Aggies Do It Better

(apologies for the terrible picture quality. I'm thinking even my camera was salivating over these) Peanut Butter cup mini chocolate cupcakes! Wait until you see what's inside.... Can we just get a moment of silence? These are from one of my food network mag's from a while ago. There was a whole section on cupcakes imitating candy bars. These were made for some birthdays at my husband's work...he did a secret poll to see which of the candy bars was the favorite (among nestle crunch, butterfinger, snickers, almond joy, etc) and Reese's was the winner by a landslide! These are chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter topping made from peanut butter chips and milk chocolate candy shell. They taste exactly like the real thing. Can I getta AMEN?!?! The sad part is, my husband doesn't even like Reeses cups....and I still married him!

Cupcakes for the husbands work...These are chocolate cupcakes with caramel filling and vanilla buttercream with a salted caramel drizzle. Actually, the drizzle is caramel and they have sea salt sprinkled on top. If you've never had anything that falls into the "salted caramel" category, go find some now. Run, don't walk! Here they are after the toppers I made.....these are sayings they have at work I gather.

Since today is the official "First Day of Fall", and therefore summer is officially over (booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo) I wanted to get these I made earlier in the summer up here to remind us all just how awesome summer is. Root Beer Float Cupcakes! Root Beer/Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla cream filling and Triple-Vanilla Buttercream frosting. These were really good, despite not being able to taste the root beer in the cupcake much!

This year at Easter I forwent the bunny cupcakes since I made those last year. I wanted to do something different. These are not entirely original, but were sooooo good. Carrot cake Birds nests with toasted coconut. I also made Hot Cross Buns, an Aussie/British thing that my hubs has been begging for. For those not familiar, it's a sweet roll, kind of coffee-cake-like, with raisins in it. I had a recipe from an Australian cookbook that my sis-in-law gave me, but I had to made several conversions! Everything in metric and all. And I had to figure out what the "American" version of a couple of ingredients were, lol. They were fan-tabulous!

Snack-cake inspired cupcakes. I won't say I exactly invented these, for a quick search of the internet would prove otherwise. Nonetheless, they are INSANE. I used a new recipe from Marthastewart.com, and they tasted more like brownies than cupcakes. And let's not forget... it's what inside that counts. Drumroll....these are my first ever "filled" cupcakes. I think I may never not fill a cupcake again. The filling is a buttery-marshmallowy-cream.

These don't need much of an intro: Dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache and Bailey's Irish creme Buttercream. There are lots of these type of cupcakes making the rounds right now, so when I got asked to make some this week for a birthday I thought they'd be perfect!

My week of Valentine's baking wound up with these, made for a girl's night out. The only request I had was for pink and purple, maybe a little sparkles. I had complete freedom on the flavors--isn't that awesome?! I'm always dying to experiment out with new flavors. I decided on Cosmos, or Cosmopolitans. For those who don't know, it's a Martini with vodka, cranberry juice, lime. These don't have any alcohol in them, though! I used "Simple" brand cosmo mix in the batter, I like it because it's all natural-no artificial sweeteners or colors. It is a blend of cranberry and lime juices. The frosting was my buttercream base with fresh lime zest and juice. They are really good! I hope the girls like them. I kind of went out on a limb, sometimes that's risky!

I made this golf-themed cupcakes for my husband to take to work last week for his birthday. Aren't they fun! They are from "What's New, Cupcake?", one of my favorite cupcake books!! They weren't that hard to make, really, just time consuming for the "grass" part! Good thing for my fur/grass frosting tip that I also used to make these Elmo cupcakes (that I just realized have never been published on this blog, so that's a link to my other site!)

I am waaaay behind on my baking projects, including the Big XII. I am still trying to get caught up! Here's part of the reason: the few spare minutes I had last weekend went to making some fun Halloween food! I made these "fall harvest" cupcakes, totally last minute , for a Halloween party we went to. I had no idea what I was going to do, especially since all the ones in my cupcake books required alot of supplies that I didn't have and didn't have time to go out and get. So I did a little survey of what I did have, and came up with these! I also made these for the boys, the night before Halloween. They're from one of my Halloween foodie mags! Cute! I don't think I have any pics of our actual Halloween dinner, but I made hot dog mummies....very cute!

Hello, My name is Jennifer. And I'm a project-starter. (see also: Project Halloween , Tour of the Big XII ) So, if that's not enough, I decided I needed to do a "Cupcake of the Month". This will allow me to branch out with my cupcake flavors and try out how some of my favorite holiday flavors do in a cupcake. It doesn't help that we are officially in the "baking season", my bread and butter! (mmmmm.....bread.....) I decided October needed to be something fall-ish, but not to Thanksgiving-y, we have November for that. I guess I kind of already did this with the Candy Corn cupcake , but since I did that before now I can't really count it! So I decided on Carmel Apple. The idea was red, apple-flavored cake with Carmel Buttercream frosting. The trick is findng a recipe for apple cake that's JUST apple, not apple-cinnamon, or spice, or something like that. Not so easy! I decided on trying out 2 recipes. The first one was just adding a bunch of choppe...

Well, I didn't get to this week's Tour of the Big 12 cake, because I need black fondant for the ::cough:: OSU logo (even though I am so tempted to make the "easier" logo they have on their helmets and field, not the one that's on the Big 12 logo circle, but whatever, ANYWAY, I have another cake this weekend that I need the black for, so I want to be sure I have enough first! I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but I will! I barely got anything done on the second costume this week either. I got the material pieces cut out, but that's all! I've been busy all week catching up on laundry and cleaning the house for the father-in-law to come for a visit this weekend. I have a super funny story about him I'll have to tell next time. (Hopefully, me not getting the cake done before game time is NOT what made us lose...) Anyhoo, I did make these little beauties for a famous musician 's birthday this weekend. OK, maybe you haven't heard of him, but...

