Kate: The Party Planner (Cupcakes included!)

In my professional cupcakeing career (almost a month now.), I have come to terms with the fact that no cupcakes are ever supposed to be perfect. With that said: I have made the most perfect cupcakes! Well, kind of! Jon's birthday party was "24" themed, with the season premiere of our own Jack Bauer! Jon requested something simple and delicious, and I knew that just would not do. So I picked a Chocolate cupcake and a White cupcake recipe to be marbleized! Then we bought black food coloring to mix in with Vanilla frosting! My Saturday night was spent mixing and stirring and thinking about what I would write on my blog (apparently already famous!) Here are the cupcakes out of the oven:

Now is where I should add that I couldn't stick with the theme of 24 with 24 cupcakes, and with all of my left over batter, came up with 48 cupcakes!! I'm not joking! I had used a dark chocolate powder here, so the chocolates were a little too rich for my taste...I suppose I will have to try, try again.

And now...the devil of the evening:

I used that whole thing! I think it added an odd flavor to the icing, but I don't think anyone else noticed.

So the idea behind this black icing was to match the 24 style, and we found this AWESOME food coloring spray that we were going to stencil "24" onto the cupcakes. BUT apparently, the spray doesn't show up on black. That was a bummer, 20 minutes before the big party! My fast moving brain did some food coloring in sugar to make orange to stencil "24" on that way--semi-success!

(I sincerely apologize for the quality--does anyone know where my camera memory card is?!)

All in all, these puppies were a success, looked great and everyone seemed to really enjoy them. Cavities prevented my pleasure, but I still was happy!

The party was wonderful with great people, and a fantastic first 2 hours of 24! Let the season begin!

Recipes used today:
Chocolate cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
White cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Vanilla frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)

Practice makes perfect!

With Jon's Birthday quickly approaching, I decided it was necessary to brush up my skills before the big show. Stay tuned, we have big cupcake plans for that!

Tonight, my Mama and I wanted Strawberry Cupcakes with GOOD chocolate frosting. This can actually be quite the task! Started to work, and decided to cut the recipe in half, because what family of 3 1/2 need 24 cupcakes?! The batter went wonderfully; I used my altitude conversions (more runny batter, less baking powder, lower temp, etc). While the cakes were cooking, I started on the Chocolate Frosting recipe. My first reaction? "So long store-bought frosting". OH my gosh! This was fantastic--I almost don't want to put it on the cupcakes and just eat it all! Here is the frosting result:

Then the cupcakes were ready to come out of the oven, and low and behold! SUCCESS...again!

Obviously a hit!

Recipes used today:
Strawberry Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Chocolate Frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)

Marzi-CAN'T

Let's put our past behind us, yes?

I got a very exciting e-mail today requesting that every guest brings something for our meal for tomorrow nights New Years' Eve party. I quickly signed up for dessert, because I'm obviously an expert cupcake maker! What better cupcake to make than the Champagne cupcake? So, I got to work, in hopes of containing my enthusiasm!   After lunch, I went straight to the store (not Target, since they were OUT of powdered sugar!), bought all my materials and came home! After last weeks failure of cupcakes, I decided to research and found a great site for adjusting your baking for high-altitude found here and another one here. This was it! My batter was delicious and I knew the cakes were going to turn out spectacular. This particular party I am going to be with all of my close friends, so these puppies have to turn out just perfectly! The conversions to the recipe worked!

Aren't they just beautiful?!

Then I decided a Strawberry Butter Cream Frosting would be the best with these little guys. So I searched the internet and found the best recipe (From Martha) and the frosting tastes delicious!

After the frosting I got the cute idea to make marzipan and cut out numbers for the cupcakes, sort of like counting down on New Years. This was a little more than I bargained for. Marzipan is a type of candy/frosting that is used for decoration. In many of those famous cake shows, they use something similar, fondant, to decorate their cakes. All the marzipan recipes I stumbled on were either complex or called for pounds of almonds. I finally found one that didn't seem too extravagant for my little old kitchen. It went...alright. Boiling sugar, cooling the pan, kneading the sticky mess, it goes on and on. The end result? Another fail. The sugar clumped, the almond's weren't chopped enough, etc. It was in the trash can before I could get a picture of it! So I went to my greatest resource: My cousin, Ceacy! She gave some great advice about marzipan, fondant, and gum paste. I searched for a fondant recipe (VERY easy, as well as sticky!) and....nothing.

Sadly, I had no decorations, but the Champagne Cupcakes with Strawberry butter cream frosting were amazing and quickly disappeared! My first success! Happy 2010 everyone!

Recipes used today:
Champagne Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Strawberry Butter Cream Frosting (Ala Martha)
Marzipan

Fondant