape of a hat. However, if you’re not comfortable with the idea of carving you can definitely bake one layer in the base of a metal mixing bowl and use that rounded piece as the top layer.

Baking awayyyy: 3 8" layers will probably take about 45 min.

If you bake all the layers at once (like I did), you’ll have a bit of time on your hands. I used this time to get my buttercream together and clean up my workspace… you’ll be a lot happier if you do the same.

3 layers - baked and filled

Once the layers have cooled, fill them with your choice of a filling. I used a Swiss Meringue Buttercream for stability, but you could use a ganache or cream filling if you wanted.

2. Carve your cake. It’s a bit intimidating trying to turn a traditional 3-layer cake into a baseball hat, but trust me, you can do it! A couple tips to get you started:

1. Have a “model.” Lucky for me my boyfriend has the biggest hat collection on the planet. I swiped one of his to use as a reference point.
2. Freeze the cake. I know, I know… freezing a cake is a cardinal sin in the world of baking and decorating. But honestly, if this is your first time carving a cake you’ll be GLAD you did! If you choose to freeze your cake, wrap it really good with saran wrap (to prevent it from drying out) and pop it in the freezer for 30 minutes – 1 hour. Freezing the cake just makes it easier to work with, and most people can’t taste the difference.
3. Don’t crumb-ice before carving. I know this tip sounds really “duhhh,” but I honestly forgot and crumb-iced prior to carving and ended up cutting off ALL of the icing I had used. Save yourself time AND frosting, and don’t crumb-ice before.

My hat and my model.

Start with the top of the layers and carve down at an angle in order to give your cake a dome top. You’ll be cutting off most of the top layer, and the edges of the bottom two. Make sure to make your angled cuts very pronounced, because otherwise you won’t see them once you cover the cake in fondant.

For the baseball hat, make sure to make some “V”-shaped cuts in the top to account for rumples in the hat. Also, carve out a small hole in the back of cake to mimic an adjustable hat. This hole should be at the very bottom of the cake, and about 2″ wide by 1 1/2″ deep.

Again, make all the cuts extremelyyy pronounced. Your cake should end up being about 7 3/4 – 8″ wide (depending on how much you carve off of the sides), and about 4 – 4 1/2″ tall.

What your carved cake should look like.

3. Crumb-ice the cake. After your carving work is done, cover the cake in a thin layer of buttercream. Crumb-icing, dirty icing, crumb coating… it doesn’t matter what you call it, but just make sure you do it. This coat of buttercream gives the fondant something to stick to, and also gives you the opportunity to smooth out any problems you might have run into during the carving process. Once your cake is crumb-iced, pop it in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to firm up.

In the meantime get started loosening up your fondant! You can use pre-tinted fondant, or color your own using gel food colors. You’ll need about a pound, maybe a bit more, to cover and decorate the cake. When tinting the fondant, be mindful of your hands. You can use plastic gloves, or coat your hands with a thin layer of shortening. The shortening won’t keep all of the color off of your hands, but it will help keep them mostly clean. Also, it is possible to ‘overwork’ the fondant and dry it out, so keeping shortening on your hands helps with that too.

4. Cover the cake. You can cover the cake in any medium you like – fondant, buttercream, marzipan, etc. I chose to use fondant for a couple of reasons: 1) it offers a beautifully smooth finish (when you apply it right), and 2) it seals the cake really well and helps to keep it fresh.

Roll out your fondant to about 1/4″ thick. You can make it a little thinner than that, but know that thin fondant is prone to tears, and tears are impossibly hard to fix!

Once you’ve reached the proper thickness roll 1/2 of the fondant back on your rolling pin, lift it up and gently place it over the cake.

Working quickly (but carefully!), lift and smooth out the fondant all around the cake. This, my friends, is a LOT harder than it sounds. Remove all of your rings, and be mindful of your nails as they can snag the fondant and cause unnecessary ruckus. Cut away excess fondant as necessary… the excess fondant will pull down and create wrinkles in the finished product.

Sorry that I don’t have any photos of this step. I was the only person at home & couldn’t cover a cake and photograph at the same time!! Gosh, Caty…

Here’s the final photos and you can see what I mean about working with fondant. I’ll admit, covering the green hat was MUCH easier than covering the blue hat, and I think it shows.

Top of the Oakland hat.

(Re) Covering the Dodger cake.

5. Decorate the hat! Keep your model on hand for this part, as there are a several details on the hat that you don’t want to overlook.

1. The bill. In order to make the bill of the hat I traced an outline on to cardboard and covered it in fondant. While the fondant was drying, I sort of curved the bill to give it some shape, and added stitching details. Be mindful of the proportions… the Oakland bill looks a bit off, but the Dodger bill looked much better.

The slightly awkward bill.

