Earl Gray Cupcakes

Hi anyone,

Today I decided to make earl gray cupcakes to bring to Bio class tomorrow. I first planned on using this recipe from http://fuckyeahtea.tumblr.com/post/3798293002/chai-tea-earl-gray-cupcakes

but remembered the last time I used milk with cookies and cupcakes, it dried them out. So, I ended up steeping 5 earl gray tea bags in water that I added to a Betty Crocker mix. My mom ended up buying an organic vanilla frosting mix, which ended up not tasting good at all because of its grainy texture. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if they're good!

'Til next time.

Nina

Scoops

Hi anyone,

Last night I made cupcakes for the first time in several months, and tried a new tactic: using an ice cream scoop to scoop equal batter into each cup. When it comes to cooking, I'm normally the feel/ "eyeball" type of person, but this tactic truly works! I also put chocolate chips on top of the cupcakes, instead of mixing them into the batter, which turned out to be a success.

No pictures this time. But I just wanted to share my discoveries:)

Go Bananas!

Hi all,

Today, I saw 3 old bananas that were begging to be throw away... or just ripe enough to be made into delicious chocolate banana cupcakes. So, I went down to the stores and bought the only missing ingredient from the Williams Sonoma recipe: buttermilk. Unlike the red velvet cupcakes my friend Victoria and I made, these cupcakes/ muffins turned out very well and looked delicious. This time I baked, I made sure to mix together certain groups of ingredients separately before adding them altogether. The result was this:

Monkeys play golf, say what?

Hi everyone,

Yesterday my friend and I began our weekend adventures at Michael's arts and crafts store, and we wound up buying monkey chocolate lollipop molds. Newly inspired, we quickly drove home to start our culinary creation. In the mean time, we tried to conquer our nemesis: the red-velvet cupcake. Long story short, whenever Victoria (my friend) and I make red velvet cupcakes together, it's disastrous. This time we didn't have buttermilk, used a recipe that required oil, and put in baking powder rather than baking soda. As a result we had lumpy looking cupcakes. Note to all those baking red velvet cupcakes any time soon: do NOT use oil. However, we did turn our nasty looking cupcakes into delectable treats by making them part of a mini-golf course. This creation was for my dad's birthday that was last week.

Here's all of the results:

MIND-BLOWING Cupcake/Cake Designs

I was looking for cool cake designs for my Dad's birthday this weekend, and came across these.

This assortment includes golf-themed, monkeys, tea-pots, and some other sweet designs I came across. I am certainly inspired to use marzipan to create cool figures to decorate my dad's birthday cake/cupcakes this upcoming weekend.

Hope you enjoy:)

ESUCRE!

Hey anyone who reads this,

Despite being swamped this entire weekend golfing and prepping for tests, I found time to make cookies. This is actually the first time I remember that I have ever made sugar cookies :)

They turned out pretty well, but next time I'm going to add some cinnamon; it'll probably end up a cross-breed between snickerdoodles and actual sugar cookies. I also made two types: one large sized, the other normal/small sized.

Here's the finished product:

Fresh out of the oven (and they are good -- I ate the one missing in the bottom lefthand corner)

Happy Baking!

Nina