Banana Cream Pie cupcakes

Whenever I am getting together with friends, I am always asked to bring dessert. Last weekend, my husband, daughter, and I headed over to my cousin's house to visit with his family. I wanted to bring cupcakes but couldn't decide on what to make. I thought about my favorite desserts, and Banana Cream Pie was one that came to mind. I love it! Why not transform it into a cupcake?

I started out with a banana cupcake that I completely messed up. I usually take out all spices that I need from my cupboards to save some time before I get started. I did this, but forgot to put away the spices I used to make lunch that day. Unfortunately, I had to toss the batter because my garlic and cinnamon are stored in identical containers. Garlic banana cupcakes? No thank you.

After the mishap, I decided to switch gears completly and go with a chocolate cupcake. I had already made the filling and icing for the banana cream pie cupcakes, so they turned into chocolate banana cream cupcakes.

Here's a photo of the end result:

Chocolate cupakes filled with banana cream, iced with vanilla whipped cream icing and garnished with graham cracker crumbs and banana chips.

They were a pretty big hit! I embarrassed to share how many of them we all ate!

Because they were such a big hit, I decided to make them again this weekend for our girls day. My best friends and I make sure that we get together at least once a month and just hang out and talk. We have 4 kids between the 3 of us so we decided to have a potluck pool party this time!

One of my friends doesn't care for chocolate cake (What?!) so I altered these just a bit.

I made a cinnamon (no garlic) graham cracker cupcake with banana cream filling, vanilla whipped cream frosting, and graham cracker crumbs and banana chips for garnish. Here is a photo:

They were enjoyed by all!

What flavor cake/cupcake would you guys like to see next? Any ideas or suggestions?

Dulce de Leche

I was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital this past weekend and my parents (who are saints) stepped in to care for our daughter while my husband and I were at the hospital. I am so greatful that I have them so close by.

To thank my parents, decided to make them a batch of my dulce de leche cupcakes. For those that don't know, dulce de leche has a caramel flavor and is made from milk.

I've been testing and tweaking this recipe for quite some time but haven't given them to anyone until now. Here they are:

I'm happy to report that these were a big hit!

Introducing Rainbow cupcakes!

I’ve gotten a bunch of questions about how I made the rainbow cake. Sorry guys, but it’s my little secret! Thanks for all of the support though! The rainbow cake ended up being a HUGE hit!

I invited my family over for dinner this weekend for a surprise birthday dinner for my cousin, Jasmine. Jasmine has helped me with my cakes before and always has nothing but good things to say about my cakes. I figured it would be nice for her to have her own cake and not just a slice of someone else’s.

She LOVED the rainbow cake that I made last weekend so I thought it would be nice to make her one for her birthday. I think they turned out pretty cute!

Here they are!

The cupcakes were white almond cake with a french vanilla buttercream frosting. The party hats and flowers were made of fondant.

A picture of them on my cute little cupcake tree:


And a view of the inside!


Happy Birthday Jasmine!

Fancy red velvet!

I've never been a fan of red velvet cake... in fact, I strongly disliked it and often wondered why anyone would choose to eat it. That was the case until my co-workers got me cupcakes for my birthday back in September! There was a variety box of twelve that we all shared. The next day, the lone ranger in the box was... you guessed it... a red velvet cupcake.

I ate it after my lunch that day. To my surprise, I really enjoyed it! Apparently I had been eating bad red velvet cake all these years! I set out to find the perfect recipe and I'm happy to annouce that I've found it!

The cupcakes below were made for a friend's birthday this past weekend. Red velvet with cream cheese buttercream frosting. YUM! I liked them so much that I made an extra batch for me and my co-workers!

Don't they look fancy?

And a close-up!

Elmo returns... and this time, he brought Cookie Monster and Big Bird along for the ride!

A few months ago, my baby brother asked me if I would make a birthday cake for my nephew's first birthday party. We talked about a theme and after throwing out a few ideas, he landed on wanting an Elmo birthday party. ELMO, AGAIN! That little guy sure is popular!

I prefer not to make the same cake twice, so it was back to the drawing board on what it would look like. I ended up helping out by picking and purchasing the invites. They ended up being great inspiration for my cake!

I thought it would be fun if I made 3D figures of the sesame street characters this time. I started making the character cake toppers a week before and than goodness I did! Those suckers were quite time consuming! They were all made out of a fondant/gumpaste mixture. Here's a close up of Elmo and Cookie Monster.... I LOVED how Cookie Monster was holding on to his very own fondant cookie! Also, notice how they are all wearing diapers! I LOVE IT!

Moving on... I drew up a sketch of what I wanted to do to make sure that what I was thinking of wasn't to outrageous and out of reach. It didn't seem like it was. My brother asked for chocolate cake so I made the top and bottom tiers triple chocolate cake and made the middle french vanilla for the non-chocolate lovers. The top tier was filled with chocolate ganache, the middle tier was filled with strawberry, and the bottom was a banana cream filling. YUM! Here was the end result.....

And a view of the Big Bird side of the cake.... poor guy was not the shining star of the evening....

My brother also wanted me to make my nephew his own little smash cake. Rather than make him his own little cake, I figured, what could be more fun than cupcakes?!

Don't tell me these aren't fun...

The cupcakes were confetti with vanilla buttercream and fondant accents. These may have been the cause of a few gray hairs that mysteriously appeared after I completed them! I loved making them anyway!
Anyway, it was all worth it to see how happy my nephew was on his 1st birthday. Happy Birthday Jadon! Your Aunt Michelle loves you so much!!!

