Garlic Cupcake Video Review and Cupcake Stacker Winners

I asked you guys what you thought of the new Cupcake Project video reviews and in exchange you had a chance to win some über-cool cupcake stackers. Thanks for all of your feedback (yes, I'm making you read to the bottom of the post to find the winners). Some of you (I'm talking to you, Danielle Johnson, Amanda, and Southern Baker) seemed to think that roommate Davin had it going on. Bride and Groom 3.0 listened and Davin is now hosting the videos!

In their video review of the garlic cupcakes below, the tasting trio made the video shorter (as you all suggested), listened to the great suggestion from Foodie Ffanatic and showed closeups of the cupcakes before the review, and responded directly to commenter Trish who said, "And I hate to say the obvious but there was a lot of hand to nose action....egads! While working with food!" Check it out and keep those comments coming!



And the Cupcake Stacker Winners Are...

Jere and Rachel! Congrats!!

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Caramel Apple Cupcake Review

Bride and Groom 3.0 and their roommate, Davin, got a chance to try the caramel apple cupcakes that are featured on Paula Deen. As you'll see, they enjoyed them but thought that the chocolate pumpkin cupcakes were better (except for Groom 3.0, who doesn't like chocolate). Maybe I should have made the chocolate pumpkin cupcakes for Paula (please indulge me imagining that we are on a first name basis).



It's funny to me that the tasting trio keeps imagining maple where it doesn't exist. The frosting is a vanilla bean buttercream, not maple. Bride 3.0 nails it, though, when she says that the cupcake would be good hot. Everyone should get to try these fresh out of the oven. You can't beat it!

Reminder: I'm selecting the cupcake stacker winners tonight at midnight CST. Enter now!

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Chocolate Pumpkin Witch Cupcakes

Remember back in 2007 when I made witch cupcakes? Didn't think so. Well, I made them again this year, only better:

• Last time, I made a plain chocolate cupcake. This time, I made chocolate pumpkin cupcakes loaded with chocolate chips.
• Last time, I made a funky green meringue frosting. This time, I made a seasonally-spiced buttercream frosting (I still used a little bit of green food coloring on some of them to make them more witchy).
• Last time, I used giant pretzel rods for the broomsticks. This time, I realized (after someone pointed it out) that small pretzel sticks would work much better. I left the chocolate off of the broomsticks this year, though, because I was lazy.
  

For the cookie recipe and assembly instructions, refer to the 2007 post. But, for the new scrumpdidelyicious chocolate pumpkin cupcake recipe, look at the bottom of this post.

First, however, let's see what Bride and Groom 3.0 and roommate Davin thought of the chocolate pumpkin cupcakes. (Note: this video was made before viewing all of your video feedback. There is just one more pre-feedback video after this one, and then they will address your comments. Feel free to keep leaving comments on the videos and they will try to incorporate them whenever possible.)



I should point out that the cookies that they loved (on that hats) are maple or mint cookies. They are store-bought vanilla wafers that I coated in chocolate. I would normally make the wafers myself, but these cupcakes were made in a cupcake class that I taught and we needed to save time.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcake Recipe

This recipe should yield about fifteen cupcakes.

• 1 1/2 C flour
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ginger
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t allspice
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 C sugar
• 3/4 C pumpkin puree
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
• 1/2 C orange juice
• 4 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 1 1/4 C semisweet chocolate chips

1. Whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, pumpkin, and eggs. Beat until smooth.
3. Mix in the oil, orange juice, and melted chocolate.
4. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated.
5. Mix in the chocolate chips.
6. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
7. Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Frosting

• 1 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 C powdered sugar, sifted
• 4 t vanilla bean paste
• 2 T milk or heavy whipping cream
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ginger
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t allspice
• Food coloring (optional)

1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Mix in vanilla and milk or cream.
3. Mix in spices.
4. Optionally, mix in food coloring to create the color you’d like.

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Garlic Cupcakes to Keep You Safe From Vampires This Halloween

On a dark night, just a few days until Halloween, an innocent, unsuspecting cupcake baker sat down to eat her latest creation.

Little did she know that a vampire lurked in the shadows.

The vampire was particularly interested in the cupcake baker, for her blood was extra sweet from eating lots of cupcakes.

The vampire drew closer. The cupcake baker noticed and panicked (but just for a moment).

