Thursday, March 31, 2011

Goodies Gourmet Soaps


I'm so excited, I finally have the website up for my business Goodies Gourmet Soaps.  Please show some support and head over to the site just to check it out.  We've been working on the site for a long time making everything from scratch (takes longer when you're not a computer programmer, or really know nothing about computers).

Ice cream cone  

I love soap

Sugar cubes
Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Jumbo Cream Filled Cupcakes



Wow these were some awesome cupcakes.  I have made these cupcakes before from Martha Stewart's Cupcake cookbook but this time I used some amazing cocoa powder from Askinosie Chocolate which put them over the top.  I took these to work and one of the ladies said that they were the best cupcakes she ever had.  I think it was because of the sour cream and the cocoa powder.
These cupcakes were light and fluffy (not just the cupcake but also they were filled with marshmallow fluff) and super moist.  Plus the batter tasted awesome which is always a clue that the baked version will turn out just great.
I made regular size cupcakes as I think a jumbo would be a bit too much with the chocolate and marshmallow filling.  They also go great with a cup of tea. For the recipe click here.

Batter

Awesome cocoa powder

Cupcake

Filled
Messy inside

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Cupcake Kitchen Photo Shoot

I always get my "professional" pictures taken by the same person. I love the photographer's sense of style and artistic direction.  Today I had a photo shoot with my photographer Marc aka mk:photographics, instead of doing our regular photos of cupcakes (that I usually make) we used me as the main focal point of the photos.

In the end, I love the photos! They turned out exactly how I wanted them to.  Love the colours and how the three pictures tell a story.  My only issue is that I can't decide which one is my favourite.  What do you think?




Enjoy!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes


Love these cupcakes!! This cupcake recipe comes from the Martha Stewart cupcake book, you can find the recipe at the bottom. 

Now I have had mixed success with this book.  The mint brownie cupcakes were great, but the peanut butter brownie cupcakes were a mess with the filling overflowing and caramelizing (which didn’t happen by the look of the photos in her cookbook).    
This is the second attempt to make these cupcakes. For my first attempt, I took Oreos and cream cheese to my parents house on the weekend to try the mini cheesecakes.  My goal was to experiment to see how long they stay fresh for.  As I was chatting to my Mom I was cracking the eggs into the mixture, the whole dozen was sitting in front of me and I just kept cracking.  As I picked up egg number four I realized that I had already added one egg too many (that’s why professional chefs and bakers set out exactly what they need).  I looked on the internet to find ways to fix the issue, but no luck.  I decided to bake them anyways.  The cheesecake cupcake took double time to set than what was listed on the recipe and they looked absolutely gross, so in the garbage they went.
These pictures are from round two, they turned out great.  The cupcakes taste like a big Oreo with a tart cream cheese twist to them. I love this flavour combination.  




Martha Stewart's Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes Recipe
Makes 30

Ingredients:
42 cream-filled sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
Pinch of salt


1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.



Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Toronto Bakes for Japan


Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. (Howard Zinn)
What: A simple concept – a bake sale to raise money for Japan.
When & Where:
Saturday, April 9, 2011, 9 am to 1 pm (New!)
Sunday, April 10, 2011, 11 am to 3 pm
Who: Kind and committed people from across Toronto coming together and using their talents for a great cause.
To Whom: 100% of all proceeds from this initiative will be donated directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society.
Why: Because we can; we must.
How:
1. If you want to participate, use the Contact page over at the Toronto Bakes for Japan website, or drop an email to torontobakesforjapan@gmail.com and tell them how you would like to help. The sooner, the better because the event is only 3 weeks away.
2. RSVP: You can RSVP to the event on Facebook.
3. Spread the word: Today, if videos of funny cats can go viral, why not word of a good cause? Share the link with anyone you think would like to help. We can use all the hands we can get.
4. Check the Toronto Bakes for Japan site or Facebook or Twitter (hashtag #BakeForJapan) for more details.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Coffee and Doughnut Cupcakes


What’s better than coffee and doughnuts?  Well I think a coffee and doughnut cupcake.  The cupcake has not only coffee, but coffee grounds in it.  I love Starbucks coffee and decided to use their Sumatra blend. 
These cupcakes turned out really well, nice and fluffy with a great taste of coffee, cinnamon and sugar.  I used the recipe from Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit.  I followed the whole recipe for the cupcakes and the whipped cream frosting but I skimped out on making my own doughnuts and bought some mini's from the grocery store.  Next time I'll plan when I make these doughnuts to coincide with the Ex or some place where I can get Tiny Tom doughnuts 'cause they're sooo good!

