Cupcakepalooza and the Bing Wedding

The Newlyweds

 Last week the baby of our family, Brandyn, married the love of his life, the beautiful Miss Taylor. In celebration of this special day we had a big BBQ, and the bride requested some cupcakes for the event...roughly 100 of them.

 The request was for Chocolate Cake with Oreo Buttercream Frosting, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, and White Cake with a Strawberry Buttercream Frosting.  This time around I did not make the old family recipe for the carrot cake, it takes too long and I didn't have enough time to make it from scratch, I did however doctor a box cake and it tasted pretty amazing, I did use the frosting recipe that is on the link.

Additions to Duncan Hines Carrot Cake: roughly 1 cup of chopped nuts (I used pecans), 1 box of vanilla instant pudding, 1 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple (strained), used butter instead of oil, and milk instead of water.  It ended up being super moist and quite delicious.

It took roughly 3 hours to bake 125+ cupcakes at my aunt's house, thank goodness for double ovens, two kitchen aid mixers, and a talented chef of a boyfriend who volunteered to help.  We let them cool in the fridge over night and came back in the morning to decorate, where I enlisted the help of my guy and my cousin who had also gone to culinary school and was trained in the arts of decorating for the masses.

Real Men Frost Cupcakes

Devil's Food Cake with Oreo Buttercream

White Cake with Strawberry Buttercream 

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 

Cupcake Display (created by Taylor)

Chunky Monkey Cupcakes

Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream inspired this cupcake recipe (with the help of some Duncan Hines cake mix).  I made it a few years ago for a super bowl party and even though they were a hit, I haven't made them since.

The occasion for these tasty treats is my best friend's baby shower this weekend, and I've been salivating since I decided these would be the cupcake for the event.

Ingredients:

• 1 Box Duncan Hines Banana Cake Mix
• 1 Package Banana flavored Instant Pudding
• 1 Cup Milk
• 3 Large Eggs
• 1/3 Cup Butter
• 3/4 Cup Walnuts
• 3/4 
• Chocolate Chips (I prefer milk chocolate, but if you're planning on being true to the B&J's flavor, dark or semi sweet chips are more accurate)
• Vanilla or Butter-cream Frosting
• Banana Chips (for decoration)

Directions:

• Preheat oven 350 degrees for a metal pan, 325 for a dark or coated pan, grease sides with shortening or oil spray, or use baking cups for cupcakes
• blend cake mix, instant pudding, chocolate chips, walnuts (so that the nuts and chips are coated in the dry mix, they won't sink as much while baking if this is done first).
• add milk, eggs, and melted butter until all ingredients are well mixed, about 2 minutes.
• pour batter into pan/baking cups
• bake 15-18 minutes
• cool in pan on wire rack 15 minutes
• cool completely before frosting.
• melt some chocolate chips and then dip the banana chips in melted chocolate, set aside on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper until chocolate sets

Butter-Cream Frosting

Store-bought frosting is quick and easy if you don't have time to make your own, but if you do, you won't regret it, this frosting is delicious, I've used it on cakes, cupcakes, cut out cookies... you name it... if it is something to be frosted, this one will not disappoint. 

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup soft butter
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons milk
• Food coloring of choice

Directions:

• Blend butter and sugar
• Stir in vanilla and milk
• Beat until frosting is smooth and spreadable

Trade Secrets:

Brown or Black Icing?

For brown icing melt unsweetened chocolate and mix into white icing

For black icing, add black gel coloring to brown icing, you’ll use less black coloring and the frosting will taste like chocolate

Dark Red Icing?

Make the icing a day ahead of time, the dark pink will darken over time and turn red if you give it 24 hours, also can use maraschino cherry juice as a liquid, will turn the icing pink and you can use less red food coloring.

Things To Be Grateful For: February Edition

I want to do something different.  At least once a month I want to stop the whining, stop the complaining, chill on the anger (granted I vent a lot more on Facebook than here), and just focus on the good stuff.  Take some time to think about what makes me smile, what makes me happy, and what makes me glad to live the life I have. That way when I get stressed out or upset when things don't go my way I can look back through this and feel my heart warm up and everything will be fine again or at least closer to fine.

I want this to mean more than just a list of cliched but true things that I'm grateful for, friends, family, health, employment, etc... although I VERY MUCH AM grateful for them, I just want to be more specific, and I also want to appreciate the little things in life that can make the difference in a person's day.

So this is what is making me happy this year so far:

• Dance Parties! Two weeks ago I hung out with a friend from HS that I got back in touch with through Facebook, and I've been having a blast getting reacquanted.
• New Friends! My buddy from HS introduced me (re-introduced? apparently we knew each other in HS but don't remember each other) to a new friend and I feel like I've met my long lost twin. Its weird but I feel like I've known her forever already.
• My mom's 50th birthday. I love my mom more than anyone in the world. She's everything to me and I hope she has at least 50 more years with me.
• Chunky Monkey Cupcakes, I sort of invented the most amazing cupcakes ever, no big deal
• Clean Sheets: is anything more cozy and relaxing than the first night with clean sheets on the bed?
• Brews with my bros... seriously unfiltered drinking with boys who have your back no matter what because they're family.
• Finally reaching 500 Sephora points and scored some pretty new OPI nail polish
• Best Friends: Dinners in the village w/ my BFF and her hubby, wine/book club parties w/ Lacey & Joaquin... its what makes things more interesting.
• Meeting a good friend over the phone. Even though we won't meet in person until NEXT SPRING I feel like we'll be great friends for life.
• Fabulous hair and and the extra fabulous friend who does my hair and makes me laugh at myself and all my silliness
• Learning how to control or maybe loosen my grip a little and talk MYSELF down from anxiety attacks (at least the little ones)
• Sleeping all the way through the night. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, its blissful

So that's the short list. There is so many other things/people/events that are great and that make me furiously happy, but I want to leave some stuff for the rest of the year too.