Suddenly, things went black and white.

But, the cupcake baker had nothing to fear. The cupcake that she was eating was a garlic cupcake and everyone knows that garlic wards off vampires (unless they are Twilight vampires like Edward that you wouldn't want to ward off).

Yes, that's a chocolate covered garlic clove that you see on there.

The vampire dramatically fell to her doom.

Should you want to protect yourself from vampires this Halloween (which I highly recommend), the garlic cupcake recipe is below. While the cupcakes are deathly for the undead, humans are surprisingly fond of them. Several mortals claimed that the combination of flavors (chocolate, coffee, and garlic) actually worked quite well together. "We liked the garlic cupcakes and were surprised to find that a little hint of garlic actually does work with chocolate!" said taster Hao.

The garlic in the cake isn't all that strong, but it does leave you with garlic breath. The garlic in the frosting, however, is quite intense. Jonathan said that the frosting would be great on pasta. I'll post a video review from Bride and Groom 3.0 later in the week (I'm not expecting them to choose this one for their wedding, but you never know).

Garlic Cupcake Recipe

Yield: 18-20 cupcakes

• 2 C flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 3/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 C sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 C sour cream
• 4 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 2/3 C brewed coffee
• 8 cloves roasted garlic (see my post on how to roast garlic, but skip the part about covering it in chocolate)
  

1. Whisk flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
2. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl for 1 minute, until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs and sour cream.
4. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave.
5. Mix the chocolate into the wet ingredients.
6. Alternately fold in the flour mixture and coffee into the batter.
7. Mash garlic cloves and mix into batter.
   
8. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
   
9. Bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the cupcake clean.

Garlic Coffee Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 C powdered sugar, sifted
  
• 2 t garlic powder
• 1 t ground coffee

1. Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth.
2. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar.
3. Mix in the garlic powder and ground coffee until integrated.
   

Credits

Special thanks go out to makeup artist Jennifer from Looks by JLW for doing the makeup for this shoot. Our vampire would not have been nearly as spooky without it. Jennifer did an awesome job and, more importantly, she was willing to try the garlic cupcake and even liked it.

Thanks also go out to our vampire, my friend Christina, and, of course, my awesome in-house photographer!

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Halloween Snack Idea - Chocolate Covered Garlic

Why?

Last year, Jonathan and I went to Gilroy, California. Gilroy is all about garlic. Each year, they host the Gilroy Garlic Festival - which features, as you might imagine, everything garlic! While we weren't able to make it to the festival, we were able to try some garlic ice cream. It was shockingly tasty and the only ice cream that I've ever eaten that left me with bad breath.

When I was talking about the trip to Groom 1.0, he suggested that I make garlic cupcakes for Halloween to scare off the vampires. I loved the idea! I sent myself a futureme email as a reminder. It's a good thing that I did. I completely forgot about the idea until I received the email a few weeks ago.

I wasn't quite sure how I would make a garlic cupcake, but one thing that I did know was that I would need to use roasted garlic (roasting makes the garlic much sweeter); and, if I were going to roast the garlic, I might as well cover some in chocolate to put on top of the cupcakes.

If you are a garlic lover, then I probably don't need to convince you that eating roasted garlic is a special treat. But, you'll just have to trust me (until you try it yourself) that adding chocolate makes it even better!

How?

I was really excited to find instructions for roasted garlic on Simply Recipes that used a cupcake tin - if it involves my cupcake tin, I can do it! I followed Elise's instructions to a tee, only instead of using olive oil, I used hazelnut oil and a little honey to make the garlic extra sweet. Oh, and I covered mine in chocolate!

• 6 heads of garlic (I only covered some of them in chocolate, I used others in my garlic cupcake recipe)
  
• a few tablespoons of oil (I used hazelnut)
• 1/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 T unsalted butter
  

1. Peel away the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin, leaving the skins of the individual cloves intact. Using a knife, cut off 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic.
2. Put each garlic head in foil and place them in a cupcake tin, as shown above.
3. Drizzle a couple teaspoons of oil over each head, using your fingers to make sure the garlic head is well coated.
4. Drizzle each head with honey.
5. Close the foil over each head.
   
