Spring has Sprung, and I still can't make Cake Pops.

March is a great month- Spring Break, St.Patrick's Day, the first day of Spring, and Something On A Stick Day(yes, I'm serious). The first day of Spring was last week, and we've had some pretty gorgeous days. There's something about sunshine that puts everyone in a good mood, especially me. Have you ever heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder? Some twisted bastard decided to call the disorder that makes you depressed in winter "SAD"....thanks for that one, champ. Cruel irony aside, I'm pretty sure I have it and nothing makes me happier than when the weather starts to get amazing in March/April. 

Since I'm not actually at school right now, I didn't have 'Spring Break' this year. What I had instead, was a night in for my baby sister who was on Spring Break and has been harassing me to have a girly sleepover for months. We made mini pizzas (on garlic naan bread, go try it, now), took her for frozen yogurt, and turned my living room into a massive fort to watch Puss In Boots and sleep in. I highly recommend Puss In Boots, I really don't recommend spending the night sleeping on hardwood floor and couch cushions...my back is still creaking. We also made these adorable springtime bird's nest cupcakes. I think she ate as many eggs as she put on the cupcakes, but somehow we got them all decorated and the end result is just too cute!

Best fort ever? I think so.

almost as cute as her :)

You know what the best way to spend St.Patrick's Day is? Working at a bar.......NOT. I barely had time for any festive cupcaking what with work and making time to drink entirely too much, but I did manage to squeeze in these Irish Cream Coffee Cupcakes, which were pretty tasty. They didn't taste that much like Irish Cream, which is surprising considering the massive amounts of Carolann's I put in the batter and the icing...oh well, there's always next year!

Irish Cream Cupcakes with Carolann's & Coffee Buttercream

Another favourite from this month was Rainbow Sprinkle Sundae Cupcakes. Vanilla & rainbow sprinkle cupcakes topped with whipped vanilla buttercream, chocolate drizzle and a cherry on top made these treats a huge birthday party success! 

I love any excuse to use maraschino cherries...
I will literally eat them out of the jar, it's a problem.

Last but not least, March 28th is 'Something On A Stick Day'...what better way to celebrate than to make another attempt at my nemesis, cake pops. If you're unaware, my first attempt at cake pops resulted in something that looked like dessert turds. The second attempt resulted in something that looked like slightly more uniform dessert turds. This time, when I messed up a batch of cupcakes I mixed up cake pop paste right away and chucked it in the freezer. Today, in honour of Something On A Stick Day, I faced my fear and reattempted cake pops with my frozen Chocolate Key Lime batter. In the end, I've decided that cake pops are still not for me. These are delicious, and they do look nicer than my previous attempts, buuut I'm gonna leave this one for the experts and stick to what I do best. :)

Chocolate Cake, Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting,
Dark Chocolate Coating...deeelicious.

DIY Meowcakes: Cookie Dough Cupcakes!

As you may have noticed, this isn't a blog where I share recipes. There's a couple of reasons for this...

Firstly, the recipes I use are my own creations. They took months to perfect to the point where people bite into a cupcake and immediately say "Oh My God."  So I'm a little like a protective mother about them. No, it's not in the spirit of food blogging at all. No, I don't reeeally care. Secondly, there are so many fantastic blogs out there posting great recipes daily, if you want to recreate something you see here you can literally just google the flavours. One of my favourites is Sweetapolita, a beautiful page full of gorgeous photos, really great recipes, and helpful baking posts. 

Having said this...there are some things that need to be shared, and Cookie Dough Cupcakes is one of them. Whether you're a kid, a toothless geriatric, or a munchie-hungry university student, these are a guaranteed hit. They look like cupcakes, but really truly taste like chocolate chip cookie dough. The best part is, anyone can make them by adjusting recipes they already use! So here you go:

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

You will need:

- brown sugar

- ingredients for your favourite vanilla cake recipe

- mini chocolate chips

- ingredients for basic vanilla buttercream

~~~

1) Take your favourite vanilla cake recipe, and replace 1/2 to 2/3rds of the white granulated sugar with golden or brown sugar. As long as your recipe usually begins with creaming butter and sugar, it will work just fine. Spend an extra couple of minutes beating the butter and sugars together to make sure you get out any grittiness from the brown sugar. Brown sugar is what makes homemade chocolate chip cookies chewy and delicious, so by replacing some of the sugar in your  cake batter with it, the cake itself will have a similar taste.

2) Prepare the rest of your recipe as usual, and stir in mini chocolate chips. A batch of twelve cupcakes will need about half a cup of chips, but this is pretty much to your taste. I like the mini chips because I find large chocolate chunks too much for a cupcake, but again this is totally your call. Bake your cupcakes as usual.

3) While your cupcakes are cooling, you can prepare the buttercream. Start whipping about a cup of room temperature butter with half a cup of brown sugar. Beat for about 4 minutes until the brown sugar is well incorporated, then gradually add another 2 cups of icing sugar. Add milk by the tablespoon as needed, and beat until you have something that looks like frosting. Stir in a big teaspoon of vanilla extract, and then beat in a third of a cup of flour and half a teaspoon of salt. Flour in frosting sounds totally bizarre, but trust me- your frosting is going to taste like unbaked chocolate chip cookies.

4) At this point, you can choose whether or not you want to add chocolate chips to your frosting as well. I chopped dark chocolate super fine and folded it in, but you could just as easily drizzle chocolate on the finished cupcakes or cover them in chocolate sprinkles.

5) Ice your cooled cupcakes with the cookie dough buttercream and enjoy! 

Whoever you're baking for, these won't last long!

Sweet Treats for Secretaries!

 I love it when someone gives me a vague sort of idea or theme for a cupcake order and tells me to make whatever I want. It's a chance to get creative, try out new cake flavours and frostings, and of course to strut my cupcake stuff. So when I got a phone call from a lovely lady wanting to show her appreciation for her kid's school admin staff, I was pretty stoked. The brown-frosted cakes you see below are Vanilla Bean Chocolate Chip with Dark Chocolate Buttercream, and the pink are Lemon Raspberry Swirl. My favourite part of these decorations are the post-it notes (I have a bit of a thing for post-it notes as it is, but these are made of fondant!)...They're definitely a keeper for office-themed orders as they're the perfect template for writing messages!

no appointments? time for cupcakes!

office supplies!

A kid in my high school chemistry class stapled his hand once. True story.

The mouse cord suffered a little pre-photo, but still cute!

Post-it love

Sometimes I wish I was the one making those announcements:
"Students are reminded to adhere to the school dress code. 'Snooki' is not a look
and wife beaters are both tacky and incredibly ugly. You don't have
muscles yet, you're 13. Put some clothes on."

ring ring!

Late slips? pssh. Back in the day  I used to phone the school
pretending to be my mum and excuse myself from class.
Worked every time!

A tasty show of appreciation!

well duh.

Yes, I know this is out of proportion.

Not gonna lie, these are a huge pain to make.
So cute though!

click!

Vanilla Bean Chocolate Chip

Lemon Raspberry Swirl