Cupcakes — Page 3

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes

September 10, 2014 by Jenn

I love coffee. Strike that- I love good coffee. There is not much worse than a bad cup of coffee. Well, maybe a bad piece of cake, or a bad cupcake- you know what I mean.

I love Starbucks coffee- usually. I can’t stomach the super strong menu options on their own, but when they’re mixed in with all sorts of flavours to make a cup of deliciousness, I’m in love. Starbucks has been an adult acquired taste of mine, but “so much is wasted on the youth”, it’s nice to have something to love as an adult!

The Pumpkin Spice Latte is something that Starbucks chose to release early this year, while it’s still summer, and as much as I tried to resist the pumpkin call until it was truly fall, I couldn’t do it! I’ve had far too many of them already this year.

Since I love PSL so much, I knew I had to make it into cupcake form! I know that not everyone likes coffee flavouring, so with this recipe, you can easily leave the espresso powder out, or if desired, you can add more to make the flavour stronger. The magic is in the pumpkin spice! Combining nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon gives the pumpkin it’s wonderfully fall-like flavouring. They are delicious!

Start out the most beautiful season properly, and get prepared with pumpkin and spices, so when we actually have the equinox, you’ll be ready to bake up a batch of fresh pumpkin spice latte cupcakes!

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Filed Under: Cupcakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: caramel, coffee, fall, fall cupcakes, latte, latte cupcakes, PSL, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin spice, pumpkin spice cupcakes, pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin spice latte cupcakes, starbucks, starbucks cupcakes, Starbucks pumpkin spice latte

Hamburger Cupcakes and French Fries

August 23, 2014 by Jenn

It has been two years since I first introduced Paityn to YouTube, and YouTube to Paityn.

We started off filming with her as a birthday gift from her parents, Birthday Cake Surprise, last year we filmed cute Rainbow Ice Cream Cone Cake Pops, and Macarons, and now this year I had her show me how to make one of her ideas. Paityn attends the same school that I teach at, and one day she had made these adorable hamburger cupcakes for her brother’s birthday, and as soon as she brought me one, I knew we had to film it for a video.

In the past two years, Paityn has grown and matured a tremendous amount. She’s also grown physically and no longer needs a stool hahahaha! She is one of the most talented, spunky kids I know- but she started out as a shy, quiet girl who I had to pull teeth to get to talk when we started filming. Now, I couldn’t get her to be quiet, and she took over my kitchen like she owned the place! I love this kid.

While Paityn was making these cupcakes, she used box mixes for the cupcakes and brownies. She suggests that using golden yellow cake mix is preferable over a white cake, as it looks more realistic and bun like. For the brownies, baking the mix worked best in a 9″x13″ pan in order for the brownies to be thinner than they would be if they were baked as according to the box directions.

For the french fries, I knew I had to have an idea to bring to show Paityn, so I made the french fries using pound cake and a crinkle cutter. Baking them under the broiler gives them the true fry look.

The recipe is super simple, and super fun to get creative with!

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Filed Under: Cupcakes Tagged With: cake, cupcakes, fast food, fast food cupcakes, french fries, french fry cupcakes, hamburger, hamburger cupcakes

Poutine Cupcakes (French Fries in Gravy)

June 30, 2014 by Jenn

Poutine is a favorite Canadian dish that originated in Quebec, a province in Canada. It’s made with French fries, smothered in gravy and topped with large chunks of cheese curds. Being that Canada is upon us tomorrow, I thought I would make the cupcake version of it to share with all of our viewers!

The cupcake version consists of vanilla cake, and vanilla buttercream but you can choose any flavour of either for you version. In Canada we also have something called Hickory Sticks- basically they are thin slices of potato chip that look like mini fries- you can make do with slicing your own potato chips.

For the gravy that covers the fries, you can use butterscotch, or caramel, depending on what colour you want your gravy to be. As the cheese curds are usually large chunks of white cheese, I chose to use white chocolate chips, but you can use anything that is similar in colour, or shape to cheese curds.

For the video, we wanted to make sure that our viewers would be able to truly appreciate the look of poutine, so we “had” to go and get the best poutine there is in our town. We have one food truck in Cranbrook. One. It happens to be the best thing on the earth, thank goodness, and in addition to poutine, it also has fabulous burgers, and smokies. We headed down to Smokey Bro’s BBQ & Grill prior to filming, and “had” to grab two poutines!! Life is tough.

