Samoa Cupcakes

This cupcake story begins with a moist vanilla cupcake which is dunked into a thick chocolate ganache, then it’s piped with an unbelievably delicious caramel buttercream frosting, then it’s sprinkled with perfectly toasted coconut and lastly it’s finished of with a dainty drizzling of chocolate ganache and caramel sauce. 

Samoa cupcakes are the cupcake form to Samoa Girls Scout cookies (that seemed to be available mostly in the US)... caramel and toasted coconut over vanilla shortbread cookies. 

Hello Kitty Cupcakes

I had an order to make some Hello Kitty cupcakes for my friends daughter's 5th birthday party.  The flavor was Madagasacar vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla buttercream decorated with some Hello Kitty toppers. Classic and delicious.

I tried a few different vanilla recipes and decided this one was a winner. The cupcakes turned out very fluffy, light and moist.  The perfect vanilla bean cupcake. :)

Chinese New Year Cupcakes

Happy Be-lated Chinese New Year! I wanted to make some CNY themed cupcakes but I thought the year of the Horse themed cupcakes would be pretty darn hard. So I went to the next best thing... pretty cherry blossoms. I also threw in some cupcakes decorated with hearts as well for a mix.

For a more asian theme, I decided to make vanilla cupcakes with roasted black sesame buttercream frosting. I had some man power to help crush the black sesame (using an ad hoc mortar and pestle) which helped to bring out the nutty flavor from the black sesame.  The frosting tasted like black sesame ice cream. So Yum!!