Gooey Chocolate Cakes
It’s Tuesday and I’m back with Dorie. She and I had broken up for a few weeks- some misunderstanding with snails and flan, but we’ve got it all sorted out. A love like ours, afterall, couldn’t be denied for long. So we’re back and better than ever with a gooey chocolate love to show for it!
Cakes, Cupcakes, Recipes, Tuesdays With Dorie | Comments (33)Strawberry Ricotta Cupcakes
This morning I started the day thinking about Easter as a child. It was the holiday as exciting as Christmas. There were personalized Easter baskets filled with candies and chocolates on a bed of fake plastic grass. There was always some sort of delicious ham and potato meal And the Easter egg hunt. Oh… the hunt! The hunt is the sole reason I could sit through church is my Easter dress, itchy tights and Sunday shoes. It was my little sister and I tearing through the house and backyard trying to find as many plastic eggs as we could. It was brutal, and there was no mercy. Flower beds were trampled, the house cat was scared from its house, tears were shed… it was the hunt, and it was serious. The coveted Easter eggs to find of the hunt were the silent one. Silent? Yes! Without the rattle of little chocolate candies, we knew those particular eggs were filled with cash. Oh how my sister and I would fight for those eggs. Thinking about it now, I have to shake my head at what greedy little children we must have been. Continue reading »
Cupcakes, Holiday, Recipes | Comments (17)Baker’s Day Off
I took a day away from the kitchen yesterday, yet still found myself with a cupcake in hand. It figures-I’m never too far away from a sweet treat, whether it’s baked by me or one of my favorite Los Angeles bakeries.
This mini chocolate raspberry cupcake is from Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. It’s a chocolate cupcake with raspberry jam filling and a dark chocolate ganache frosting. There seemed to be more jam than cake in this cupcake, but the frosting was thick, rich and incredibly delicious.
Vanilla Bake Shop has the most darling array of mini cupcakes. This is called Mom’s Birthday Cake. It’s delicious, with golden cake and buttery chocolate frosting. All in flavors remind me of something that would come out of my Dad’s oven- banana cake, red velvet cake, spiced carrot cake. All the options are apporachable, and elevated with a clean and hip design. Good things are happening at Vanilla, and at $5 for 3 mini cupcakes, these treats feel like a pretty sweet deal.
Besides cupcakes, I found the most delicious (oh how I wish they were edible) bath confections.
Cupcakes, Thoughts | Comments (12)Red Velvet Whopper- the cupcake
How do I describe the taste of Red Velvet cake? Well, it’s not vanilla cake, but it’s certainly not all chocolate. Red Velvet cake, for lack of a more creative vocabulary, tastes like sweet red cake. Without rich and decadent frosting, this cake is light, moist, quite tasty and yes, red. My favorite Red Velvet cake is relentlessly smothered in brown sugar cream cheese frosting. The recipe for both just a jump away.
Cakes, Cupcakes, Recipes | Comments (24)Hello, Lover.
Coffee Cupcakes with Butter Whipped Baileys Chocolate Ganache
This month’s Cupcake Hero theme, inspired by love, cupid, the colors pink and red, and all things heart shaped and chocolate covered was: liqour. Hosted by the endearing and endlessly charming Quirky Cupcake and Tempered Woman, who want to remind us that some holidays (Valentine’s Day is a holiday, right?) are better with a strong drink, or a cupcake that simulates a strong drink.
I use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to get out my construction paper and Elmer’s Glue and make cards asking various loved ones if they’d be my Valentine. Why have just one Valentine? I also like to give (by give, I mean, eat) loads of chocolate covered heart shaped candies. But, let’s be honest, I don’t buy those until February 15th. I think we both know why- 50% off.
This year I’m going to add drunken cupcakes to my V-day extravaganza. Coffee Cupcakes with Butter Whipped Bailey’s and Chocolate Ganache- sweet enough for lovers, and bitter enough for ex lovers.
Red is the new Vanilla
These little beauties are the answer to any of life’s little hiccups. Really. Say, for example, you fall asleep with a candle burning in the bedroom of the apartment you share with four other people. Say, you wake up with the blankets on top of you up in flames… serious flames. Say, in fear and shock and sleep, you flee your room and run to your roommate’s room. You knock furiously. You knock like your bedroom is on fire, because it is. You knock, wondering why you’re knocking when your bedroom is on fire. Say, your roommate answers the door is just her underwear, hears your plight through sleepy ears, and follows you in disbelief to your bedroom, which is as you left it, on fire. Say, your brave roommate tries to help you put out the flames with the smother technique, using all of your clothes and pillows as fire extinguishers. It works, no thanks to you. You were fanning the flames, not smothering them. Say you and your roommate open your bedroom window and shove the charred remains of your blankets, clothes and pillows out, and watch them drop the three floors to the ground. How would you thank your brave, kind, talented roommate? How would you ensure your continued friendship help in future life threatening events? Red Velvet Cupcakes. They work. I have the friend and the blackened ceiling to prove it.
Cupcakes, Recipes | Comments (5)Fact: the world is better with bananas
Say you’re a 17 year old girl, and it’s your birthday. If you can’t have a new car, a cute new boyfriend, or a hassle free day from your parents, what would be next on your list? Probably, Banana Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes. No? You’d want one of those super skinny Macbook Airs? Well let’s say, for the sake of… me, that you’d want Banana Cupcakes. Let’s just pretend. These little gems are far better than anything Steve Jobs could design. Last time I checked, Steve Jobs didn’t make anything that tasted like both banana and chocolate. So… I rest my case.
Cupcakes, Recipes | Comments (5)
