Chocolate Cupcakes on a lazy Sunday evening!

A few weeks back, on a rare occasion, all of the grown children of my household were home (barring 1 girlfriend - T-bear, you were missed terribly!!). This sort of thing never happens as we're all in our 20s and usually all over the place. My brother is typically at school somewhere in the US, my step-sister in past years has been at school in Kingston, and I'm just all over the place. Needless to say this was a big deal!

While we were prepping dinner and catching up on what was going on with everyone, my step-sister mentioned that she had a craving for a simple chocolate cake with plain chocolate frosting. Apparently this is hard to come by which I find to be insanity! How can no one make just simple chocolate cake with chocolate frosting any more? Have we really become so entertained by all of the crazy cake flavours out there that we've forgotten that sometimes the simplest things are the best? Before I go off on a huge tangent about simplicity in the kitchen, I digress!

So to help the poor girl out in her quest for chocolate cake, I decided to whip up a batch of Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes. I was fascinated by the claim of these actually only using one bowl and truth be told, it worked... Well... one bowl and one sifter but still! This batter takes all of 5 minutes to mix and produces results comparable to cake mix without all the added grossness that goes into mixes. The ingredients were all found in my kitchen and I think it's safe to say that they would be found in most other kitchens too. I cannot stress this enough... GO MAKE THESE CUPCAKES! You will not regret it one single bit! 

These little beauties have the most gorgeous shiny tops ever. They are good enough to eat sans frosting even!

The cupcake liners don't hurt either! You can never go wrong with polka dots!

Once we had the cupcakes made, it was time to frost these babies up with a simple chocolate frosting. My frosting was made with butter, icing sugar, a few tablespoons of cocoa powder, some vanilla bean paste (or you could use vanilla extract) and a touch of milk. I know that usually I am religious at piping my frosting but sometimes you have to live a little and just do what feels right. These were not cupcakes for an order, they were cupcakes for a family dinner in the backyard while playing (slightly intoxicated) ring toss on a 6 foot tall Eiffel tower.

All I can say is YUMMMMMM! Now, I think the best part about these is that they were enjoyed by all. Exhibit 1 is a montage of my brother, Brandon, devouring his cupcake!!! I can't help but laughing at his facial expressions! 

We had some strawberry buttercream frosting left from this post and we managed to make little cupcake sandwiches that were devoured as well! Even our cat, Mo, had some!

So next time your family is over and someone is craving some simple chocolatey deliciousness, promise, promise, promise me that you will give these a try! Pinky promise!!!! 

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful weekend now that the rain has finally stopped! 

Happy weekend-ing and happy baking! 

t
xoxo

A Very Hungry Caterpillar & A Very Happy Birthday Boy

I feel like it's been forever since I've posted something for a cake order that I've had! My little brother's birthday was in December (poor bug was born right before Christmas) and we postponed his birthday party until recently just so that the Christmas hullabaloo would be over and done with.

When chatting with a 6 year old about what they'd like their birthday cake to look like, your conversation can truly go in soooo many directions. Jordan loves Pokemon, Iron Man, Spiderman and all sorts of other things that I'm a little clueless on when it comes to cakes. However, I remembered coming across a post from the My Cake School Blog about making a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake out of cupcakes. It looked pretty straightforward and Jordan and I used to LOVE reading the book together. So truly this was a no brainer that this was the cake for him!

Start by arranging your cupcakes (including a larger one for the head) and frost random blobs across the gaps of the cupackes

Smooth the icing as best as possible and let it crust for 10 minutes before smoothing it with waxed paper.

Go a little crazy with the designs you include on each section and don't forget to add the chocolate chip feet!

Et Voila! Very Hungry Caterpillar Cupcake-Cake

The boy child truly enjoyed his cake! I mean look how excited he was with his buddies!!!

Foodie Find - Double Chocolate Mousse Torte

Following my making of the pretzel bites from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, I did some more browsing around her blog. While I was doing this, I stumbled upon Mel's recipe for a double chocolate mousse torte!

My goodness this looks amazing!!! I whipped up a batch of chocolate mousse not too long ago and let me tell you, I will use that recipe to make this scrumptious cake sometime soon!

Photo Credit: Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Thank you Mel for posting such deliciousness! I can't wait to make this and report back on how it turns out!

Happy Friday!

t

Delicious Food Show 2011

Macarons - I'm coming for youuuuuuuu!

A few weeks back I had the privilege of attending the Delicious Food Show in Toronto put on by the Food Network with my beloved friend Jen. I've been attending these shows more often not only because they feature ample amounts of deliciousness but also because it combines two of my loves: food and event planning (which I went to school for).

The show's goal was to showcase the "Best in Cooking, Food & Kitchens" and I truly felt that it delivered on that part. I quickly learned after having gone through the first aisle that us food bloggers were VERY easy to spot. We were the ones with ridiculous cameras around our necks, trying to balance multiple pamphlets while taking photos of everything that caught our eyes and still trying to play off that we weren't going to rush home and recount all of our thoughts to our audience. I had about 6 or 7 booths ask if I was a food blogger and at first I was shy about it but by the end, I was darn proud of it. I love blogging and it's become such a phenomenon that I can't deny it's a huge part of who I am.

Caramel Apple Pie & Skor Cupcakes from Cupcake Diner

I found it very interesting that the show had a few food trucks actually inside the show. Toronto still hasn't quite caught on to the food truck revolution the way other major cities have (especially in the US) but it's nice to see that they're slowly making their way north of the border. I sampled a cupcake from the Cupcake Diner (Skor, I believe) as well as a delicious soft serve ice cream cone that tasted like creamsicles (and had a very dreamy driver to boot! HA! Double delicious!). There were so many neat things to see that it was very hard to avoid going into sensory overload but I had a great time.

However, while we were there, we stopped at a booth that was fantastic on so many levels: Bobbette & Belle. Allyson & Sarah, who own the business, are the most lovely people ever! Not only do they have amazing looking artisan pastries and confections but after chatting with them for a few minutes, you really can't help but want to be best friends with them and take them home with you! Naturally, I had been holding out on buying macarons at the show but I caved with Bobbette & Belle's and I wasn't disappointed. I bought some pistachio ones (surprised are you?) as well as milk chocolate caramel ones and they were superb! Check out some of their creations:

 Here are some other photos from the show as well:

If this show happens again (which I'm sure it will), I highly recommend that you grab some comfy walking shoes and go! It was well worth it!

Happy Sunday!

t

Fondant Cutout Cupcakes

Here are some cupcakes that were made this past week for birthdays at work! We had two lovely ladies who were celebrating their special days and I really wanted to make something nice for them.