Christmas-Themed Cupcakes!

 

 

 

Every year, on Black Friday, instead of going out to fight people for cheap laptops and toaster ovens, our family has a 'Family Fun Day'.  This year was the 12th year we've done it.  It has transformed over the years, and within the last couple, it has become a tradition for my mom and I to bake on Family Fun Day while the boys work.  In addition to the dozens of peanut blossoms and kringla and over a hundred dark chocolate sea salt caramels, we found time to try four different kinds of cupcakes. 

 

The first one we tried was what I was calling a 'Pear Tree' cupcake.  It's a pear cake, which is similar in texture to an apple cake.  It had a ginger flavor in it as well.  The frosting is a dulce de leche butter cream and it's garnished with candied ginger, which is amazing if you've never had it. 

The second one we tried was a 'Hot Cocoa' cupcake.  The chocolate in the cake batter was  'Swiss Miss' cocoa mix and the baked cupcakes really tasted like hot cocoa versus plain chocolate.  I made a marshmallow buttercream for the frosting and garnished it with a little hot cocoa powder and then chocolate-covered marshmallows.  It was pretty good, but very rich. 

The third one we tried was an 'Eggnog' cupcake.  Eggnog is a pretty polarizing flavor, and if you don't like eggnog, you wouldn't like this one.  It really tasted like eggnog.  The batter had eggnog and rum extract in it and the buttercream on top had more rum and fresh nutmeg.  Very tasty. 

 



 

And the last one we made was a 'Peppermint Stick' cupcake.  This one was pretty basic, but I wish I'd taken a picture of the inside of it, because it was pretty.  I made my basic vanilla bean cupcake batter and seperated it into two bowls.  I added peppermint extract and red food coloring to half of it and then put the batter into two squeeze bottles and swirled it in the papers instead of scooping it.  The frosting was a very basic peppermint buttercream and I crushed up some candy canes for the garnish. 

 

All in all, they turned out pretty well I think.  

Fun Fall Flavors!

 

 

 

In the middle of summer, when I was bored out of my mind and decided to start keeping track of all of the different cake-related things I was doing, I created a list.  A list of flavors.  And because I love to make lists, I divided that list into more lists.  I separated them into 'themes' and one of those themes was 'The Flavors Of Fall'.  Here's what I came up with.

 

 

 

 

 

The first one I made was an orange clove cupcake with a whipped cranberry buttercream.  The garnish on it is blood orange zest. 

 

 

 

The second one I made was a gingerbread cupcake.  It had a lot of ginger flavor to it.  On top was a molasses buttercream, crushed gingerbread cookie crumbs and a gumdrop.

 

 

 

This one was I think the overall favorite of the guinea pigs who tried them (my mother's co-workers).  It's a pumpkin cupcake topped with a pecan pie-like filling and then garnished with a dollop of Cool Whip.  Not whipped cream, but Cool Whip.  And it tasted exactly like Thanksgiving dessert. 

 

 

 

On the last one, I tried to create something that would taste like mulled apple cider, but it ended up tasting more like apple pie.  It was very good, but might need to be rethought in some places.  I started with a spiced apple cake.  I made a filling out of thickened apple juice filled with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves.  The result was basically pie filling without the fruit in it.  Then I took the apples that I had stewed to get the juice and chopped them up and set them aside.  I topped them with a maple cream cheese frosting and then garnished with the chopped apples and some leftover gingerbread crumbs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Photo Dump

 

 

 

Here are more pictures of cakes I've made. 

 

 

 

 

And this was the first cake I did.  It's a Big Mac cake, complete with a side of (sugar cookie) fries!