Favourite Summer Time Cupcakes

My favourite summer time cupcakes are angel food cake with fresh strawberry icing. Every year my cousin asks me to make them for her birthday. All you need is your favourite angel food cake recipe and an easy strawberry icing recipe

1/2 cup butter
2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup strawberry puree (I make sure to drain it as best I can or else the icing is too runny no matter how much sugar you put in).

These cupcakes melt in your mouth, you barely feel like you've ate anything. They just might be my favourite!

Enjoy!

Enuka Okuma Wedding Cupcakes

I recently had the wonderful opportunity of attending and got to make cupcakes for the beautiful Enuka Okuma on her very special wedding day.  Although I don't have pictures yet, the cupcakes were shown on a clip from Entertainment Tonight Canada.  The part with the cupcakes is at the end but I think you should watch the whole thing, it was the most beautiful wedding.  Congrats Joe & Enuka! xo



Enjoy!

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

So I ran out of blogging material and it's been awhile since my last blog so I thought I'd make some cupcakes.  Of course it's 35 degrees outside and ridiculously humid outside but my curly hair can take it. I also got these cute Peanuts cupcake liners that I just had to use.

I made a vanilla or butter cake, cupcake and filled it with strawberry jam topped with peanut butter frosting AND strawberry frosting but unfortunately by the time I came around to making the strawberry one my butter was way too soft and I ended up with a really runny frosting.  I didn't have enough time to firm it up so it looks really funny in the pictures.

This recipe is now my new stand-by cupcake recipe, it looks kinda funny after it's made if you don't get the butter really soft but it still tastes great!

Yellow Butter Cupcakes (makes 18)

2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream (full fat)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda, baking powder and salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl (this will be your main bowl), in another bowl mix eggs, vanilla and 3 Tbsp. of the sour cream.  Add the butter and sour cream to the dry ingredients, mix in.  Slowly add the egg mixture, blend for a couple of seconds and you are ready to put the batter into the cupcake tin. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Cool in tins for 10 mins.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix all together until you get a desired consistency.

Jam Frosting

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup jam
2 cups powdered sugar
1 T. milk (if needed)

Mix all together until you get a desired consistency.

Assemble all together and om nom nom!

Enjoy!

D'lish Cupcakery

Last week I posted a review of OMG Baked Goodness with my friend Cailin from A White Picket Fence.  We had some communication issues because I posted on just one cupcakery from our cupcake crawl and she posted both. So, time for my second post from our cupcake crawl.

D'lish Cupcakes is located in the trendy neighbourhood of Queen St. W. right around Niagara St.  I must say the cupcakes that I tried were delicious (or d'lish) but the one major thing that bothered me was that the store looked exactly like Sprinkles. Their decore, menu, presentation and packaging were very similar.  On to the taste...

My Review

1) Belgian chocolate - the cupcake was a good, moist chocolate cupcake with (a too runny) marshmallow filling the chocolate ganache was quite good.

2) Red Velvet - AWESOME!!! It has a very dense and smooth texture (as  I said in my last post I have a texture issue), they added some spice which was really nice.

3) Carrot - there was way too much butter in the icing and the cupcake was more like a muffin.

One good thing is that they only use 100% butter in their icings and cupcakes, no shortening here!

Overall, I'd go back.  Their cupcakes are really good, you can tell the baker has taken a long time to perfect the recipes.

Enjoy!

OMG Baked Goodness

Back in April, my friend Cailin from A White Picket Fence and I went on a mini-cupcake crawl to a couple of cupcakeries in Toronto.  It was a wet and gloomy day but we didn't mind as we were in search for some awesome cupcakes.  Our first stop was OMG Baked Goodness which is located on Dundas St. W. between Dufferin St. and Lansdowne, a very cute shop.

Now let me start off saying that I really don't enjoy vegan cupcakes and that's just what OMG is a vegan cupcake store that also sells tarts, sweet breads and other sweets.  But we were there for the cupcakes, and I guess the cupcakes were good but nothing compared to regular eggs and dairy cupcakes. Cailin and I bought three different kinds of cupcakes.

So my review - the chocolate cupcake I had it was a good dense chocolate cupcake.  The vanilla, cupcake tasted like a corn muffin.  It was really lacking the sweetness you'd expect.  The carrot we tried was really good, the spices were perfect and the cream cheese icing was not too dense, but it did taste like a muffin and not a cupcake (I have a major issue with textures of things!).  Probably my biggest issue was that the icing had gone all hard, it was like they were sitting out for a long time and when we got there they had only been opened for one hour.

All in all, I wouldn't go back again but that's because I'm not vegan and I can eat regular cupcakes.  If I was it would probably be my go to shop for vegan desserts.

How to videos

About a year ago I went to a studio and did three instructional "how to" videos.  The first, me making one bowl chocolate cupcakes, the second making marshmallow icing and third, me frosting the cupcakes.

I had a great time but they were my first videos so they are quite awkward and I'm very stiff.  I hope you have a laugh!

Enjoy!

Summer Favourites

I know it's not quite summer yet but I thought I'd post some of my favourite things for summer.  Not only is summer coming up on the 21st but my birthday is almost here on the 20th.  This list is what summer is  to me.

1. Clothes - Johnny Cupcakes x Hello Kitty .2 collection
2. Dessert - Red Velvet Whoopie Pies
3. Product - Goodie's Gourmet Soaps
4. Dessert - Pavlova
5. Fruit - Strawberries
6.  Organization (Party) - Pride Toronto
7. Activity - cycling

Enjoy!