Foolish Morsel

Today is Liam’s Birthday, and these are his cuppies!  He was surprisingly decisive as to what he wanted when he and big brother Owen were picking out their wrappers and whatnot. Liam loves polka dots, wonder who he gets that from?  And sprinkles! I have a lot of work on as of late (as in super late nights! I am shattered…zzzz…) so I didn’t have time to make the lil’ chocolate treasures, I did however make some toppers, in the shape of twinkly little stars (they sparkle)! I am so proud of how hard he’s worked to try to function in our world, he is my star!  He actually chose vanilla cupcakes, and I made an Italian meringue buttercream frosting that I’m also using as a filling.  I added a raspberry purée that I made, just to try something new (can’t be chocolate all the time, can it?) using a Wolfgang Puck recipe (easy, just time consuming)…The taste is tremendously brilliant!!…Happy Birthday sweetheart, we all love you!

© andi butler

Perfect!  Not a seed in sight!  ; )

Today I made a cake for one of Owen’s preschool teachers.  It’s her husband’s 50th birthday, and he is very into his Harley…I had everything so organized and coordinated, but a series of events lead me to have to make the chocolate decorations this morning (I’d made everything else last night, and usually make the chocolates the night before as well) so I spent all day making them and didn’t even have the time to make  everything I wanted to use!  It looks a bit bare to me, but what matters is the taste!  It’s outstanding, I have to say!  I used the Butter Chocolate Cake, Kaye’s Buttercream (adding 2-3 oz of semisweet chocolate for every cup of buttercream) and Chocolate Ganache filling (between the cake and the buttercream: eight sticks of butter!) from the Whimsical Bakehouse…I’ve made a few tasty things out of their book, and not been disappointed yet!!  The chocolate was a bit thick for me today, and got a bit squiggley when I used the disposable piping bags, and I don’t use tips for it, so I don’t know what happened (cold metal tips harden the chocolate on the way out).  But I do know, I’ve got to get cellophane!!  

all photos ©andi butler

oooh, chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache!

ganache getting the whip…

my sous chef…

layer one…

yum!  i couldn’t trim the top one flat as it didn’t rise properly and I wouldn’t have had enough of a layer…grrr…

chocolate!

liam had put a finger in the cake…can you guess where?

owen and i had a good time with the “scraps”…oh m’gawd…chocolate buzz…i “buttered” the scraps of cake with a bit of buttercream…owen never eats the cake part usually, this time, there was nothing left!

I love my cake!  Thank you so much, Willie, you’re a sweetie and a half!

©willie baronet

Today I made Red Velvet Cupcakes, and you’ll look at the snapshots and say “those aren’t really red.”  You’re right, they’re not, because I didn’t want to put red food coloring in the batter (anyone with boys should be able to tell you that food dyes aren’t the best thing for them), and I searched high and low for a recipe that used beets, as I’d heard that was the authentic way to do it, and found one here.  Let me just say, these minis taste outstanding!!  And because cream cheese frosting with pecans is a traditional way the large cake is served, that’s what I did with these minis, however, the cake got a bit lost with the frosting, it’s delicate and earthy, so next time I’ll use less…These are actually super yummy without frosting!  Oh, and the batter, there was a ton of it, definitely could make three nine inch cakes!!

I thought I’d post some of the cupcakes I’ve made recently…