Better proportions... ignore the shoddy fondant.

2. The stitching. Wilton makes a nifty little roller tool that happens to have a piece that, when used, looks exactly like fabric stitches! Use this to create stitching on the bill, and to create the seams along the top of the hat.

See the stitches?

3. The rivets & button. Look at the top of your model hat and note where the rivets are. Then using 2 different pastry tips make one outer ring and one inner ring. I believe I used a #4 for the outer ring, and a #2 for the inner ring. Also, roll a small ball out of fondant & flatten it slightly. Attach it to the center of the hat (on the top) with a light brushing of Vodka or lemon extract. Should look like this:

Rivet-ing... bahahaha!

4. The Adjustable Strap. Remember that hole I made you cut out of the cake wayyyy back in step 2? Now it’s time to put it to work. Roll out a short piece of fondant that’s about 1/2″ wide, and make holes in it the same way you made the rivets. Cut one end of it in a curved shape, and attach it to the cake with… yes, you’ve guessed it… Vodka!

The adjustable strap!

Another view...

5. Logos. Often times colors are a dead giveaway, but the one thing all hats have in common is a logo! For the Oakland hat I simply cut out an oval-shaped piece of fondant and piped the acronym “OAK” on the front. The Dodger hat was a little different… I printed out a picture of the LA logo, cut it out, and placed it over my fondant. Then, using an Xacto Blade, I carefully cut the logo out of fondant and attached it to the front of my hat with a brushing of Vodka.

Note: I’m not that much of a lush. There are only 2 liquids that will allow you to attach 2 pieces of fondant together: Vodka and lemon extract. I happened to be out of lemon extract which is why I was using Vodka.

Beat LA!

6. The Presentation. After you’ve put in all this work creating a fabulous cake you still have to consider one more thing… the presentation. I’m not the hugest fan of foil-covered cake boards, but you can use them if you like. You can also cover a board in fondant which is what I did for both cakes.

Fondant covered cake board.

Fondant covered board with baseball cupcakes to match!

And there you have it! That’s the rundown on how to create a hat cake! I hope you’ve enjoyed the tutorial… feel free to leave questions or comments if you have any.

Anyways – the ending of Top Chef worked out JUST as I’d hoped! I was super excited to see Kevin win… I thought he’d kinda been the dark horse through out the entire competition. All of a sudden he was in the finale, and I didn’t really understand why. I gotta admit though, he did an AMAZING job and squarely beat Ed & Angelo!! Angelo’s cockiness had been bugging me ALL season, and then Ed all of a sudden turned into a major d-bag in the first part of the finale. I absolutely love the fact that Kevin showed up both of those two, and did it with style and elegance. Congratulations Kevin!!

Plating up something delicious!

(Photo from here)

My favorite part of the episode was when Padma announced that he was the winner. Kevin just looked straight at Tom Colicchio and said “Are you serious??”

Cute.

The 'Just Desserts' Judges: Head Judge, Johnny Iuzzini; Host, Gail Simmons; Judge, Hubert Keller; Judge, Dannielle Kyrillos

(Photo from here)

Top Chef Just Desserts was interesting to say the least. I thought the amount of bitchiness between the Cheftestants was excessive, but its a new show and they have to make their marks. The Quickfire Challenge seemed easy enough: create a dessert that exemplifies you as a pastry chef. Aaaalmost too good to be true, right?

Right. The real challenge came when Gail and Johnny walked in 10 minutes into the challenge and said, “Oh wait… Your signature dish needs to be interpreted as a cupcake.”

Well there were some doozies in this bunch, but overall I was really surprised by how many pastry chefs were uncomfortable with making cupcakes! I mean, they’re not that difficult and anyone who has a pastry background should at least have an idea of what ratios they need to pull it together. Combine that with the fact that cupcakes have been the trending dessert for the last 5 years… I feel like the Cheftestants should have seen that coming a mile away! But then again… I tend to bake cupcakes every other week, so maybe I’m just being hard on them.

The Elimination Challenge was to create the most ‘decadent’ chocolate dessert to impress guest judge Jacques Torres, AKA, Mr. Chocolate. Most of the desserts looked beautiful, but my impression was that they didn’t look that decadent. Obviously taste is different than looks, but I just wasn’t totally wowed by any of them. I do agree that Heather deserved to win, and I’m surprised that Zak made it to the top even though he blew Disco Dust straight on to his dishes in FRONT of the judges!!! Thats right ladies & gents… he blew all over his food just like he would blow out candles on a birthday cake!

Well, that’s a little extreme, but still… WHO DOES THAT?!?!!!!

Heather's winning dessert!