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Filed Under: Cupcakes Tagged With: canada cupcake, canada day, canada day cupcakes, cupcake, french fries, fries and gravy, fries in gravy, poutine, poutine cupcakes, savory cupcake, sweet and savory

The Fault In Our Stars Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

June 20, 2014 by Jenn

I loved this book despite the fact I used up a box of tissues while reading it! If you haven’t heard of The Fault In Our Stars, you must get to the library/bookstore/iBooks now! It is a super easy read, and despite the heavy underlying storyline, it remains somewhat light and fun to read.

I heard rave reviews about the book on Amazon, but the aspect that made me want to read it the most was that it was written by a fellow YouTuber!! John Green and his brother run the channel VlogBrothers, where they are “raising nerdy to the power of awesome.” Obviously with the success of TFiOS (and his other novels) he is a New York Times Bestseller and an award winning author.

I received a TON of requests for TFiOS cake on my YouTube channel, and knowing that I couldn’t let my YT subscribers down, I had to come up with a way to make the story into a cake. At first I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make a book cake, but it just wasn’t interesting enough. I still plan to make a book cake tutorial, but it’s on the back burner.

Being that I was constructing a cake about a serious topic (cancer), I wanted to keep it light and hopeful– no sense of pulling the tissue box out when there is cake around! I’ve been wanting to make a pull apart cupcake cake for a while, and with the black and white clouds on the cover of the book, making the pull apart cake was the perfect match!

Filming the video was slightly awkward as I couldn’t pipe the words upside down, so you’re probably going to have to turn your computer around to see me working on the piping portion of the cake. When we build our new studio, I will have to make sure we have somewhere to place the camera over my shoulder! Sorry ’bout that!

I haven’t been to see the movie yet, and I’m not sure if I will. I am always disappointed when I go to see movies that have been made from books!!! Is that bad? Or do you feel the same way? Let me know I’m not alone!!! If you haven’t read the book yet, you can get it HERE

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Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: blue cupcakes, cupcake, cupcake cake, John Green, pull apart, pull apart cupcake, pull apart cupcake cake, TFiOS, The Fault In Our Stars

Cotton Candy Cupcakes

May 31, 2014 by Jenn

I’m not a huge lover of the taste of cotton candy, but I love the smell, the look and idea of it. If I could find a way to cover the spun sugar in chocolate, well then I’d be in love!

What I do like are the soft pastel colours that end up in a fluffy mound on the end of the cone. It always reminds me of the way I think clouds would look and feel if you could see them up close. I had always wondered how cotton candy was made, and if you have the same wonder, make sure you check out my previous post (and video) on exactly how you can do it at home.

For the cotton candy flavouring of these cupcakes, I used the cotton candy that I made with my cotton candy machine, and for extra flavouring, I used LorAnn Gourmet flavouring, which I bought through Golda’s Kitchen. If you want a strong cotton candy taste, you will want to use a larger amount than what my recipe requires. I was being cautious with the amount that I put in, but feel free to add however much you want to.

If you are going to be making these cupcakes and the mini cotton candy toppers, make sure that you make the mini cones immediately prior to serving your cupcakes. The cotton candy does not stay “flossed” for long.

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Filed Under: Cupcakes Tagged With: birthday party cupcakes, blue, cotton candy, cotton candy cupcakes, cupcakes, fair food, how to make cotton candy cupcakes, make cotton candy cupcakes, pink, purple

How to Make Graduation Cupcakes

May 23, 2014 by Jenn

I searched high and low for my grad cap for this video, and I have NO idea where it is. Hopefully, it’s packed away-far, far away-with the other mementos from 1990’s, never to be found again. It’s probably at my parents, and if its there, it’s safe- it will never see the light of day again. Too bad for you guys that you won’t get to see me in all my grad cap glory . . . mwahahahahaha. Really, I just wanted to chuck it in the air again.

I’m a bit mixed on my feelings of graduation. While I feel it can be a great accomplishment, whether it be from high school, university, college or a trade school, I also feel that it is a major money grab! Not only do you usually need to pay for all post secondary courses, there are cap and gown rentals, application for graduation fee (that one made me the most annoyed . . . what did they think I had been going there for 5 years for?), tickets for the ceremony, fees for diplomas . . . and, and, and . . . feel free to add more in the comments!

The positive side of graduation is that an achievement has been accomplished, and a new start begun! **I hate when old people start sentences with “I remember when . . .” and then continue on to tell a really long, boring story, but since I’m not old, I can do that.** I remember when I graduated high school and thought it was just the greatest thing. It was never in doubt that I was going to graduate, so I wasn’t one to run around yelling “I made it!!” because graduating high school was just something that was expected would happen. You worked hard, did your homework, and got your diploma. University on the other hand was quite different. There seemed to be way more . . . distractions . . . there. At that ceremony I may have spent some time yelling “I made it!“, but I can’t remember. I was distracted.