The other day, I had an idea. Wouldn't Candy Corn Frosting be awesome ? I did a little research online and couldn't find anything about it. So, I opened up shop in my kitchen and did it myself! No one better steal this and become a millionaire! Anyone is welcome to try them just be sure you let people know where you saw it! :) The cupcakes were pretty straight forward. Make white cake batter, divide into 3 parts, and tint 2 of them yellow and orange. I just spooned a little of each color into the paper cups. Next time I'll have to try something different to keep the layers of color straight in there. The top layer of white kind of sunk down in there. When you bite in...magic! (Pardon the pic, it was taken with my iPhone inbetween bites) I used candy corn with some leftover homeade buttercream I already had "laying" around. It's pretty straightforward. Have buttercream, add candy. The end. (seriously. who just has tubs of homeade icing all over the place? Me, ...

Today, Mama got a brand new bag. So out of the box for me but I love it. And who cares if I have 2 boys, I'm carrying a pink bag. It will be my everyday/diaper bag. I'm trying to scale down the size of the bag I carry every day (my Mary Poppins bag). Also, I whipped out the DEBIT (not credit, Dave would not approve) card and signed up for my Half-Marathon. This is a pic of the MEDAL I will get when I finish. It looks much better in person. And I will be wearing it EVERY day. Also? I got a Facebook Comment by one of the authors of my FAV cupcake books! WHOOP! These are from the second book. Here's a screenshot: You can barely see it down there, but it's there. He says ::ahem:: "Now that's dramatic. I love the presentation." eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Validation of Work: Check.

Since I have two boys, and am married to one, I rarely get the chance to do anything pink or princess-y. My cat is a girl, but well, she's a cat. So I relish the chance to do anything of the sort!! These came out SO much better than I pictured in my head, especially since I kind of decided to change the original plan on a whim. Enjoy! p.s. Can yall do me a favor? If you like my blog can you give me a little clickey where it says "Follow"? I've been told good things will come my way if/when I get alot of followers. I know I'm pretty new at all this, but I'd really appreciate it! Any any feedback or comments are welcomed!

Remember those bridal shower cupcakes I was talking about? I had to run to Hobby Lobby yesterday to pick up a couple things, and saw these on the "Cookie Cutter Wall" (those that have been there, you know what I'm talking about. It's a thing of beauty.) Aren't they so cuuuuuute? The quarter is for size reference. The lady that is throwing the shower said it's very girl-y and princess-y with flowers and pink and brown colors. I got these originally to make little fondant cut-outs to put on the cupcakes, which I was going to either paint or shimmer-up. Then this morning, I was looking through some of my cupcake books and saw this idea, so I thought I'd try it. (sorry in advance for the crap phone pics) You basically smash up some hard candies (Jolly Ranchers or Life Savers) in a ziploc bag and place the pieces in a little pile on some foil. Bake at 350 for 4 minutes until it runs together in a little puddle. Then you take it out and immediately spray your co...

I've spent the day over at Baby Bee Bakery, http://babybeebakery.blogspot.com/ , uploading pics for my website. This blogger picture uploader is so slow! It takes forever. Give it a looksie and let me know what yall think! Oh, and so much for taking the week off from baking! I got a call today for some bridal shower cupcakes for this weekend. The theme is super-girly with colors of brown and pink. Um, how could I say no to that?? That's like one of my fav color combos! yipee!

Our Neighborhood had a pool party this weekend, and each family had to sign up to bring a side or dessert. Guess which I chose?? These were super fun to make (drink umbrellas=FUN) and took me practically ZERO time, well, compared to the time it normally takes. They didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but pretty close! I used some more of the afore-mentioned Buttercream for the frosting. Which, as it turns out, is not-so-good for an outdoor summer event. (think to yourself, what happens to butter when it gets warm???) Luckily, they didn't last long. We also had our long-awaited garage sale this weekend, finally. It went okay , I guess, considering prettymuch NO ONE in my town was having any babies at this exact moment. That's who we were looking for! We did luck out as we were closing up shop when a lady that lives down the street who just-so-happens-to-be keeping her out of town grandSON next week and needed some gear and clothes! JACKPOT! So, we pretty much made barely en...

Here are some mini cupcakes I made for a birthday last night. I used the afore-mentioned Buttercream I made shortly before for the icing. The marshmallow flowers are from "What's New, Cupcake?". I have been wanting to make these and I was graciously given the freedom to do whateverI want! (I love it when that happens!) These turned out soooooo pretty, if I do say so myself. Actually, these are the first things I've ever made that I thought, I wish I was recieving these!! Boo!!! Sigh. So Pretty.

Okay people. Consider this my last will and testiment. If I die, I want to be buried in Buttercream Icing.* To ensure that happens, here is detailed instructions on how to make it. Step 1: Whip one pound of softened unsalted butter in mixer on high speed until it begs for mercy. Step 2: add 4 pounds of powdered sugar. Mix slowly at first or you will develop PSEA .(Powdered Sugar Enduced Asthma). Don't worry, it's not fatal. Don't forget to add some milk and vanilla, also. Step 3: Turn mixer on high and crank up some baby-makin' music. (go ahead, get your nose in there. It's ok.) (that's scraped off enough for licking, isn't it?) Step 4: Bury sed blogger. Thank You In Advance. *If for some reason there is a world-wide shortage of any of the above ingredients, proceed immediately to Chuy's and purchase a gallon of Creamy Tomatillo sauce that they use on the Deluxe Chicken Enchiladas. That will be an acceptable substitution.