A bowl of ice cream or a cupcake?

This time I'll let you decide, is my cake an ice cream bowl or a cupcake?

Let me tell you, I was aiming for a cupcake, but I feel like the bottom of my cake is too rounded and looks more like a bowl... but still I like my cake and the colors are pretty sweet!

On the base of the cake I put some cookies and wrote "melly" on them, because the name of the girl is Starmelly... how clever? hehehe.

The cake is a yellow cake with almond extract, the buttercream has coconut and lemon flavor, delicious!

So, what do you think?





Thanks for reading! XOXO

Summer Blackberries

Yay! My first entry for Iron Cupcake Earth.

The theme for this month was Summer Berries, I chose blackberries and to make my cupcake 100% summer I used lemon, orange and coconut too.

I still kinda clueless of when I'm suppose to publish the recipe and all, but since I just finished my cupcakes I rather publish the recipe right now than forget it later :P

Oh but before I post the recipe I want you to see the pictures (so you start feeling the urge to bake some haha):






Oh! and let me tell you I'm competing to win the following prizes:

• A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5021935
• A groovy linocut piece from BLOCKHEAD PRESS http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6108705
  
• a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
  
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

Here are the corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .


Remember to vote starting June 28 to July 6!! :)


And now the recipe :)

Blackberry and Orange Filling

Ingredients

(Note: this recipe is to fill 24 cupcakes)

1 pound of blackberries
2 tb of orange zest
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup of water

Place the blackberries (slightly mashed) with the water, orange juice and zest in a heavy saucepan, let it boil for 1 minute. Then add the sugar and cook on medium heat until it starts to thicken (aprox 20 min). Remove from heat, let cool and refrigerate if you are not using it right away.


Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

Source: http://www.creativeconfectioneryblog.com/2009/01/classic-vanilla-cupcake.html

Makes 24 cupcakes

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla, or add another flavor
1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place papers in 2 (12 cup) cupcake pans.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

In your mixer on medium speed, beat the eggs and sugar until thickened and lightened to a cream color, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix in the oil and vanilla until blended. Mix in the sour cream. Mix in the flour mixture until it's incorporated and the batter is smooth.

Pour into prepared cups, put one teaspoon of the filling on top of each cupcake and bake 23 minute. Remove from oven and let sit in pan for 10 minutes.


Frosting

Ingredients

1 cup confectioners' sugar
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp coconut extract
1 tbs orange zest
3 tbs dry shredded coconut

Sift the confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl. Whisk in the condensed milk, butter, and lemon juice to make a smooth icing. Add the coconut extract. In a small container mix the orange zest and the coconut. Cover the cupcakes with the frosting and sprinkle it with the orange and coconut.

Enjoy!! :)

Ragamuffin and Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

Again working with Classic Vanilla cupcakes, so yummy I can't stop using them :)

This time I did Mr Ragamuffin, he is from Lenore - The Cute Little Dead Girl, he is a cutie when he is not trying to bite someones neck, since he used to be a vampire, but now he is only a toy.
Ragamuffin is trying to stay on top of three cupcakes.

This was made for my friend Scotty, who was hoping for a Tucan but I decided to make something more attractive and way more eatable, since the Tucans are black and for some reason the black fondant doesn't taste very well (at least mine).

Cheshire Cat (Alice in Wonderland)

Today I made some Classic Vanilla Cupcakes, yummmmyyyy, they are delicious!! I covered some of them with marshmallow fondant and then tried to create like a cupcake puzzle with Cheshire Cat.

This was just my first attempt of Cheshire, I promise there will be more, and the result will be better... hopefully next time he will let us see his whole body xD

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes with Sour Cream Ganache

As I said days ago, I still had a lot of mud cake batter, I decided to make use of it. Made more cupcakes, covered them with sour cream ganache (which tastes like heaven) and then made some fondant decoration.

Enjoy the pics :)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Rolled Fondant

I've always loved the way rolled fondant looks, yesterday I was planning to pay a visit to my aunt's new cloth store and she told me that my little cousin would be there waiting for me and my sister, was at that moment that I decided to make something cute for her.

I went to the fridge and took out some rolled fondant that I made months ago for my boyfriend's bday cake, the colors were just perfect since they were ideal for my new fondant cutters. Baked some vanilla cupcakes (which I have to admit weren't as good as always, I think it was because I used margarine instead of butter, I know I know, my fault) and then started the process of covering the cupcakes.

Used three cutters: tulip, butterfly and flower; I'm pretty happy with the results, my cupcakes ended looking really cute. When I finally arrived to the store my cousin was no longer there, so I don't know if she liked them or not, I hope she did, anyway, it was a nice way of getting started in the decoration of cupcakes with rolled fondant.

There are a couple of pictures.

Red Velvet Fairy Cake

I recently learned that I love fairy cakes, I do, first they are magic and second they are cakes, so what else could you ask for?

The other day, while feeding my love through some wonderful cupcakes sites I bumped with a marvelous recipe: Oh yeah! RED VELVET cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. I couldn't resist the temptation to bake some, they looked so pretty in pictures that I wanted to have my own picture of them and brag about it, which can be the reason why today I finally decided to create this blog.

It has a mild chocolate flavor, but not overpowering and the red color is just mind blowing, along with the cream cheese frosting which I decided to decorate with some red sugar. For sure this fairy cake stands apart from the rest.