Red Velvet

I think red velvet cupcakes are so pretty! I was invited to a picnic yesterday so of course I had to whip up something.  I'm always looking for the best recipe so I decided to try out a new red velvet recipe.  The cupcakes were good but I think the old recipe is better.  I guess it's best to stick with what you know!

Cupcakes, Cupcakes, & More Cupcakes!

It was a cupcake filled weekend!  With 3 request for cupcakes I made a total of almost 300 scrumptious cakes!  The biggest order was for 200 mini cupcakes at the open house at Red Brick Inn here in Mt. Lake.  I chose to make 4 different delicious flavors. Somewhat based on the poll I took in my previous post, I ended up choosing mocha, lemon lime, raspberry, and turtle. 

 Mocha - chocolate, coffee infused cake with a hazelnut coffee cream topping and a chocolate covered espresso bean.

 Lemon Lime - lemon lime cake with Swiss meringue buttercream and lime zest.

 Raspberry Marbled - vanilla, raspberry marbled cake with vanilla buttercream & topped with a raspberry.

Turtle - chocolate cake with caramel buttercream, drizzled with caramel & topped with pecans.
This was the first to go!

 

On Friday I did some chocolate cupcakes for a groom's supper.  I was a little nervous about this cupcake bouquet but I think it's pretty cute! 

 I also made mini pink and white flowers.

Friday I also did 2 dozen raspberry cupcakes for a baby baptism. 

Vote for cupcakes!

Choose 2 flavors of cupcakes you think sound the most delicious.  Leave your answer in the comment section.

Mocha (chocolate & coffee)
Chocolate raspberry
Rocky Road
Turtle
Red Velvet
Rhubarb
Key Lime
Mimosa (orange & ginger ale)
Raspberry Lemon

Rhubarb Cupcakes with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

For my birthday my brother's family gave me this cupcake pan and liners from Ikea.  The cupcakes are taller and more narrow than a normal cupcake.  I wanted to make a new recipe to try out the pan and I remembered I still had some rhubarb leftover.  So rhubarb cupcakes it was!  

I have to say these were really good!  The rhubarb kept the cake moist and tart and the raspberry frosting gave it some sweetness.  Once I added the raspberries the consistency of the frosting ended up being more like a thick yogurt than a traditional icing but the combination was great!

You can see how these are much taller.  It kind of reminded me of a Smurf house!!

Rhubarb + Cheesecake = Delicious!

Look at this beautiful rhubarb!

We had a church potluck yesterday and I wanted to bring something with rhubarb but didn't want the same old rhubarb dessert. I did a little searching and found this Taste of Home recipe for cheesecake. It was good and I got a lot of requests for the recipe. I made bars because I wanted it to feed a lot of people but I think next time I'll double it and make it into a cake.

Spring Cookies

I sent these cookies to some friends in Japan for their birthdays.  I used the same icing as I did for the Easter cookies, I think I'm getter better!  I love the ladybugs!



Tarts & Cheese Cake

Cupcakes and cookies are fun to make but when it comes to easting these are my kind of desserts!  Cheesecake is my favorite dessert and I love anything with fruit.

This is a plain cheesecake with blueberry sauce.

 This is good but sweet.  Caramel apple sundae tart.

 Fruit pizza, such a great summer treat.

Cakes

I did not make this cake - my brother did!  Didn't he do a great job?  He always makes the birthday cakes for his daughters.  This was for Kayleigh's 2nd birthday, she loves Elmo!

 I did make the rest of these cakes. 

This is a lemon chiffon cake with whipped cream and blueberries for my dad's 60th birthday.

 One of my favorite desserts - angel food cake with berries.

 I made this a few years ago for my friend's birthday. 

I think it was an orange mango cake.

 I can't remember when I made this!!  Maybe for Christmas morning at our church potluck. 

I'm pretty sure it's an orange cinnamon cake with icing and cranberries.

 I think red velvet cake is beautiful!  This was for New Year's Eve while I was still in Japan.

My friends were amazed at the color!

 This cake is definitely filled with Japanese flavors but I had to include it because it's so interesting. 

It may not look appealing but it tastes great!  It's a sakura (cherry blossom) chiffon cake with sweet beans and it was topped with whipped cream.

 Cherry blossoms and leaves.  The leaves have a lot of flavor.

 Sweet beans.

Cake Pops

My friend Jenny is obsessed with Hello Kitty so she asked me to make some cupcakes for her graduation open house. I began looking online for some ideas and found Bakerella's blog. She is the queen of cake pops and does amazing work. I had never heard of cake pops but when I saw these Hello Kitty pops I knew I had to make them!  I won't lie- they were a lot of work - but they're so cute I think they're worth it!

 I paired them with graduation cupcakes to make this display.