6. Bake at 400 F for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.
7. Allow the garlic to cool enough so you can touch it without burning yourself. Use a small knife to cut the skin slightly around each clove. Use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins.
8. Melt the chocolate chips with the butter in a double boiler or the microwave.
9. Dip each clove of garlic in chocolate. I thought it looked best to only cover half of the clove.
10. Place chocolate covered garlic on parchment paper and place in the refrigerator to cool.

Be sure to check out the garlic cupcakes to see just how well these worked at scaring off vampires.

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First Video Cupcake Review and Your Chance to Win Cupcake Stackers

When Bride and Groom 3.0 asked if I'd like it if they did video reviews of my cupcakes, I was not about to say no. Below you'll find their first video review featuring the vanilla and chocolate sour cream cupcakes with sour cream frosting and the whole cupcake party setup. Bride and Groom 3.0 are joined in the video by their roommate, Davin (he's the one on the separate couch).

The review is pretty long (16 minutes - 16 hilarious minutes!). I do realize that some of you may not like video, may not be able to watch video at work, or may not care to watch people ramble about cupcakes for 16 minutes.

So, I'm asking for your opinion. Leave a comment with your thoughts about the video. Do you love it (I hope so)? Are you excited for more? What changes would you like to see (shorter? longer? - probably not). Are there things that you would like Bride and Groom 3.o to talk about? Would you like to send them hats to wear (they plan on wearing hats for each review)?

If you leave a comment with your opinion on the video and your email address, you will be entered for a chance to win a set of 6 cupcake stackers. I will draw two winners on Friday, October 30th.

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How to Host a Cupcake Party

Rather than spending lots of time creating wow-worthy cupcakes to serve at your next party, consider letting your guests do the decorating. Serving your cupcakes unfrosted is not only a ton less work for you, but your guests will love getting to decorate their own. You might also consider making mini-sized cupcakes so that people can decorate and eat several cupcakes without feeling too guilty.

To host a cupcake party, you'll need:

1. Cupcakes (to make it really easy on yourself, you can make vanilla and chocolate cupcakes using the same recipe).
2. A cupcake stand. I was recently sent a cupcake stacker stand to review and I love it - more on that later.
3. Frosting (as many kinds as you feel like).
4. Toppings (sprinkles, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.)
   

Taste & Create
It's been a few months, but I am again participating in Taste & Create. Taste & Create is a food blogger event where you get randomly matched with another food blogger to try out their recipes and ideas. I got the idea for the cupcake party from my partner this month, Katie at One Little Corner of the World. Coincidentally, Katie lives in St. Louis and I met her at a FoodBuzz dinner.

Katie posted about a fabulous taco bar party that she hosted and I decided to take the same concept and use it with cupcakes. I hope she doesn't mind that I didn't use one of her exact recipes - I took the "Create" part of Taste & Create very seriously. I did make sour cream frosting (shown in the center of the photo above) to keep with the spirit of her meal.

In addition to the sour cream frosting, my cupcake party featured two kinds of sprinkles, chocolate chips, and Skor chips (toffee chips).

Cupcake Stacker

I've never seen anything like these cupcake stackers before. They are essentially the legos of the cupcake world. You can connect the stackers together in whatever configuration you like, creating a custom cupcake stand.

The great thing about them is that when it's time to eat the cupcakes, people simply remove a cupcake stacker from the pyramid. The single cupcake stacker can then act as a little cupcake bowl to contain crumbs while people are eating.

Of course, you don't have to just use the cupcake stacker for cupcakes. You could use them for condiments, snacks, or candy.

Coming Next

I'm super excited to be posting Bride and Groom 3.0's video cupcake review of their cupcake party. Plus, you'll have a chance to win some cupcake stackers of your own. Stay tuned!

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Sour Cream Frosting

Sour cream frosting is the obvious choice for sour cream cupcakes. This sour cream frosting is based on a basic vanilla bean buttercream frosting. However, instead of using milk in the frosting, the sour cream frosting uses sour cream.

Even if you are not a fan of sour cream, you still may enioy the sour cream frosting. The sour cream flavor is subtle. It adds a pleasant tang which helps to counteract the sweetness of the buttercream. Try it and let me know what you think!

