ICE: April - They Give You Wings

I wasn't going to compete in this months ICE challenge (which is soda-pop) for a number of reasons, one being that I just couldn't come up with a recipe idea that included soda (or Pop for those of you in the mid-west) and still sounded appealing. But all of a sudden this afternoon it came to me...here's the scoop.

After a busy morning of errands I was tired and I still had several household chores to do and was majorly lacking in motivation. You see I finally decided to jump on the Twilight bandwagon (after weeks of listening to my MOTG friends swoon over it) and while at Sam's club picked up a copy of the 1st book. So I was anxious to dive into it, but the laundry was spilling over and my floors HAD to be cleaned so I did what I always do when I need a little pick-me-up...I had a Red Bull. I figured it would give me the energy I needed to do my chores plus I'd be able to stay up past my usually bed-time of 9:30 PM to do a little reading. It was when I went to the fridge to get it that the idea hit me...MAKE RED BULL CUPCAKES!!! That way I will be able to enter the April ICE challenge, snack AND stay awake late at night to read Twilight (which I have heard happens frequently, I've heard stories of reading at red-lights, waking up in the middle of the night to read just one more chapter, etc. etc. etc.).

So I sucked my Red Bull down and proceeded to buzz around the house in a fashion that would have made the Tasmanian Devil proud; I mopped, windexed, dusted, vacuumed and laundered. Choring done I tackled my next task...the cupcakes. I went with my favorite, devil's food, for a few reasons. 1) it's my favorite and 2) I already had some baked (after all I'm gonna need all the time I can get for reading). I started by brushing the cupcakes with a little Red Bull.

I made some buttercream icing substituting Red-Bull for the milk. I choose to make the icing blue so it would match the can.

I was going to top the cupcakes with some wings made from red candy melts but when I entered "wings" into the search field in clip art the cutest freaking picture of a little vampire bat came up. I was going to trace the wings with the candy melts but after I found the little vampire I choose to make some super cute picks instead. I must say the results are better than I expected...I thought the icing would be way to sweet but it's actually rather nice and the Red Bull flavor is nice...you can definitely tell it's there...which I imagine will come in handy these next few days.

So without further adieu I present to you what I have dubbed the "They have wings" cupcakes. I hope you enjoy them.

Now, if you'll please excuse me I have some reading to do :)

Voting will begin no later than Wednesday, April 29 at 8 p.m. at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner

Our April ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
A creation by FRUITFLYPIE
a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery
PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers:

HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS

HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson

JESSIE STEELE APRONS

TASTE OF HOME books

a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM.

Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com/

Red Bull Buttercream

2 sticks butter - room temp.

1/2 cup Red Bull ( I used sugar free)

8 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

Cream indredients until smooth and creamy. Ice as desired

Devil's Food Cupcakes

Over the weekend I was lucky enough to be asked to make cupcakes for two baby showers. One was for a girl the other a boy; both were for first time mother's to be. Being a mom myself I feel comfortable when I say there is no other experience like becoming a mother for the first time. There is nothing that can prepare you for it, and no real words of advice that an experienced parent can offer. It's just one of those things you have to experience for yourself, each experience is different yet uniquely similar and fantastically beautiful.

Both showers were going with a chocolate brown and polka dot theme (blue for the boy and pink for the little girl) which I really enjoyed (the colors and the polka dots). The little girl to be will be named Savannah so I decided to try something new. I made mini "S" shaped sugar cookies and then coated them with chocolate. I first tried dipping them but they were to small and just became blobs of chocolate so I decided to paint the chocolate on. Then I added some pink sanding sugar for a little sparkle. They were pretty fragile and I broke quite a few in the process but I loved the end result (make sure icing is room temp before adding cookies to top). It was simple, and pretty and pink and chocolate and, etc. etc.

Look how much prettier it is in the natural light (I'm having an issue with one of my photo lights...)

For the little boys shower, the parents have not chosen a name yet so I choose to make some cupcake picks that simply said "It's a Boy". I had originally planned on doing blue and white icing and alternating them on the stand but was unhappy with the color icing I was getting so decided to go with all white and I'm glad I did. I think the blue AND white icing would have been to busy and all blue would have been just too blue. The white icing was perfect, I added a tiny bit of blue sugar but you couldn't really see it.

Again....here it is in the natural light

Growing a Garden

So this is the second year that we are growing our own organic garden. The idea of having our own garden was really so that we could show our little one where the food she eats comes from. We didn't know how successful it would be and it didn't matter we just wanted her to have the experience, but it didn't take long before we were enjoying tomatoes picked right from the plant. Now, I was never a big fan of tomatoes until I tasted one of my own. When allowed to ripen on the plant they are sweet, juicy and DELICIOUS, pair them with some fresh basil or cilantro snipped fresh and well, there is just nothing that compares.

