Chocolate Coconut Retro Candies Cupcakes... with Chia Seeds!

I thought I'd experiment a bit with my cupcakes and tried adding a healthy ingredient to them.  I normally add ground Chia seeds to my salads, but I thought I'd try adding them to my cupcakes, especially since there isn't much of a flavor to them.  

I ended up grinding up coconut flakes in a blender, added the coconut and the chia seeds into the chocolate batter before baking.  I topped the cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese buttercream and various retro candies for decoration (jelly beans, nerds, life savers).  It turned out really well and people didn't notice a difference in the texture or the moistness of the cupcake. 

Finally! A cupcake that really IS healthy for you! :)

Little Man Baby Shower Cupcakes

A cute theme for a cute couple who will soon have the cutest baby! :) 

Toffee Coffee Cupcakes

For those with a sweet tooth... this one is for you...

Moist, melt in your mouth chocolate cupcakes filled with toffee bits in the middle, topped with creamy coffee buttercream and sprinkled with crunchy toffee bits.

Spiderman Cupcakes

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!!

Just Because...

Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cupcake with Choco Cream Cheese

It's been a while since I posted any cupcake baking. I've been taking a bit of a break from baking over the holidays and am slowly getting back into it.  The basic vanilla cupcake... So simple but yet there are so many options for how to make it... with buttermilk, with sour cream, with butter, and each will come out slightly different.

I wanted to try out a new vanilla recipe so I tried a recipe from one of the many baking books that I had and also threw in some mini chocolate chips just because.  For the frosting, wanted to try new flavors for cream cheese frosting so I added a chocolate cream cheese swirl on top, along with white chocolate shavings.

Gruesome Halloween Cupcakes

I'm attending a Halloween scary movie night on Halloween so I thought it would be fun to bring some adult themed Halloween cupcakes there. Scary movies definitely scare me, but scary cupcakes seemed exciting to make. I found some awesome gruesome designs with some 'blood' and body parts.  I made all the decorations out of fondant and used edible red gel for the blood.

I made a butcher knife, a finger and an eyeball... all covered in bloooood.  Happy Halloween!

Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween is such a fun time for cupcake decorating. There are so many designs out there that range from cute to gruesome and they are all fun to make.  For this set of cupcakes, my friend asked me to make cute Halloween cupcakes.  They were for a United Way fundraiser at her sister's office and all 48 cupcakes sold out in 2 hours!

I made the following:

1. Pumpkin: pumpkin spice cupcake with vanilla frosting
2. Vampire face: chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting for the face and chocolate frosting for the hair
3. Mummy face: red velvet with cream cheese
4. Owl face: vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting (my favorite design!)