Baby Shower Cupcakes!

My friend asked me to make cupcakes for a baby shower she was organizing, with the baby accessories theme. These baby accessories are hand made, out of melted chocolate, and are placed on fondant disks.

The cupcakes were pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple cream cheese buttercream, topped with a fondant baby accessories topper.  The pistachio cupcakes have crushed pistachios in the cake part, and finely grounded pistachios in the buttercream.  The pistachios were packaged in individual boxes and were for take home gifts.

Sept Baking Bonanza

It was a milestone weekend for Eileen's Cupcakes... I had 3 cupcake orders to make and unfortunately had to turn down a 4th order because I wouldn't be able to make it in time. The orders were all for different cupcake flavors also with a new flavor I hadn't made before... lemon cupcake. I've always been a bit afraid to do any baking with lemon because the flavor is so strong. But I decided to face my fears and take on the challenge.

The first order was for 2 dozen cupcakes for a child's birthday party. The theme was a Disney princess theme so I made princess decorations and also the girl's name and age in fondant toppers.  The flavors were as follows:
1. Chocolate cupcake with dulce de leche filling, vanilla buttercream topped with Skor mini, Skor bits and drizzled with chocolate
2. Chocolate cupcake with german chocolate frosting (coconut, pecan in a buttery mixture)
3. Red velvet with white chocolate cream cheese

The second order was for 12 chocolate toblerone cupcakes.  Chocolate cupcakes with toblerone filling, vanilla buttercream topped with a piece of toblerone and drizzled with melted toblerone.

The third and biggest order was for 50 Afternoon tea cupcakes all decorated with the afternoon tea fondant toppers for a baby shower. It was a lot of work but the decorations turned out really well.  The flavors were as follows:
1. Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes topped with cookie dough buttercream
2. Lemon cupcake filled with lemon curd, topped with raspberry buttercream.  

Afternoon Tea Cupcakes

I was introduced to Afternoon Tea/High Tea about 7 years ago now and always love going to different hotels that serve Afternoon Tea with my girlfriends to munch on delicious mini desserts and sandwiches while talking about girly things.

When I got asked to make Afternoon Tea cupcakes, my first reaction was, oh my gosh... these are so delicate and detailed! I had no idea how I'd do them. But as time went by, I started thinking more about it and then was determined to try making them because they were so cute.

With the help of my friend, we took on the challenge to make mini desserts out of fondant for cupcake toppers for 2 types of cupcakes:

1. Chocolate buttercream on Chocolate Cupcake
2. Strawberry buttercream on Vanilla Bean Cupcake

Jammie Dodgers

Bourbons

Swiss Roll

Red wafers

Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies

Black Forest Gateau

Digestives

Eclairs

Custard Creams

Croissants

Jammie Dodgers

Macaron

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I have always loved peanut butter on my toast and bagels.  So why not on cupcakes as well? My friend asked for an order of chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. Another perfect match made in heaven.  For those who love Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, you would love this cupcake combination.  

Close your eyes and start drooling...  a moist chocolate cupcake with a creamy peanut butter ball filling, topped with peanut butter cream cheese buttercream that melts in your mouth. Top that off with a mini Reece's cup drizzled with melted chocolate.  

 

Cupcakes for Soma Chocolatier

So I get my super yummy cocoa powder from Soma Chocolatier.  More often than not, when I get more cocoa powder, I can't resist a scoop of their pistachio gelato too. mmmm...

Because I get so much cocoa powder from them, I thought I'd give the King street location a batch of cupcakes for them to enjoy... chocolate walnut cupcakes with vanilla buttercream using of course, their Soma cocoa powder.

Baptism Cupcakes

One of my best customers had asked me to make cupcakes for her son's baptism this past weekend.  We decided to have a mix of fondant toppers with the cross, and some paper toppers with a 'God Bless Marcus Xavier' message.

I made 2 types of cupcakes for this special event:

1. Chocolate with toblerone fudge filling, topped with vanilla frosting
2. Chocolate with Skor bits filling, topper with blue vanilla frosting and more Skor bits

Thank You Cupcakes

My friend asked for some cupcakes to give to the nurses that helped to take care of his son in the hospital.   He asked me to make some recommendations so I suggested three of the recent popular ones:

1. Red velvet cupcake with white chocolate cream cheese (and edible red glitter)
2. Vanilla bean coconut cupcake with mango frosting and shredded coconut
3. Chocolate toblerone cupcake with strawberry frosting and toblerone crumble

The icing was made using fresh pureed fruit. And who says cupcakes can't be healthy?? :)

Teacher Cupcakes

School is wrapping up and its time to celebrate and thank teachers for their hard work.  I had received an order for cupcakes to give to a few teachers. There was some flexibility on what flavors to make, so I decided to make a chocolate cupcake with raspberry buttercream, and also chocolate cupcake with cookies and cream buttercream.

For the decoration, because there were some text involved, I thought easiest to have a mixture of paper 'Thank you' toppers as well as fondant toppers of school accessories... rulers, notebooks and apples.

German Chocolate Cupcakes

Ever since Christmas, I've always wanted to make German Chocolate cupcakes. I had tried them in a cupcake shop in Nashville and loved it. We had a department meeting at work and I thought this would be a good testing ground for this recipe.

The base was the classic chocolate cupcake using Soma chocolatier coco powder, but the frosting was very different. The frosting was made with a mixture of coconut and pecans in a melted butter brown sugar mixture.  It turned out perfectly and the crowd loved it. I'm sure I have said this before in a previous post, but I love anything coconut. :)

Elmo Cupcakes

The same friend who asked me to make Very Hungry Caterpillar also asked me to make Elmo cupcakes for his daughter's party at home.  There were many variations for Elmo cupcakes out in Google land and I decided to use fondant for the facial features.  The red vanilla icing was created using the 'grass/fur' decorating tip, and it was added on top of red velvet cupcake.