Cupcake
Chocolate

Cinnamon & Sugar

Powdered Sugar

Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Text Cloud

I'm in love with text or tag clouds, whatever you like to call them.  I love how they graphically represent key words that you use in any type of document.

Here is Cupcakes and Sundry's blog text cloud as of today :)

Monday, March 14, 2011

St. Patrick's Day is fast approaching

Green Minty Milk Shake from Scrumdilly-do!

There are so many goodies that I want to make for St. Patrick's Day.  I can't decide, green cake balls, Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, Leprechaun shakes, etc.  So I decided to do a little round up of pictures to help me make up my mind.

All of the pictures are from my contacts in Flickr.

St.Patty's Day Clover Leaf Petit Fours
Cute Shamrock cakes from Duh-licious

Cake Pops for St. Patty's Day
Cake pops from Death by Cupcake

Top-a da mornin to ya
Cupcakes by Sweetie Pies Boutique Bakery

green velvet cake balls
Cake Balls from Love from the Oven
Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

My First Blog Award


So yesterday, my blog and real life friend (through blogging) Cailin at A White Picket Fence nominated me for a Stylish Blogger Award.  Well I'm not too sure how stylish I am, I love Hello Kitty and Johnny Cupcakes, I'm kind of a kawaii freak.  Either way it was a surprise and so nice of her to do so.

So there are a couple of rules when receiving a stylish blogger award, you must

  • Link back to the person who gave you the award,
  • Share seven things about yourself,
  • Award five recently discovered blogs,
  • Contact them and tell them about their sweet style.
So first off thanks again to Cailin for nominating me, please check out her blog.

Seven things about myself:
  1. I have always been interested in the culinary arts, mostly in cooking which I got from my Mom and more recently (last five years) in baking.
  2. I have lived in Switzerland and Australia, besides my home country Canada.
  3. I volunteer at Pride Toronto as a disAbility coordinator.
  4. I kiteboard, snowkite and snowboard.
  5. I teach adult education (high school).
  6. My favourite thing to eat/make is spaghetti and meatballs.
  7. My favourite drink is a caesar.
My top five blogs are:


Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Bubble Gum Rainbow Cupcakes


Every month at Pride Toronto we have a coordinators meeting so everyone can find out what all the other committees are up to.  Usually another member brings baked goodies but this month I got to bring some cupcakes.  I wanted them to be special so I thought I'd use my edible ink printer to make custom Pride Toronto logo cupcakes. Issue 1) the printer heads were clogged, issue 2) I ran out of my edible ink trying to clear the print heads.  Therefore, I when I finally got around to printing the logo on the frosting sheets only a faint outline appeared.  Off to the baking supply store I went to buy food colour markers.  YEY!

Yum!

Here are some pictures of how the cupcakes turned out I made vanilla cupcakes and instead of using milk or water, I used Jones Bubble Gum soda and added sprinkles to my batter to make - Bubblegum Rainbow cupcakes.  I think everyone really enjoyed the cupcakes, even some people tweeted about it.


This is what happens when you use soda pop

Cutting tops off to make it easier to frost a flat top

Frosting Sheet




Enjoy!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Friday Favourites


Hello Everyone, how was your week?  Well mine was pretty good at the beginning with over 400 views on one day of my Cadbury Creme Egg snack cake post, but a migraine took over the rest of my week and landed me in emerg today so my Friday Favs is a little late.

Check out this pretty cool stuff I found this week

  • Sweet Avenue Bake Shop from NJ has decided to pay homage to one of my favourite movies (Willy Wonka, the one with Gene Wilder) and has made Fizzy Lifting Drinks cupcakes, OMG!!!
  • My favourite band of the moment Sleigh Bells, has a great new video for Rill Rill.
  • A flickr group I found (well they found me) started by A Baked Creation for pictures of Whoopie Pies.
  • I know this was from last spring but I love it and have been waiting a long time to make it.  From Whisk Kid the multi-layed rainbow cake.

Another super exciting thing happening is I'm getting an early birthday present...wait for it...a cricut cake.  I'm so excited, I've already got three cartridges (including a Hello Kitty one).  Super super excited, I will be posting about that as soon as I use it.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Enjoy

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Cadbury Cream Egg Snack Cakes

Box of 6 snack cakes

OMG!! Look at what I found today at the grocery store.  My favourite chocolate has been turned into a snack cake.  These little cakes are actually quite good, specially at $2.50 for six cakes.  They are nice and moist the only thing is that the cream isn't exactly like it is in the chocolate egg, it's a too thin.  I think I enjoy making chocolate cupcakes and putting mini cream eggs into them more.

I just had to share my find, I was so excited in the store and influenced two other people to buy them as well.  Plus there was a 50 cent coupon!  Who could resist?!


Inside the cake

Enjoy!