After the success of our first garden we decided to do it again this year, using what we learned from our first go around to make improvements. Here are some pictures showing the planting process and the growth that has occurred over the past month. Enjoy!

Here it is "The Garden". It's not that big; it's roughly 60 square feet. Before planting we prepared the soil. I use the term "we" loosely here (and throughout)...VERY loosely. By "We" I mean Shawn did it and I helped by not asking him to do anything else...and making lunch :). Anyway, back to gardening...it was all overgrown after last years harvest so we cut it and then covered it with plastic tarps to kill the weeds.

Then we added good organic soil building it up into rows of little hills. Next, we planted the plants in the hills and caged them.

Our little helper!

48 days later the results are as follows...

I had Shawn stand in this one to give you a frame of reference for how tall the tomato plant to the left of him is (he's 6"1' or 6'1"...whatever). He had to attach it to pvc pipe to hold it up.

and the soon to be eaten...

Here is one of the cucumber plants. they are so pretty and yet so weird at the same time. They grow these little arms and attach them to things in what appears to be a way to hold themselves up. And the underside of their leaves feels fuzzy but when you mash it between your fingers it makes this weird crunchy sound that feels even weirder. No cucumbers yet, but I'm enjoying the flowers...

Now get out there and row your hoe, or hoe your row...sow your seed...You get the idea plant something, give it a little love and you will be rewarded :)

Why Cupcakes??

My love of baking was instilled in me as a young child...let's just say I was licking batter off beaters when I was still in Pampers. And while I have always loved cupcakes I didn't become so obsessed with them until 2003.

It was in 2003 that I was married to my husband. During the wedding planning there were very few details that he was allowed to...oops I mean interested in helping with, but when it came to the cake he specifically requested cupcakes. At the time cupcakes were not all the rage they are today so when I went about looking for a photo to give the baker I found very few that captured what I was after. Until of course, the one and only Martha Stewart put this picture on the cover of her magazine.

It's beautiful isn't it. Simple, elegant, classy, cupcakes....perfect. So with magazine in hand I went to meet with the wedding planner. I gave them the photo and the following instructions..."I would like cupcakes like this only without the fondant monogrammed hearts. I would like chocolate cupcakes, with white frosting and silver sprinkle thingies (I'm sure I said thingies as I had no idea what a dragee was at the time)" I also asked for a small cutting cake for "ceremonious purposes but nothing fancy...simple and pretty"...like me :) Now one would think that with the above picture as a sample along with my request there would be little to worry about right? WRONG...oh, was I so very wrong. This my friends is what I got.

I know {{{{{{{{{{{GASP}}}}}}}}} But wait...here it is in color

Are you kidding me...really? I did give you the cover of Martha Stewart as a reference right? It's pretty pathetic isn't it? I mean the frosting isn't even piped on, and the cutting cake...when I said cutting I meant I wanted to cut the cake not take a bite of it and cut the inside of my mouth! I shit you not they used a strand of fake plastic pearls around the top edge of the cake (again piping obviously was not in their skill set) and then fake flowers, not sugar flowers, fake plastic flowers that they secured to the cake with STRAIGHT PINS. So here is me and my hubby trying to cut the cake...except as were cutting, the strand of pearls is pulling across the cake and pulling all the flowers with it. At this point I'm over the whole "ceremony" bullshit and I just want to get back to the party, so I scoop the whole damn slice right up onto the cake slicer and go in for a bite.

Just call me Grace...could I have opened my mouth any bigger???????? Anyway, notice said strand of fake pearls dangling from cake. Now here is the next picture...

Not a very good picture, but that's me pulling a pin out of my mouth and looking at it like "WTF is a pin doing in my cake?". Now I don't know about y'all but I don't think you should put pins in a cake unless your intention is to cause bodily harm or your performing some sort of cake voodoo. On top of the shear ugliness of the whole mess, AND the pin situation it wasn't even good cake. It was dry and bland and I don't even remember the icing. Needless to say it was a cupcastrophe!

My marriage on the other hand has been bliss. Early, in our almost 6 years of wedded bliss, I began making cupcakes regularly for my husband and experimenting with different recipes and flavors, expanding on the knowledge that had already been passed to me from my grandma's during countless summer vacations and Christmas holiday's. Baking is a part of family tradition for me. I love everything about it. Making it, eating it, the way it smells when it's baking. It's like therapy...it makes me feel good. So that's "why cupcakes?" because they're good and they make me feel good :)