If you are graduating this year, congratulations and enjoy it. It goes by too quickly. Jeesh. ENOUGH with the old people sayings Jenn!

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Filed Under: Cupcakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cupcakes, grad, grad cake, graduation, Graduation cake, graduation cupcakes, high school cupcakes, high school graduation cupcakes, university, university cupcakes

How to Make Royal Icing Daisy Cupcakes (Spring Cupcakes)

April 11, 2014 by Jenn

I don’t know about the weather where you are, but it has finally (fingers crossed) become SPRING here in Western Canada. To celebrate, Amber and I from SweetAmbs Cookies decided that we would make something “daisy” related on our YouTube channels.

For my tutorial, I decided to go with decorating cupcakes with royal icing daisies of different sizes. I thought that covering one of the cupcakes in mini daisies and having a second cupcake with one large daisy on it would be a spring-like way to put this design together.

Working with royal icing is not something that is too difficult, but it does take some getting used to if you’re just beginning. The most challenging part is learning about getting the consistency of the icing correct so that you don’t end up with flowers or other decorations that are weeping or falling apart. If you need help with making royal icing, or need a recipe, check mine out here. With that said, making these daisies is easier than more complicated flowers (roses etc) because you don’t have to worry too much about consistency. If you go with a stiffer icing, the petals will stand apart better, and if you go with a thinner icing, the petals may meet and blend together, either of which will work for daisies in my opinion.

Definitely take note that these, and any royal icing decorations, will need to have ample drying time. These ones, being that they are relatively thin, will take around 24-48 hours.

Other than learning to work with royal icing, these cupcakes are relatively simple to make, and result in a very pretty finished product. I think they would make a beautiful display if you were thinking of having a daisy wedding theme as well. Imagine all of these cupcakes spread out over a large cupcake stand . . . it would look like a beautiful garden of daisies!

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Filed Under: Cupcakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: daisy flowers, daisy wedding, how to make royal icing flowers, royal icing, royal icing daisy, royal icing decorations, royal icing flowers, royal icing for cupcakes, SweetAmbs, SweetAmbsCookies, wedding, wedding cake, wedding cupcakes

How to Make Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes

April 9, 2014 by Jenn

Every Easter, I used to eagerly anticipate the arrival of Cadbury Creme Eggs on the shelves, but since they have become a year round feature in the chocolate aisle, the excitement has lessened slightly. Is this true where you are from? In the last couple of years, I have started to notice that there have creme eggs for every season! I guess when you have a good thing going, you want to capitalize on it!

Despite their availability year round, I will not eat them at any time other than Easter. RESIST THE CREME EGG! Now, that is willpower unheard of by me!! This year though, I found myself wanting a new way to enjoy the eggs! I think I had egg boredom.

So I thought, “why not put them in a cupcake for a new spin?! ” I knew the cupcake HAD to have a creme egg inside, flavoured buttercream, and another creme egg on top. And of course the cupcake flavour had to be chocolate. If you’re able to find Cadbury cocoa powder, you’re even better off for a “true” flavour match. I didn’t have THAT much luck, but I can’t complain, since like I said before, I can get creme eggs all year round!

If you have never had a Cadbury Creme Egg, I think you are totally missing out! But, these are one of those things that people feel strongly about: they either love them, or hate them! I will admit that they are very sweet, and usually make me cough (but I’m blaming the lingering effects of my chest infection for that this year). The outer shell is chocolate, and in the inside, there is a creamy smooth yellow and white filling.

The only “difficulty” with this recipe is figuring out what time to put the eggs into the baking cupcakes. I experimented with quite a few batches, before settling on placing a frozen egg into the cupcakes 15 minutes into the baking process. I tried putting the frozen ones in immediately, at the 10 minute mark, and found that those 2 times were too long for the egg and the creme filling would leak out of the melted chocolate. But, like I say in the tutorial, it will still taste good if it is melted.

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Filed Under: Cupcakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cadbury, cadbury chocolate, Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes, cadbury creme eggs, cadbury cupcakes, cream eggs, creme egg cupcakes, creme eggs

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes

Hamburger Cupcakes and French Fries

Poutine Cupcakes (French Fries in Gravy)

The Fault In Our Stars Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

Cotton Candy Cupcakes

How to Make Graduation Cupcakes

How to Make Royal Icing Daisy Cupcakes (Spring Cupcakes)

How to Make Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes

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