• 1 1/2 C confectioners' sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
• 1/2 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 t vanilla bean paste (add more to taste)
• 2 T sour cream
  

1. Mix together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy.
   
2. Add vanilla bean paste and sour cream and continue to beat for another minute.
   
3. If desired, add more vanilla bean paste to taste, or more confectioners' sugar to make it stiffer.

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Do You Live in A Divided Home? Make Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes at the Same Time

Some families are all about chocolate cupcakes, some are all about vanilla, but some families are mixed-flavor homes. What are these divided homes to do?

a) Make the flavor that the baker likes best.
b) Rotate and make vanilla half the time and chocolate the other half.
c) Never make vanilla or chocolate and instead make pumpkin cupcakes every day.
d) Make vanilla and chocolate cupcakes at the same time, using the same recipe!


Answer: D

I used a sour cream cupcake recipe to make both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. Both cupcakes had what I would consider a classic cupcake consistency (light and fluffy, not very dense). The vanilla had a vibrant vanilla flavor and the chocolate had a mild but satisfying cocoa flavor - you could make them more chocolaty with the addition of chocolate chips.

To make two recipes out of one, you simply prepare the batter for the vanilla cupcakes. Then, fill half of the cupcake liners. Next, add chocolate to the remaining batter and fill the other half of the cupcake liners. Bake and make everyone happy!

Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

To make these vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, I used a vanilla sour cream cupcake recipe from Seriously Simple Holidays by Diane Rossen Worthington. I am including the recipe below along with my modifications to make both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes.

Makes 6 vanilla and 6 chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 C flour
  
• 1/2 t baking powder
  
• 1/4 t baking soda
  
• 1/4 t salt
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 1 C sugar
  
• 1/2 C unsalted butter, room temperature
  
• 1 1/2 t vanilla extract
  
• 1/2 C sour cream
  
• 2 oz bittersweet chocolate
  

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the eggs and sugar for about 2 minutes, or until light and creamy.
   
3. Add the butter and vanilla and beat on low speed for about 1 minute, or until well blended.
4. Beat in the dry ingredients on low speed until blended.
   
5. Add the sour cream and beat until smooth and well blended.
6. Fill 6 cupcake liners about halfway full.
7. Melt the chocolate (either using a double boiler or in the microwave).
   
8. Mix the chocolate into the remaining batter.
9. Fill the remaining 6 cupcake liners with the chocolate batter.
10. Bake at 350 F for about 23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean and the tops are firm.

Coming Soon...

A sour cream frosting to go with the sour cream cupcakes and Bride and Groom 3.0's video cupcake review.

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I'm on Paula Deen

To anyone coming over from Paula Deen: Welcome to Cupcake Project! You might want to read the about page to get a sense of what I do over here, or if you just want the recipes, use the dropdown on the right side of this blog to pick your favorite flavor.

To my regular readers: Hurry up and go check out my caramel apple cupcakes on Paula Deen!! I'm so excited!

To my readers in St. Louis: I'll be teaching these cupcakes next week at Kitchen Conservatory. Hope you can make it!

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Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cheesecake Frosting

Pumpkin cupcakes are so overdone. Pumpkin cupcakes are everywhere and if it's not pumpkin cupcakes, it's pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, or pumpkin cookies. If it's Fall, you'd better like pumpkin!

The good news is that most people do love pumpkin. We love it so much that we end up using it as a term of endearment. I regularly call Myles "pumpkin". Jonathan points out that I used to call our poodle "pumpkin" as well. I'm sure if we had a pet pot bellied pig, he'd be "pumpkin", too.

(I couldn't resist another Myles photo.
He's sucking the pacifier because
he's too young to eat the pumpkin cupcakes.)

Bride and Groom 3.0 are no exception to the plethora of pumpkin people. They listed pumpkin as one of the flavors they might want for their wedding.

Why Pick This Pumpkin Cupcake Recipe Over Any Other One?

We know from pumpkin pie that pumpkin and graham go well together. These pumpkin cupcakes capitalize on that. They contain graham flour and graham cracker bits. The graham cracker bits soften during the baking process. Rather than adding a crunch, they add a richer, grahamy flavor to the cupcake. The graham flavor does, however, make these treats seem a bit more muffiny than cupcakey (if you don't like the earthy, graham flavor, you might consider trying my pumpkin cupcakes with rum and maple instead).

My favorite part about these pumpkin cupcakes was the pumpkin cheesecake frosting. Use it to top any Fall dessert and you won't go wrong.

