Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

We celebrated Thanksgiving at the home of some good friends this year.  For an appetizer I brought Roasted Cranberry Apple Brie Crostini with a Kahlúa Glaze and we also enjoyed Tex-Mex Deviled Eggs before the big feast.  Both were devoured by the guests in no time!  We also made a Apple Cider Brined turkey to roast and The Hubby made his "famous" Roasted Garlic Mashed Red Potatoes with Rosemary & Parmesan.

In addition, I wanted to bring a dessert - but not a pie, I knew there would be plenty!  While picking up my "Thankful" Shirt from The TomKat Studio Shop in Chandler, AZ, I found these adorable Brown Stripe Candy Cups that also work for baking - they would be perfect for Thanksgiving cupcakes.

To make the cupcakes, I started with a box mix of milk chocolate cake and followed the instructions for the cupcakes.  Next, I found this recipe on My Recipes for the salted caramel frosting. You'll either need to make it just before frosting the cupcakes or if you need to make it ahead of time, store it in the refrigerator and microwave for a few seconds to soften it.  Add the salt after frosting each one (rather than waiting until all are frosted).  The salt will "stick" better just after frosting.

I was pretty excited to pile these high using an open star decorating tip, but on Thanksgiving morning before heading to our friends' home, was unable to locate mine!  It was fine - the round one worked out fine too!

Unfortunately, I wasn't super happy with the quality of my photo - but no judging please!  These cupcakes were quite good - they are perfect for the holiday season!

Salted Caramel Frosting
Recipe from My Recipes

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup butter

1/3 cup heavy cream
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Bring first 2 ingredients to a rolling boil in a 3 1/2-qt. saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly.

Stir in cream, and return to a boil; remove from heat. Pour into bowl of a heavy-duty electric stand mixer. Gradually beat in powdered sugar and vanilla at medium speed, using whisk attachment; beat 7 to 10 minutes or until thickened. Use immediately. Sprinkle frosted cake with sea salt.

Last Minute Halloween Treat Ideas - Courtesy of The Bestie

I learned on Monday that The Bestie was making some Halloween treats and offered to share her photos with me to use as Halloween blog content....score!  She is quite possibly one of the busiest women I know.  Employed full time, the mom of a 7 year old and 4 year old twins, active in her community, fully engaged in her moms of multiples club....she never ceases to amaze me!  She is also one of the best moms I know - she'll do just about anything for her children.  Although, she did tell me at one time she wouldn't shave her head for them. 

She is the same mom who makes 3 birthday cakes in one weekend for her children since their birthdays are only 1 day apart.  You can read more about that here.

This week, she volunteered to make treats for various events....work, kids' activities - who knows. She said yes and as always, made it happen.  While we were on the phone together at 8 p.m. Monday night while she was shopping for missing items from her pantry, we talked about ways to streamline this and make it as easy as possible on herself.  She knocked these out in no time and even took pictures along the way.  Thanks, friend!

These cute cupcakes were decorated with simple orange frosting piped on from a pastry bag and she cut a chocolate bar to decorate. 

She also made these Pretzel Witches Fingers.  Using pretzel sticks, green Wilton candy melts, sliced almonds, and a toothpick she made another adorable Halloween treat.

 

The third and final treat is by far my favorite!  Remember those Waffle Dippers I posted in 2012?  She used the pan and filled with cake batter to make these super cool mummies!  You'll need the pan, it looks like this:

 

 

Next, get a box cake mix, pour the batter into each dipper, and bake.  Let cool, then get ready to decorate!  She used these cute large candy eyeballs from Wilton and used a #47 piping tip to add the bandages - aren't they awesome?  You'll want to make sure you have these on your serving platter before you start piping on the frosting - they aren't really moveable once decorated!

 



 

 

 

 

Have you volunteered to make Halloween treats.....and made it happen even though you really didn't have time to?



Candy, Cupcakes, and Beer | Photographed & Styled by Gretchen Wakeman Photography

This post is just a tad later than the actual event.....I just realized I still had it sitting in draft mode, what is wrong with me? This party was amazing!

My friend...and neighbor, Gretchen recently styled and hosted a birthday party for her little girl who was turning the big ONE! I was pretty excited when I received the invitation telling us this was going to be a birthday happy hour. The invitation read that the birthday girl's favorite things included: after-nap playtime + bottle + snack....which = happy hour!

