Cupcake Challenge

What a fun weekend I had! This past Saturday, I competed in a "Cupcake Challenge" as part of the National Capital Area Cake Show. The challenge featured 50 bakers (both professional and amtuer) and almost 200 different varieties of cupcakes.

The theme for this year's challenge was "cocktail" inspired cupcakes. Here is what I made:

Grasshopper Cupcake (rich chocolate cake with creme de menthe buttercream)

Blue Hawaiian Cupcake (coconut cake with a rum buttercream frosting, graham cracker "sand" and a fondant flip flop garnish)

Shirley Temple Cupcake (lemon-lime cake with a cherry grenadine buttercream)

I'm glad I took some pictures at home before the show b/c we were so busy and didn't get to take many while there.

My neighbor, Polly, also competed in the challenge. Polly and I both love to bake and since we often get requests for baked goods we've decided to join forces and start a home baking business. This is our website, Sugar Lane Sweets*.

These were Polly's cupcakes:

Orange Blossom Cupcake (my favorite...loved these!)

Irish Cream Cupcake

Chocolate Cherry Cordial Cupcake


This event was sold out about a week before the show. When the doors opened at 7PM hundreds of people filed in to purchase cupcakes. It was crazy, busy, overwhelming and a lot of fun!



Polly working her table.


I didn't get a chance to snap any pictures of my set-up before the show. I took this picture half-way through the event. By this point, my grasshopper cupcakes were almost gone and 15 minutes later my Shirley Temple cupcakes were also sold out.

Some people had some pretty neat displays.


And there were a lot of creative and amazing cupcakes.


The Washington DC area loves cupcakes!


Look at these cute "Tartini" cupcakes.


Another great display.



* Polly's husband, CJ, built our site. If you would like to contact him about any website work, feel free to send me (mbrandao0508@gmail.com) and I will forward his info.

Whipped Honey Poppy Seed Butter

It's Monday...let's talk butter!

Here is a super simple way to jazz up plain old butter. This recipe is inspired by the wonderful whipped honey poppy seed butter served at a local favorite restaurant, Coastal Flats. It goes great with any type of bread and is super simple to make. I made this to go along with the bread we served for Thanksgiving and think it would be perfect for the Christmas lunch, dinner or any other special meal.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), softened
1 1/2 Tbsp honey
1/8-1/4 tsp poppy seeds
1/8-1/4 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter)

Cream softened butter with an electric mixer. Add honey, poppy seeds and salt (if using) to the butter and mix until well combined. Taste and add additional honey or salt if needed. Transfer or pipe to a serving dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate to firm up butter. Serve butter slightly softened.

Source: Inspired by Coastal Flats, recipe Chef Mommy original

Holiday Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago a friend asked if I would be interested in taking a cupcake cooking class at Sur la Table. She didn't have to ask me twice...I love cupcakes!

We took the "Holiday Cupcakes" class this past weekend and here are the cupcakes we made: snowflake (coconut), peppermint with peppermint buttercream, chocolate cranberry with cranberry orange frosting, almond praline with mascarpone frosting and carrot with orange glaze.

I'll be posting the recipe for these cupcakes in the upcoming days. Enjoy!

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. I love the fact that the entire day is dedicated to eating, relaxing and spending quality with those we love. It is also a time to reflect on the many things we are thankful for.

The thing I am most thankful for is these two little turkeys :)



They are the sweetest, smartest and funniest little people I know (but I'm a little biased). They fill my life with so much love everyday.

I am thankful for my husband, who works so hard for our little family and is always there offering support and encouraging me. I am thankful for family and friends, both far and near.

And lastly, for all those who read this blog and take the time to leave me a comment or send an email. I love hearing from everyone and have learned so much about cooking and baking in just these last few months. Thank you, thank you.

This year, like last, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our family in NJ and I won't be doing any of the cooking. My 3 SIL's have this covered :) So, since I knew I wouldn't be buying any food for my family this Thanksgiving, I decided to buy food for another family through Our Daily Bread. ODB is a volunteer-based organization focused on easing the plight of low income residents in Fairfax county, VA.

During the holidays, they have an "adopt a family" program, in which you provide a needy family with a basket of food. The organization places you with a family based on your criteria. I said I was interested in helping a family with small children and/or a family with special needs child/children. The family I was matched up with is a single mom with three kids (an 11yr old, 3yr old and 7 month old).