Bride and Groom 3.0 Review

Bride 3.0 warned me that she wasn't a big fan of frosting. I thought that perhaps I'd win her over with a cream cheese-based frosting. But, it turns out that she doesn't like cream cheese frostings (back to the baking board). Groom 3.0 and their roomate, Davin, loved the frosting.

Although Bride 3.0 didn't like the frosting, she did let me know that she loves sprinkles. She calls them sparkles! How fun! Expect to see more sparkly cupcakes coming soon.

Both Bride and Groom 3.0 found the cupcakes to be a bit too muffiny/breakfasty to be a wedding choice. They also thought that the cupcakes could be somewhat more pumpkiny. This was in contrast to other tasters. One of my tasters, Christina, even said, "Wow... this is so pumpkiny!"

They rated this cupcake three out of five fireworks. They made up the firework system and I dig it!

The Pumpkin Cupcake Recipe

The cupcake recipe contains graham crackers. You can use any store-bought graham crackers or make homemade pumpkin graham crackers.

Makes about 17 cupcakes

• 3/4 C graham flour or whole wheat flour
  
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour
  
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ginger
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t allspice
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 C sugar
• 3/4 C pumpkin puree
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
• 1/2 C cream soda
• 1 T vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• 2 C smashed graham crackers (pea-sized bits)
  

1. Whisk together flours, spices, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, pumpkin, and eggs. Beat until smooth.
3. Mix the oil, cream soda, and vanilla into the wet ingredients.
4. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated.
5. Stir in the graham crackers.
   
6. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
   
7. Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Frosting Recipe

• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 C pumpkin puree
• 3 C powdered sugar, sifted

1. Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.
2. Mix in pumpkin puree.
3. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar. You can add more sugar to make the frosting stiffer, but I think that makes it too sweet.

Top each cupcake with a pumpkin graham cracker.

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Pumpkin Graham Crackers

These homemade pumpkin graham crackers are not only pumpkin shaped, but also contain pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices, giving them a subtle pumpkin flavor.

I made these pumpkin graham crackers in multiple sizes and added some orange sugar to the tiny ones (they were too small for me to give them good faces). Bride 3.0 said that she could "eat 100 of them!" But, she noted that they were a bit Halloweeny for a wedding. Come on - who doesn't want Jack-O-Lanterns at their Spring wedding? :)

The good news is that pumpkin graham crackers can be made in any shape you can cut out. Bride 3.0 suggested hearts.

What to Do With Your Pumpkin Graham Crackers

Aside from simply eating them all up, I have several usage ideas for these pumpkin graham crackers:

• Crumble them to use in the crust for a homemade pumpkin pie.
• Slather them with pumpkin butter or apple butter.
• Put pumpkin ice cream between two of them and freeze for a pumpkin ice cream sandwich.
• Use them to decorate your pumpkin cupcakes.
  

Pumpkin Graham Cracker Recipe

To make these pumpkin graham crackers, I modified my regular graham cracker recipe. I originally got that graham cracker recipe from Free Range Living. She got the recipe from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book.

My modified recipe is below. It makes 36 2 1/2 inch squares. You can do your own math on how many pumpkins that will get you. It obviously depends on the size of your cookie cutters.

• 2 T (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 T pumpkin puree
  
• 1 egg
• 6 T sugar
• 4 T honey (Some graham crackers use half honey and half molasses. You might consider trying that as a variation.)
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t ginger
• 1 t nutmeg
• 1 t cinnamon
• 3/4 t allspice
  
• 2 t water
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 1/2 C graham flour (If you can't get ahold of graham flour, there are plenty of graham cracker recipes that use regular whole wheat flour such as this graham cracker recipe from Baking Bites. You may also be able to directly substitute whole wheat flour in this recipe, but I haven't tested it and I make no promises.)
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour

1. Combine the butter, pumpkin, egg, and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
2. Stir in the honey.
3. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the butter mixture.
4. Add the salt, graham flour, all-purpose flour, and spices to the mixture and blend thoroughly. The dough should hold together and be manageable. If it is too tacky, add a little more graham flour.
5. Liberally dust a surface with graham flour and roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch.
   
6. Use your cookie cutters to cut out pumpkins or any other shape.
   
7. Use the tines of a fork to make Jack O' Lantern faces on the pumpkins.
8. Using a spatula, place the pumpkin graham crackers on an ungreased cookie sheet.
9. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes.
   