(Photo from here)

All in all I was pleased with the show. I think they have talented Judges, and Johnny provides a lot of no-nonsense/ raw whimsy that is refreshing to see. It’ll be interesting to see where the show goes, and the types of challenges that they can come up with. This spin-off has some huge shoes to fill considering it bears the same name as the Emmy award-winning show, but pastry chefs are talented artists. I’m looking forward to next week.

Viva la dessert!!

Surpriseeee!

Along with a diverse menu of Mexican inspired appetizers, I decide to create a margarita-flavored cupcake for dessert. And yes, I used tequila. PLENTYYYY of tequila!

One table full of food! What you don't see here are the bowls of rice and beans, and the 6 (yes, there were 6) different dips & salsas!

A tower of Margarita Cupcakes!!

I’m not the hugest tequila fan, and because of that I rarely drink margaritas. Several hours were spent on the internet looking at not only cupcake recipes, but reading about the history of margaritas and the elements that this classic drink was composed of. I learned quite a few new things, and came to the conclusion that a “original lime” flavor would work best for my needs.

Baking with alcohol can be very tricky as much of the flavor bakes off in the oven. To add more flavor, many bakers will actually brush their baked (and cooled!) cupcakes with the liquor of their choice… I’ve done this before, and honestly, haven’t been a fan. I decided the best way to infuse more margarita flavor into each cupcake would be to fill each of them with a lime filling that had a heavy dose of tequila. I was envisioning a lime curd that had the texture and density of that of a lemon meringue pie filling, but tasted fresh and tangy – exactly like a margarita should!

Food Networks’s site lead me to a recipe for a lime curd tart by celebrity chef Ina Garten. I used Ina’s lime curd recipe as a starting point, and kind of experimented from there. She calls for about 1/2 cup of fresh lime juice (about 4 fresh limes), and I juiced 3 limes and used tequila for the 4th. Oops.

For the cake I used a basic vanilla buttermilk cake recipe and added the zest & juice of 3 limes and a couple of tablespoons of tequila. This recipe is similar to what I came up with. Most of the tequila baked out of the cupcakes, but when I paired them with the lime curd I found the fresh, tangy taste I’d been dreaming of!

So cute!

Most of the margarita cupcake recipes that I’d seen all used a rich swiss meringue buttercream to finish the treat. I was hesitant to use this kind of frosting because it is so incredibly buttery and rich – I wasn’t sure how that would pair up with the tequila and lime. It actually ended up tasting pretty good! Again, I used a heavy hand when flavoring the frosting, but I think the richness of the frosting balanced well with the citrus flavors. The buttercream was piped with a large french star tip, and then topped with a slice of fresh lime.

All in all, the party was a huge success! Great friends, lots of food, and a very surprised birthday boy.

Lu-Siesta. Hah.

**Other recipes from the party that I’d recommend:  Margarita Chicken Skewers and Shrimp Cocktail – Veracruz Style.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REESE!!!

Putting last year's presents to good use...

In honor of your special day, I am listing 26 reasons why you deserve to have a fabulous birthday.

1. You’re my best friend. And best friends should have great birthdays.
2. You walk Lucy late at night when I’m to scared to go outside alone.
3. You try all of my treats even though you’re not the biggest fan of sweets. (Hah! That rhymed!)
4. You make really cool robot music!!
5. You wrote the lyrics to “Looking Back,” and you actually meant them.
6. You randomly buy me flowers, and they’re always the prettiest flowers!
7. You always make sure that I get home safe.
8. You cook dinner for me… on occasion.
9. You have a knack for discovering the most amazing foods. (Hello, Mountain Man hot dog!)
10. You have an iron-stomach & can eat nearly everything… except for 12 Hellfire Hot Wings from SmokeEaters.
11. You downloaded Ke$ha’s album before I even asked for it.
12. You enjoy, or at least pretend to enjoy, all my cooking & Project Runway-esque shows.
13. I came home from Grandpa’s memorial service to a clean house & a big hug.
14. You find the humor in every part of the day.
15. You constantly show, and remind, me that patience is a virtue.
16. You take time to enjoy life, and find the fun in every situation.
17. You are the best appliance-hurdler ever.
18. You are the greatest friend to so many people (not just me), and I see, daily,  how good of a friend you are!
19. You are the biggest supporter & encourager of anyone I’ve ever known.
20. You call people out when they’re out of line, and you accept the same criticism when you do the same.
21. You go above & beyond the call of duty every single day to make sure that I am happy & taken care of.
22. You introduced me to the goodness that is ice-cold sparkling water.
23. You give me all of your olives.
24. You go along with all my Secret Squirrel missions and wildly outrageous ideas. (Ahem, pre-gaming before bottomless Mimosa brunch…)
25. You are the best cuddler. (Sorry, Lucy!)
26. You were too hungover to really enjoy last year’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Lover! Hope you have a great day!