Okay, I totally should have priced my services higher, because i spent a whoooole bunch of hours on these cupcakes, planning, shopping, baking, etc, and i only made $10 more than i spent, but it was delightful to have someone pay me!!
The client, a friend of a friend, had a one-year birthday party to cupcake-ify.
Though I now wish I had made these stupid-adorable little guys, i made chickens and pigs instead.
The chickens were strawberry cupcakes, aka birthday beauties from the amazing cupcake cookbook that has never done me wrong. only it did me wrong! the cupcakes came out more like muffins. I'll work on finding a new strawberry batter. Maybe adapt the peach one I made up this august...I'm allergic, so I'm personally in no big panty-twisting rush to get a perfect strawberry cupcake in my life. anyway, hopefully they loved them anyway, because they were absolutely mounded with lemon zest buttercream.
I recently made this amazing coffee cake...literally recipe from a fantastic blog. Make immediately. Only do as I did, and make them mini-cupcakes with frosting poofs, rather than a layer cake. They're very rich, and bite-sized is definitely the way to go.
Soooooooo, the I adapted her coffee buttercream recipe for my lemonzest buttercream, adding instead of instant coffee granules 2 1/2 lemons worth of zest and a little squeeze of juice as well. now, it seems like you can't add lemon juice to things with cream in them, but that's just not true! it's actually a delightful taste combination...you just have to be beating the cream as you add the lemon. That way, everything mixes and the flavors play nice without any sort of dreaded curdle situation.
Anyway, I decorated them with those little orange slice candies, which I had cut while watching grey's anatomy and weeping, and some black decorating gel.
Here is a dark, fuzzy picture of one (i promise, I am looking at digital cameras right now!)
The pigs are chocolate mousse cupcakes from the amazing cupcake cookbook that has only once ever done me wrong. Basically, you make a quick mousse, then whisk in some flour, baking powder and salt and bake. They come out a little smooshed and ugly in the middle, but that's a small price to pay for mousse cupcakes! I frosted them with cream-cheese buttercream. I only slightly changed the recipe i got it from, playing slightly with proportions, (also doing it in the wrong order) and adding extra vanilla bean paste. deeeee-licous! The noses were perfect, if i do say so myself! strawberry mentos gum. The chocolate chips i bought to make eyes and nostrils with did very nicely in the god-among-men cookies would you like the recipe for those? i could post it if you want it. pumpkin chocolate chip? i made yesterday, because they were a pain in the ass, so i just used black decorating gel again.
Here's a little piggy.
And my army of swine!!!!! Muahahhahahahahahahaaaaa!
Here's to the future! I learned some things...like that I should charge a little more...and to find a less muffiny strawberry cupcake recipe...and to not double the icing...my fridge is still full of various buttercreams! but the most important thing i learned is that food color gel is my moon goddess. it colors amazingly, with just a little product...doesn't make buttercream separate... i want to throw a fucking party for the wilton people. this stuff is life changing, people!
I leave you with this army of chickens:
