The Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Noone who is interested in baking could possibly miss the cookie monster cupcakes that are all over the web. And why shouldn't they be? They're adorable, look professional and so easy to make, so I went to the store to pick up a few things needed, but to my surprise there were NO blue sprinkles or mint kisses or anything that could make eyes. So I created a monster...

...behold cookie monster's girlfriend!

I haven't come up with a good name for her yet, but isn't she pretty? ;)

I used a random good chocolate cupcake recipe that I had close by, covered them in pink vanilla butter cream, dunked in strawberry sprinkles and used white buttercream and non-stops for eyes. Simple. =)
Cutting the chocolate cookie in half proved to turn out the best, and leaves you with chunks of broken cookies to snack on!

Why complicate things? Sugarpaste

I've seen stores that sell special trays and tools for putting your cut out sugarpaste flowers and such on while they dry up and harden. Some people are clever enough to use empty egg cartons. That works well with larger flowers, but with the smaller ones it can be hard to get them back out without breaking them and the depth of the box can make the flower look odd - like the petals are out to get you!

This time my solution was this: have you ever seen the really tiny cups, not the ones for mini cupcakes but the really really small ones? I always end up storing a box of them for years way back in my cupboard - there are just so many of them in one package! So i grabbed a few and flattened them out leaving just enough depth to make the perfectly curved sugarpaste flowers. No fuss. =)

My mother is my best customer

Probably because I do it for free and because I don't actually have a company!

She wanted some cuppy cakes to bring for her last day of dance classes. Afterwards she told me they were very apreciated and it's already been requested that I make some for the end of next semester too! It always warms my heart to hear good feedback. So here's a sample of what I made:

Banana Vanilla, a photo by Cupcake Trainee on Flickr.

Candy Cupcakes

Mini Candy Cupcake, a photo by Cupcake Trainee on Flickr.

Easter has given me a much needed vacation to recharge my batteries and enough time to bake.

Around Easter there's always so much candy around. Friends show up with gifts of candy. Children are given more candy than they could possibly eat. In every home there's the mandatory bowl of Easter candy and chocolates. This year I decided to put my left over candy to good use and incorporate them into my baking addiction.

The only thing better than cupcakes is CANDY cupcakes!

Here's an example of the insides of one of my candy cupcakes:

Happy Easter!

I've been so busy the past few weeks and while I've still been baking and cooking away, I haven't made alot of cupcakes. I may start to upload some of the other things I make if anyones interested. I like to try unusual things which is the reason I have quite a few kitchen-disasters!

Anyway, spring is here and I did make an Easter cupcake. I know my last upload had some Easter eggs but this will be my official Easter cupcake.



Not only is this cupcake gorgeous on the outside, it's even better on the inside! If I may say so myself.



The flavors of this cupcake are vanilla cake with a sweet marshmallow filling and chocolate frosting. I topped it with some candy eggs to add to the fun theme.

I hope you get lots of candy and good food this weekend. Happy Easter!

Da capo, again.

This is the second or third time that I've been asked to make this recipe. This time it was for a party and I'll never turn down an opportunity to make cupcakes! I must say that I think I have improved since the last time. The little white peek-a-boo under the frosting hints that theres something more to it than just chocolate. I thought I' upload a picture even if you've seen it before.



With the left overs from the requested cupcakes I decided to decorate the vanilla muffins that I had left from this weekend's cupcaking. I just had fun with it. The white stuff is actually the marshmallow filling that is supposed to be inside the cupcakes! I also added a little easter-touch to it, I know it's too soon but atleast I'm holding back on my real easter treats until later. =)

Godly Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes!

It's been a while since I last made cupcakes because I honestly don't have alot of people around me that I can feed them to and I certainly can't eat them all myself! But today I had a friend come over and she requested that I'd show her how to make cupcakes and we had alot of fun doing so. =)

The request was "something chocolate" preferably with mint. So that's what we did. Mint Chocolate Cupcakes.

Here is the result, not too shabby if i may say so myself.

I got a little ahead of myself and took the pictures before I finished decorating all of them.

Vanilla Cupcakes

The other day i made a rather large batch of vanilla cupcakes. Unfortunately, I didnt like the result - the base tasted more like a muffin than a cupcake. So yesterday I decided to make or break it and tried to save them. If nothing else, I'd get a chance to practice piping.

What I did was that I mixed together hazelnut creme, butter, a little bit of confectioners sugar and a tiny bit of milk into a semi-soft creamy mix. My plan was to cut a hole in the middle of the cupcake and fill them with the mix, and so I did. I then finished them off by piping the top with a new frosting recipe that I wanted to try. It worked alright. The cupcakes now tasted great and with the filling got a much lighter and moist texture. However I wasn't quite satisfied with the frosting - it tended to collapse slightly. As I was feeling naughty I tossed the hazelnut mix into my frosting and lo and behold! It worked great. I successfully made a nice looking frosting, with a nice texture and a good hazelnutty flavor which also held together great. Im proud!

Chocolate Marshmallow Surprise Cupcake

Here's an absolutely delicious cupcake that I made. The base is a chocolate cupcake that is light and fluffy, yet moist and creamy and the frosting is a simple frosting made of butter, powdered sugar and cocoa which is very sweet and surprisingly full of flavor. As if that's not enough theres a treat hidden inside! A marshmallow cream that has been pumped into it with the help of a piping bag until the cupcake got very heavy. This is a very tasty dessert which has been very apreciated by everybody who's tried it. My favorite so far.

My first cupcake

I've been looking at cupcake blogs for a while and I've been so impressed and inspired so I wanted to get into cupcake craft. I recently bought a book about cupcakes. It's hard to find good cupcake recipes in Swedish but this book was written by an American so I decided to put some trust in it.

Here is my very first batch in my cupcake career. I know it's not exactly a work of art but they turned out okay and I'm definately proud of them.