Robin Egg Nests

Coconut Cupcakes / Cream Cheese White Chocolate Frosting / Marshmallow Filling / Gingham Cupcake Liners

100% chance of Sunday afternoon sprinkles

One thing I especially love about traveling abroad is grocery shopping. I found these sprinkles at the Hiper Bompreço (= Super Good Price) while in Brazil. The bright colors remind me of Salvador streets. They are the happiest sprinkles I've ever seen.

Something you love + mini = pure joy

Coming home to this gorgeous package from Olive and Cocoa waiting on my door step was certainly a major highlight of my birthday weekend. The women in my family have scored some major brownie cupcake points with this one. Thank you for enabling my cake stand fetish and bringing my collection to a whole new (mini) level. xoxo.

Sweet Treats

Seems I've taken a little vacation from baking this past while partly because I hold a permanent grudge against my 30 year old oven and partly because I've felt uninspired overall, especially in the kitchen. Unexplainable really. Let's call it a phase and try to move on shall we?A good friend from a former job asked me to make desserts for her son's wedding luncheon this past week. It was just what I needed to reignite a smoldering passion threatening to drown itself in a sea of sprinkles. Fortunately my sister was willing to stable my anxiety and able to help with the job. I pretty much lack the ability to pull this stuff together without her. Something about not wanting to ruin any one's wedding day or anything. She doesn't sweat the small stuff like I do which is why we make a good team. The spread included Chocolate Cake Lollipops, Gingerbread Key Lime Tarts, and Mini Coconut Cupcakes.

...was good to get my fingers sticky again.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse Cupcakes

My bestie Lacy asked me to make cupcakes for her darling little Izzy's 2-year old birthday party. I was really excited to do Mickey and Minnie Mouse cupcakes until I started researching other cupcakes online. I couldn't find ANYTHING that I remotely liked therefore I had to get really creative to achieve my own expectations to sophisticate Mickey and Minnie the way I envisioned. My sis Brook and I found some do-it-yourself silicone plastique online and with a donated Mickey Mouse key chain {thanks Marci!}, and some helpful volunteers {thanks Todd & Tom!}, we created our own custom chocolate molds. Voilà!The end result was awesome! I pulled in pretty much my entire family {troopers!} to help collaborate on these cupcakes, and because there was chocolate cake involved, they came salivating. It was an all-inclusive Richman family cupcake fest at my mom's house. Plus, we almost succeeded at obliterating her kitchen in the process. One of these times we will succeed and then she'll get a brand new kitchen. We're always looking out for you mom.I won't mention the two failed batches of meringue buttercream frosting. Or the extra trips to the store for more ingredients. Or the Cafe Rio pork salad binge in the middle of it all. {sigh} That's all part of the fun, right? Sort of. Failure is what makes us better at our craft. Double failure is a solid below the belt sucker punch to morale at which point you should give up completely and go back to what you know: buttercream sans egg whites. Egg whites can be as temperamental and unpredictable as your hot flashing mother-in-law, meaning that if the temperature is not exactly perfect all hell will break loose in a matter of seconds and people will wish they were never born. Rather, let's discuss the rich chocolaty cake, the cute red fondant bows for Minnie, the creamy vanilla frosting, and the irresistible sprinkles to top them off. My intent was to have Mickey and Minnie recognizable for Izzy so that she would love them and want to eat all 2 dozen at once, while at the same time making them interesting and sophisticated enough for adults to want one too. Of course, the ultimate goal is to make them taste better than any cupcake you've ever had before. I try to use only the best ingredients and I think it makes a big difference.
I loved how they turned out, especially the Minnie's. They are simple and sophisticated (for a Disney character) and they taste great (except the fondant). Although I envy anyone who can do this for a living and keep their sanity. I bow to you, cupcake goddesses. Then again, I know I'm my own worst critique and admittedly I set the bar WAY too high. Still, I promised BD I wouldn't quit my day job.

Jungle Animal Cupcakes

My friend Jessica asked me to make animal cupcakes for her 3 year old daughter's birthday party. I'm glad I was up for the challenge because I really love how they turned out.

Baking is cathartic. I love measuring out the ingredients, flour, cocoa, sugar, and skimming off the top to be perfectly even. I love things to be perfect. So shoot me. The whole process is very exact, precise. It makes me happy and whole. Pouring the vanilla is my very favorite part. Sometimes I let the vanilla spill out over the teaspoon and pretend I didn't notice. I'm rebellious like that. Oh, and I love pouring the batter into the cups, that's also my favorite part.Baking smells really good too. Question: Is there anything that smells better than chocolate cake right out of the oven? I can't think of anything. Not one. Now that I think about it, eating chocolate cake is my favorite part. Yep, that's definitely my favorite. My sis agreed to come help me take on the Jungle Animal cupcake endeavor. I LOVE being in the kitchen with my sisters, it's one of those joys in life that I hope never grows old, even when we do. Three dozen custom cupcakes is a big job, and I could not have done it without her! As you can see, we take this baking stuff really seriously.Decorating is really fun too. The icing on the cake is the paint on the canvas and allows for any and all creativity to be explored. For example, trying to get that perfect "jungle-y" yellow. I'm happy to say, we got it right.

I hear a stampede coming...
[drum roll please]

What is your favorite one? My favorite are the elephants. And the monkeys. No, the zebras. Well, actually the loins. Yeah, definitely the loins-zebras-monkeys-elephants are my favorites.

Inspiration from fish outa water and sara bakes cakes.

A little piece of adorable

am la-uving this too cute for cake handblown cupcake stand by Amanda Goss. little pieces of adorable like this really make my happy place flutter. oh! the fun you could have with a handful of these babies on display...
but for $60 a pop...I think I'll have to stick with Ziploc baggies for now. someday!

happy friday!

Cupcake Indulgence

We are having a little company BBQ tonight so I wanted to make a delicious treat. I had the idea to make homemade Hostess Cupcakes. I tried a new chocolate glaze recipe that used Karo syrup. Needless to say, I didn't like it so I reverted back to my mom's fail-safe classic chocolate icing. The end product turned out very cute though.

I still haven't figured out how to make cupcakes without using every dish and utensil in the whole kitchen! Brad was my guiney pig and I let him taste the one I split open. He ate it so fast, I didn't even see him chew...I guess that's a good sign.

Feed My Lambs

The theme for our Primary Leadership Training tonight was based on our yearly theme "I'll Follow Him in Faith" and a talk given by Cheryl Lant called "Feed My Lambs." For the refreshment I made these darling sheep cupcakes. I stole the idea from Martha (of course). I thought my "flocks" turned out great!