10. Remove from the oven and cool on racks. They won't be hard when you first take them out of the oven, but they will harden as they cool.

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Third Time's a Charm

Regular readers already know the story of my blog. I started this blog because having never baked a cupcake in my life, I offered to bake cupcakes for my friends' wedding. The "project" part of Cupcake Project was mastering the cupcake in the nine months leading up to the big day. I loved doing it and got so hooked on cupcake baking that after Bride and Groom 1.0 got married, I offered to do the whole thing over again for another couple. Bride and Groom 2.0 got married on Oct. 12, 2008.

For the past year, Cupcake Project has been without a project. That's about to change.

Meet Ron and Leslie (hereafter known as Bride and Groom 3.0)

Groom 3.0 is Jonathan's (my husband and live-in photographer) third cousin. I can't believe that he knows his third cousin. Not only does he know him, but they actually talk on a regular basis. We love Bride 3.0 and couldn't be happier with Groom 3.0's choice! Jonathan took photos of their proposal at the Lewis and Clark marathon. Check out the joy on their faces and you'll understand why I am so excited to make cupcakes for this wonderful couple.

They do not have a wedding date picked yet, but it will be this coming Spring or Summer. I'll let you know when I know!

As I've done for past couples, Bride and Groom 3.0 will be trying cupcakes each week and choosing two or three flavors that they would like me to bake for the wedding (for a total of 300 cupcakes!). I'll keep you up to date on their favorites and give you the play-by-play when the big day comes!

What Kind of Cupcakes Do Bride and Groom 3.0 Enjoy?

It's important for me to understand what types of flavors the couple likes so that I can start experimenting. Bride and Groom 3.0 left it WIDE open.

What they don't like:

• Like Bride and Groom 1.0, they don't want nuts.
  
• Bride 3.0 is not a big frosting fan. I'm not either, so I'm cool with that. It will be a fun challenge to find frosting that she likes.
  
• Groom 3.0 doesn't love chocolate (I can't imagine that!), coconut (that always seems to be a love it or hate it thing), or whipped cream.
  

Here's the list of things (in their own words) that they said they like. I've put my responses to them (and snarky comments) in orange. If I've made a flavor before, I've linked to it.

• Butterscotch
  
• PB (but I think you don't dig) - It's true. Sorry, peanut butter is off limits.
  
• Vanilla - Boring! But, I do really need to master a perfect plane-Jane vanilla cupcake, so I may experiment.
  
• Cinnamon
  
• Any berry - Berries look really pretty on cupcakes. That would be a nice wedding choice.
  
• Orange chocolate (Ron might not like as much) - I love those orange milano cookies, but I haven't made an orange chocolate cupcake. One of my very first cupcakes was a tangerine chocolate cupcake, but the frosting was a nasty, runny mess.
  
• Red velvet - I've never made it. I think it's too overdone and frankly I don't get the appeal. Sorry, but I'm probably not going to make this one unless you really beg.
  
• Bourbon - One of the cupcakes that I created for Paula Deen contains bourbon, but the recipe hasn't gone live yet. You'll see it soon!
  
• Margarita - You may recall that Bride and Groom 1.0 had margarita cupcakes at their wedding. I love these and they look super cute when I make them with little umbrellas. I'd be happy to make them again.
  
• Mango, exotic fruits - I was surprised (when searching through my archives) to find that I had made four recipes that involved mango. None of them were all that great, although the mango frosting was quite tasty and refreshing.
  
• Brown sugar - I love how you listed brown sugar as a flavor! Brown sugar rocks! I use it all the time! I think that you would really like my penuche frosting - make sure that I let you try it.
  
• Pumpkin - Pumpkin is the very first flavor that you will be taste testing.
  
• Most fruits, apples, peaches - It cracks me up how most fruits are listed separately from exotic fruits and berries. Clearly, you like fruit.
  
• Root beer - This was another flavor that Bride and Groom 1.0 chose. It's a winner.
  
• Chai - Chai cupcakes were the very first cupcakes that I made. I don't remember much about them, but I do recall that they were a hit, despite how ugly they looked.
  
• Flourless chocolate - I've got this recipe down. They are a crowd favorite!
  
• Honey - I use honey all of the time. However, I've never made a honey cupcake.
  
