Eggnog Cupcakes

For me, one of the true marks of the holiday season is eggnog. So naturally when I needed to make cupcake for my office holiday potluck, eggnog cupcakes came to mind. For this particular cupcake adventure, I decided that I wanted to modify a cake mix instead of trying everything from scratch. This way I could save a little time, and cash.

Thanks to some extensive Google research, I found an eggnog cake recipe that uses a mix.

Here is the recipe that I followed, modified slightly to be made as cupcakes.


Ingredients:

* 4 ounces butter, softened
* 1 cup eggnog
* 1/4 cup rum
* 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 3 large eggs
* 1 package vanilla cake mix

Preparation:
Heat oven to 325°.

Beat butter until light; beat in eggs and eggnog and rum. Add vanilla, nutmeg, and cake mix; beat slowly to combine, then beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Spoon into cupcake liners. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

The batter tasted to delicious!!

The frosting was kind of my own invention. I just wanted to make a simple cinnamon buttercream frosting. I used two sticks of butter, about 3 cups confectioner's sugar, 3 tablespoons of eggnog, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. I tend to add things to my frosting depending on how it tastes. For this particular one, I think I ended up adding a little more vanilla which then required me to add some more confectioner's sugar so it wouldn't get too runny.

So of course I was making these cupcakes at the last possible second because I was trying to get out the door and make it on time for work. Unfortunately, I was a bad little blogger so I didn't take any pictures.

Here is an example of how I wanted them to look:
source: living artfully

In all honestly, my cupcakes were not decorated with love. My last frosting bag busted, so I had to frost them old school with a spatula. I did, however, throw some red and green christmas sprinkles on there to help add some color.

Enjoy!

First Crafty Wedding Purchase

On Friday night while my husband-to-be was going to town on his new XBOX 360, I was struck with the random urge to research ideas for my wedding table numbers. Throughout this entire wedding planning process, Google Images, has truly been my best friend.

I found so many great and creative ideas, but there seems to be a lot of hype about the Tolsby Frame from IKEA (pictured below).

Here are some examples of it in action:

source: ruffled
(p.s. - if you are in love with this format, you can download the template from ruffled!)

I really like the idea of the menu on the back as opposed to printing one out for each place setting. I hate wasting paper!

source: GatorBrideDesigns

In her etsy listing, GatorBrideDesigns also shows examples of using this frame at your guestbook table and for listing info about the signature drink. Love that idea!

So because I can't wait for ANYTHING, I spent my Saturday afternoon taking a little trip to my "local" IKEA in Stoughton, MA. The car ride isn't that far, but it was filled with a lot of "I think we should've turned back there..."

Into my blue IKEA shopper tote went twenty Tolsby frames. I can't wait to get started!

A week in review...

Oh last week was so hectic! Even though I had quite a lot going on, there is always time to be crafty...

Last Monday, my mother and I were in the car and we happened to pass by a wicker armoire that someone was throwing out. It was sitting on the curb all lonely and abandoned, so we rescued it. It really was the moral thing to do. Eight, yes I said eight, cans of white spray paint later and voila! I ditched my old broken bureau and I now was a fancy armoire.

Please don't mind the mess around it. The photo was taken before I finished cleaning and rearranging my room. Which by the way, made me realize that I'm a HOARDER!

Here's another inside shot. I haven't hung up any clothes yet, but there's potential.

Unfortunately I forgot to take some before pictures, but originally the paint was all chipped and it was a very dingy, yellowed color.

The next crafty thing of the week was a gift. My wonderful boyfriend bought me What's New Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.


It's an amazing book with so many really cute ideas. On Friday I decided to make one of the designs that were classified as "EZ," meaning they were not only relatively simple, but they also only needed a few ingredients. The cupcakes that I made used M&M's to look like bake sale pies. My only regret is that I forgot to buy silver foil cupcake liners, as recommended by the book.

The book recommends cutting the corner off of a ziplock bag and using that to pipe the "crust" around the pie. I couldn't quite get the hand of it, so I cheated and used a star tip and a pastry bag. However I did use the ziplock bag method for the lines across the pie.

Instead of buying a bag of M&M's in a single color, which were really pricey, I went with two bags of the regular kind. I did get to spend some fun time separating the candy by color into bags.

Enjoy my cherry, blueberry, and lemon pies!

happy easter!

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to make easter cupcakes. I found my inspiration in one of my favorite crafty baking books, Hello Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.



I settled upon the design called "Rabbit Holes." The directions seemed pretty clear and I already had a lot of the candy needed, which was a major plus! One odd thing was that the directions called for white circus peanuts, which apparently do not exist anywhere, only at some obscure online retailer. I bought orange circus peanuts instead and dipped them in white chocolate (which I thinned out a little bit with shortening after my chick pop experience).

Here are the fruits of my labor:


For the toes, the book called for chocolate covered sunflower seeds. I used mini chocolate chips instead.

Here is a closeup of the "grassy" cupcakes. I originally piped the frosting to look like grass, but it was too soft and got all droopy. (I bought "whipped" frosting by mistake). Luckily, I had some shredded coconut that saved the day and looked like grass.


The whole process of baking, decorating, and clean up took about three hours. And by cleanup, I mean putting almost everything in the dishwasher!!!



Happy Easter!

The greatest invention!

This morning while I was catching up on my blog reading instead of spring cleaning, I found the greatest DIY project of all time.

source: the long thread
The directions are clear, concise, and it's a great way to destash!


Happy April Fool's Day!

Easter Cake Pops

As I was searching for something fun to make for Easter, I decided to search on one of my favorite blogs, bakerella. I stumbled across her signature "cake pops" and decided to have a go at it.

On her site, there are several to make that are kind of springy and Easter-y, so I decided on the chicks. Bakerella's beautiful chicks can be viewed here.

So late night in the "flood conditions" that are plaguing New England, I make the long drive to A.C. Moore for some melting chocolates, lollipop sticks, and decorations. Bakerella recommended candy coated chips (nose), multi-colored diamonds (wings) and pastel wild flowers (feet). I was able to find the candy coated chips and I ended up purchased a Wilton sprinkle assortment for the other features on the chick.

Late last night I baked a Duncan Hines Chocolate cake, and after it cooled I broke it up and mixed in a can of chocolate frosting. My mother helped me roll the mixture into 1-inch balls, and this was such a messy job. Our hands were covered in cake and frosting and it was not an enjoyable experience.

This morning I melted the yellow chocolate and started to dip the cake balls. This process did not go as smoothly as I thought it would. It was incredibly difficult to get the chocolate to evenly coat the cake ball. I think I need to read some more directions and watch some more youtube videos for tips.


As you can see, we suffered some casualties...



Here's a group shot of the surviving chicks


Here are some pretty pictures using Die Cuts With a View "Sweet Stack" as a backdrop.

Spread the word!

During the month of April, April Showers Blog Design is going to be giving away tons of stuff, I'm talking giveaway pandemonium!

Check it out and cross your fingers. You just might snag something cool! I would love, love, love to win a blog design, because her stuff is awesome.