Thanks for looking everyone!

Elmo!

The daughter of my best friend had her first birthday party this weekend. Naturally I said yes when my bff asked me to make her daughter's birthday cake. Once she told me that she had decided on an Elmo theme, I spent an obscene amount of time online searching for some inspirational photos on what to make. I finally decided to purchase an Elmo pan from Wilton and put it on a sheet cake to make sure that it would feed everyone at the party.

For weeks I was so excited about making this cake- I couldn't wait to get started! I wanted to make sure that everything would be perfect. That turned out to be much harder than I thought since I hurt my left hand (I'm left handed) the weekend before the party.

The entire week before the party I worried about how I would decorate these cakes with a left hand that I could hardly move and that was very swollen. What did I do to it? Who knows! When I realized that I couldn't hold my coffee mug, I began to wonder if I had broken it! I iced it practically every second of the day in hopes that the pain would just magically go away before I started baking. Wishful thinking that unfortunately didn't work!

I finally decided to just start baking when I realized that my hand wasn't going to get much better. Needless to say, piping individual starts to color in Elmo's face was torture! I finally got it done in an amount of time that I am embarrassed to even type out. The sheet cake was a lot better since there wasn't too much detail that I was planning on adding.... although it still took me longer than expected.

The day of the party finally arrived and I was excited to have finished the cake! I drove into the city and the terror started. You don't realize how badly city drivers are until you have a stacked cake and cupcakes in your trunk! Thankfully, the cake and I made it to the party in one piece, but we had a few close calls and a few choice words on my part along the way!

So here is the cake! Elmo was a confetti cake iced in a vanilla buttercream. The sheet cake underneath was a triple chocolate chocolate chip (chocolate overload? ;-)) filled with banana filling on one half and strawberry whipped cream on the other.

I also made smores cupcakes. The elmo head on top was candy.


And in case you are interested, I sit here typing this post out one handed with my right hand while the other is still wrapped and under ice :-(

Tinkerbell!

A friend's daughter turned 3 and had a Tinkerbell birthday party this weekend. Her mom asked me to make some confetti cupcakes with green icing. I decided to take it a bit further and instead of making a standard rainbow confetti cupcake, I set out to find purple and green sprinkles. How hard could it be right? Wrong. I didn't really want to order them online for reasons that I don't remember now... but that would have been the most logical choice instead of driving all around Chicagoland trying to find sprinkles. I finally found them so all was well by party time! I thought it would also be fun to sprinkle some "pixie dust" over the tops :-)

Here they are: Green and purple confetti cupcakes with lime green vanilla buttercream frosting and purple "pixie dust"


All ready for the party!

Happy Birthday, Kayla!

Peanut Butter!

So I am continuing to test out recipes that I want to offer. I stumbled across one today that is definitely a keeper and will be added to my order form. Peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate buttercream. YUM! While it was baking, my place smelled like I lived in a Reeses Pieces candy. It smelled so good that I didn't even know what to do with myself. So good.

As with many of my other recipes, I test them out on my family and my co-workers. My family got to enjoy these tonight and loved them. My husband even said they were the best cupcake/cake he had ever tasted. He's a good husband! ;-) The to making these today was that my cousin's Liv's birthday that is right around the corner. The cupcakes gave us an excuse to embarass her by singing to her at the top of our lungs in the middle hotel lobby that she is staying in. My family sure has a ton of fun when we get together!

Cupcakes!

Cupcakes....what's not to love? They are easy (no forks) and fun (they come in a cute little cup) to eat, a lot of fun to make, and you get your own individual portion. I love cupcakes!

Saturday morning I was hanging out with my daughter avoiding all of the housework that I needed to get done when my mom called and invited us over for dinner. My grandma is in town from Puerto Rico and of course I wouldn't miss the chance to see her while she was here. I accepted and my mom was like oh yeah... and can I order a few dozen cupcakes for you to bring over for dessert? Of course mom. Nothing like last minute!

I had a few recipes that I wanted to test out and my mom didn't have a preference on flavors so I got to work! The flavors I chose were pink lemonade and smores. The smores cupcakes were so yummy! I've established however, that pink lemonade is NOT my favorite. Others seemed to have liked it though so that was good. On to the pictures!

Pink Lemonade cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing:
And these were the smores cupcakes with marshmallow buttercream icing:
YUM!

Branching out....

So my boss had a birthday recently. I thought it would be fun to cover his office in streamers and fill it with huge balloons.... so I talked my co-workers into it and on we went!


What's a birthday celebration without cake though? Rather than make a cake, I thought cupcakes would hold up on my crazy long commute better. My boss and I share a love for Ricky Martin and he loves Cher so we printed off teeny images of them and used them as toppers. HILARIOUS! Ok... maybe I was the only one that thought so... it was a lot of fun to do though and I hope we were able to make his day a special one.


On to the cupcakes! Blue champagne cupcakes with champagne icing covered in blue crystals.


About a month later, I was approached by co-workers to make a cake for our other boss. She was turning the big 3-0 and we needed a way to make sure we celebrated. How did we do that? See cake below.

Umm.... don't ask. She LOVED it. Enough said. ;-) Cherry cake with chocolate buttercream icing. Eyes and teeth were made of fondant. Nose and dots on the eyes was gel icing.