• Apple caramel - Oh look, another fruit! Look for this one soon on Paula Deen.
• Well I am sure we will like a lot of things you come up with. Please experiment as usual and come up with your own ideas too. I am sure we don't even realize the potential of flavors. - Excellent! I'm sure that you will enjoy the garlic cupcakes that I'll be making soon (I do not jest).

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High Tea Cupcakes - Orange Cranberry Scones Baked in Teacups

These high tea cupcakes are really scones, but since I literally baked them in a cup, I decided it was legit to call them cupcakes. It's my blog, so I can do what I want.

I love that scones aren't quite as sweet as most cakes. I used to think that they were less caloric than other baked goods, but I was deceived. They are loaded with butter and cream and worth every single calorie you'll get from them!

These high tea cupcakes are made with dried cranberries and flavored with a hint of orange, but you could just as easily make them with chocolate chips, raisins, or currants. For extra pizazz, they can be topped with some jam and clotted cream.

If you don't have oven-safe teacups, you can bake the same recipe as scones (by putting balls of dough directly onto an oiled cookie sheet) or as traditional cupcakes (in cupcake tins) as shown above.

Either way, they are sure to disappear!

High Tea Cupcake Recipe


I got the recipe for these high tea cupcakes from Barefoot Contessa. I modified her scone recipe to bake in teacups. I also added some orange extract to kick up the orange flavor a bit and decreased the amount of salt (I'm not a big salt fan). Below is my modified version of her recipe.

The number of cupcakes you get depends on the size of your teacups. I only had six tea cups so I made 6 teacups and 16 normal cupcakes.

• 4 C all-purpose flour
• 1/4 C sugar
• 2 T baking powder
• 1 t kosher salt
• 1 T grated orange zest
• 3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
• 4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 C cold heavy cream
• 1/4 t orange extract
• 1 C dried cranberries

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and orange zest.
2. Add the cold butter and mix at the lowest speed until the butter is the size of peas.
   
3. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, heavy cream, and orange extract.
4. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the wet mixture into the flour and butter mixture.
   
5. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy!
   
6. Mix the cranberries into the batter.
7. Using your hands (it's more fun this way), make balls of dough that will fill your teacups about 3/4 full. (Make sure the teacups are oven safe!)
   
8. Drop the balls of dough in the cups.
9. Place cups on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 F for about 20 minutes or until the tops are slightly browned.
   

Special Thanks


Special thanks to Lori and Rob for loaning me the teacups (don't tell ... they are actually espresso cups, but close enough).

High Tea Treats

I'm excited to enter these cupcakes in Meeta's Monthly Mingle. The theme this month is High Tea Treats.

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High Tea Cupcake Preview - My First Time As a Shirt Model

My next post will be about my high tea cupcakes. I may even post it later today - so check back. But first, let's talk fashion.

As a food blogger, I've been sent my fair share of free food (it's an awesome perk). However, for the very first time, someone wanted to send me clothes. That someone was Sharper Uniforms. They provide "a huge selection of today's most popular styles of Restaurant, Hotel, Country Club, Casino and Security uniforms." While it would have been super cool to get a security uniform (I'm thinking Halloween here), I suppose it didn't fit with the theme of my blog. They opted to send me a ladies' blouse that could be worn by a server or hostess.

Here's me pretending to be a server. You're never too old to play make-believe. I suppose the server would most likely tuck the shirt in, but you can't really tuck when you are wearing maternity pants.

At the time Sharper Uniforms offered to send the shirts, I was very pregnant. There was NO WAY that I was going to fit into them. They kindly sent me the shirts anyway on the promise that I would review them when I could close the buttons (which turned out to be at five weeks postpartum). I don't say this to gloat - well, maybe just a little. I say this so that you know that Sharper Uniforms is one of those companies whose shirts run large (everything else in my wardrobe is at least a size medium and this is a size small shirt).

Not only did the blouse fit perfectly, I've been getting use out of it. Button down tops are great for breastfeeding (I'm sure that's just what they had in mind).

If you happen to be on the market for a uniform or nice blouse, check Sharper Uniforms out. I can't speak to all of their uniforms, but the shirt was high quality.

I don't expect to have a long career in shirt modeling, but I am certainly open to more free clothes, as is my junior assistant, baby Myles.

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