This is the basket I made for them.



It included:
Gift card (to buy a turkey or anything else they might need), potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, crackers, butter spread, apple pie, whipped cream, assortment of fruit,aluminum roasting pan and Thanksgiving plates and napkins. I put everything in a sturdy, re-usable laundry basket.

Since there are small children I also included the following:
Apple juice, variety of baby food, Goldfish, Cherrios, mac n'cheese, and oatmeal cookies.

I'm really glad I did this and hope to make it a tradition.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sesame Street Cupcakes

Sesame Street recently celebrated its 40th birthday and on Sunday we joined in the celebration at George Washington University in Washington DC.

In collaboration with the Smithsonian Discovery Theater, the executive producer of Sesame Street along with Sonya Manzano (Maria) and several of the other cast members (Elmo included)were at GW for a Q & A, book signing, and photo opportunity with fans of the show.

I decided to make these cupcakes to celebrate as well. Plus, my daughter's 2nd birthday might be Sesame Street themed, so this was the perfect chance to do a practice run. They came out pretty good overall for my first try and they were certainly yummy (I ate 3 myself :) )but next time I will make a couple of changes.

I think the eyes need to be bigger on all the characters. Instead of mini cookies for Cookie Monster, I'll use a regular size one. Also, my Big Bird looks a little demented to me. He will need the most work. Hopefully, if I play around a bit more with the piping tips, I can give him a more feathered look.

I won't post a recipe for these b/c I just used a boxed devil's food cake mix (made a bit tastier by subing buttermilk for water) and homemade buttercream (I'll post the recipe soon). The eyes and Elmo's nose were made with fondant and mini Chips Ahoy were used for Cookie Monster.

My favorite.

I piped the frosting 2 different ways. Which do you think looks best?


Here are some pictures of our fun day.

Family picture with the real Zoe, Elmo & Abby.
The Sesame Street cast: Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (Abby Caddaby),Sonia Manzano (Maria),Fran Brill (Prairie Dawn & Zoe) Kevin Clash (Elmo), Karen Fowler (Executive Producer)
Maria and Maria

My little girl wearing her brother's hand-me-down Elmo shirt.

Coloring a picture of Elmo.

My son, pretending to give a speech at the GW podium.

The kids exploring GW.

Apple Sauce

Last weekend, we took the kids apple picking to an orchard in Maryland, Homestead Farms. It was so much fun and we came home with SO MANY apples!

The apples have not gone to waste though. I personally have eaten almost about a dozen. My son took some into his preschool class to share with the other kids at snack. We also made mini apple pies, apple cupcakes (I'll post these soon)and of course apple sauce!

I made my apple sauce pretty smooth.

Here are some pictures from our trip to the farm.

My daughter loved apple picking so much!! The funny thing is she spent most of the time picking rotten apples from the ground and putting them in our basket. It was hysterical! As soon as she turned her back to get another apple, we would toss out the rotten ones.
Lots of pumpkins too!

Nothing tastes better than a fresh picked apple.

The farm also had animals...a calf, pigs, chickens and lots of goats!!


Ingredients
4-5 medium sized apples, 3 cups (I used golden delicious)
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
cinnamon (optional)

Directions
Wash and dry the apples. Then peel and cut into even sized pieces. Add the apple chunks to a sauce pan then add water, sugar and lemon juice. Heat the pan on med-high and bring the apples to a gently boil. Reduce heat and simmer apples for about 20 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat and with an immersion blender or potato masher, mash apples to desired consistency. Serve with a little cinnamon if desired.

Bacon Cupcakes

About 2 weekends ago, I read in the Washington Post about a local bakery that had created...get this...bacon cupcakes! Buzz Bakery, located in Alexandria, VA (Old Town)came up with this crazy but surprisingly yummy recipe.

I was very intrigued and when I told my son about it, he was all for us making a special trip down to Buzz to check it out...this boy LOVES bacon.

We went today after dinner and you know what...it was really tasty. It's a strange marriage of sweet chocolate cake, creamy peanut butter and smokey/salty bacon that totally works.

I liked it but one was definitely enough for me. Oh, and my son, who had been talking about bacon cupcakes for days, picked a totally different cupcake when we got there. I can't blame him though...he got a s'mores cupcake and what 4 year old can say no to that?

Buzzy Bakery s'mores and bacon cupcakes