Beer and cupcakes were served and a candy bar was available for the kids to attack and fill up their goodie bags with delicious treats. We also enjoyed chips, salsa, chicken burritos, rice, and beans as part of our happy hour.

There was a batch of lemonade for the kids and of course a tub of beer on ice for the adults. I brought a bottle of Wilson Creek Almond Champagne for my friend - one of her favorites. She was so excited she added it to the beer tub and enjoyed during the party. Oh, and I can't forget the chocolate fountain complete with pound cake, fruit, and marshmallows. This was the appetizer for the kids....at least, that's how they understood it!

Gretchen's mom made the gorgeous smash cake for her granddaughter....unfortunately, the birthday girl wanted nothing to do with it. Couldn't even get her to dive into one of those beautiful cupcakes made by my friend. The one year old did manage to eat several of the Oreo pops!

What are 5 year old big sisters for? Well, they are there to hug you when you don't want to have your cake and eat it too.....they are also there to set up an impromptu craft table for your party guests after the cupcakes are consumed and gifts are opened. They are available to walk around offering various treats from the candy bar to your guests throughout the party. It was so cute - and tough to resist her generosity. I never had a big sister - they seem pretty cool! I do have a sister-in-law who is older and have considered her MY big sister for the past 16+ years, she's awesome! This 5 year old is definitely a hostess in the making - her mom sets a great example.

I have included a few photos from the candy bar courtesy of Gretchen below - you'll have to check out her blog to see the rest. I took the photo of the wrapped gift and wanted to share, since we knew there was going to be a candy bar ahead of time, I topped off the packaging with a giant Whirly Pop in hopes that her mom will get some great photos of her with it. I love adding a little something extra to the top of a gift.

I wanted to include this party on my blog to give you more ideas for a great event! Enjoy the photos and get inspired!



photo & styling by www.gretchenwakeman.com

photo & styling by www.gretchenwakeman.com

photo & styling by www.gretchenwakeman.com



special touch tied into ribbon for birthday girl

 

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

I made these adorable cupcakes for Christmas dessert in 2011.  Images of Christmas Tree Cupcakes flooded Pinterest last year - I did some research while writing this post and can't even figure out which image I used for my inspiration there are so many!

Nothing from scratch on this recipe, except for the fondant, I needed such a small amount, decided to make it myself.  I used Betty Crocker's Super Moist Dark Chocolate Cake Mix for the cupcakes - and a cute Christmas themed cupcake liner from Michael's. 

Once the cupcakes were cool, I moved onto the decorating phase.  For the frosting - back to my favorite, Betty Crocker's Whipped Vanilla and simply added Wilton's Leaf Green Icing Color to get the frosting to the color consistency I wanted. 

To create the "ribbon/leaf" effect while making the trees, I used Wilton's No. 70 Leaf Decorating Tip.  One lesson I have learned over the past couple of years when decorating cupcakes is to start with your first "mound" of frosting to the middle of the cupcake, then starting on the outside of the cupcake, frost all the way around building on top of that initial drop.  That will help give it the height you are wanting here.

To decorate, I sprinkled Betty Crocker's Pearls Cupcake Gems around the frosting of the cupcake.  I'm not sure why these are not on Betty's site, but I couldn't find them there!  I bought them from my local grocery store.

For the stars, I made the fondant by combining marshmallows, water, and powdered sugar in a microwave safe bowl.  I microwaved on high in 30 second increments, stirring in between until the marshmallows were well combined with the water and powdered sugar. 

Being very careful of the fondant - it will be hot - and wearing latex gloves covered in shortening (to prevent sticking),  I moved to a workspace dusted with powdered sugar to knead in my food coloring - Wilton's Golden Yellow Icing Color  until combined well and is like a "dough-ey" consistency.  Then, rolled it out and with a small star cookie cutter, cut out the stars.

These were the perfect dessert for Christmas day.  In 2011 we enjoyed dinner at the home of good friends and the eyes of the children (and adults!) when they saw the cupcakes were wide with anticipation!

August Favorite Photo

I decided to enter the August favorite photo contest through Click it Up a Notch. This is a great blog that has taught me a lot about how to use my camera!  This photo of our ocean and beach cupcakes was taken during our End of Summer Party and I thought it turned out great!  This is my favorite August photo!

Summer Fun Cupcakes

These yummy cupcakes were part of my End of Summer Party blog post, but they were so cute, I thought they warranted their own spot on the blog!

The idea is courtesy of Martha Stewart, I just swapped out the shark fin for a jelly fish on the "ocean" cupcakes.