Toy Story and Polka Dots

When my brother, sister and I were little, my mom would make us the coolest birthday cakes. She made all sorts of characters and designs, which were always the hit of the party. Then, the crowning glory of the cake: Instead of using canned frosting or anything overly sweet, she'd make a frosting that was a combination of milk, whipped cream and instant pudding. I remember that the frosting was always my favorite part; it was smooth and creamy, and I would love licking the extra off the Tupperware container the cakes were served on.

The only thing that bothered me about the frosting was that if the cake wasn't demolished by the time the day was over, it would have to be put in the refrigerator. I don't like cold cake, and so eating leftovers was never as much fun as it was on the day of the party. But really, I can think of very few instances when leftovers are better than the day-of meal. Chili, meatballs and some pizza.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to make six dozen cupcakes for a two year old's birthday party, and his mother (my high school P.E. teacher, Tory) asked that they be decorated with a Toy Story theme. I was intimidated. There are so many characters in that movie! And they're so complex! So I found a tutorial on making the cute little alien guys, which Tory loved. I went heavy on the aliens and decided to do four dozen of them, one dozen Buzz Lightyear and one dozen Woody, both in fondant.

Tory ordered two dozen peanut butter cup, two dozen s'mores and two dozen funfetti, so I dyed the s'mores and funfetti frosting green and followed the tutorial for the aliens. Then I printed out pictures of Buzz and Woody and got to work on them. To make a long night story short, I spent so much time on Buzz that my plan for Woody went out the window. Instead, I paid homage to him with yellow stars that said "sheriff" and "Ryan" for the birthday boy.



I dropped the cupcakes off at Tory's in-laws' house at 8 a.m. so they could make the two-and-a-half-hour drive down to Alexandria, Va., where the party was. What a night. I got this message from Tory on Sunday, which completely made my long night worth it: YOU ARE AMAZING!!!! EVERYONE loved the cupcakes!! Have to say the chocolate pb were the fan favorite!! I couldn't have been happier. You did so much work and it really showed. I can see now first hand why your business is doing so well. (Must have been your PE teacher..hehehe) Thank you so much for making Ryan's B-day PERFECT!! Made Andrew and I so happy. We love you for it!! I will send you some pics. Thank you again!! Love-Tory

After that drop off, I made a dozen s'mores and a dozen strawberry cupcakes for one of my husband's co-workers. It was his sister's engagement party that evening, and he wanted to surprise her with something sweet. He told me the s'mores cupcakes didn't last long and people were bringing the strawberry ones home with them.

Sunday was also two orders. First up was an order for a bridal shower. One of the bridesmaids asked me to make two dozen carrot cake, two dozen peanut butter cup and two dozen vanilla on vanilla. The bride's colors are black, white and lime green, so I used the Reynolds black and white foil liners, tinted some frosting lime green and made lime green and black polka dots out of fondant. I loved the look!



The next day, I heard from bridesmaid Lauren who said this: Pretty much the only comments we (the bridesmaids) heard about all the food we had at the shower were about how wonderful, gorgeous, and delicious the cupcakes were, and I am not exaggerating! Marie Elena, thank you so much for helping to make Janelle's shower such a special day!

Right after that drop off, I went to my brother's third-grade teacher's house to drop off a dozen pumpkin spice (yum!) and a dozen mint chocolate chip for a neighborhood party she was hosting. My sixth-grade teacher happened to be there while I was dropping off the cupcakes, so we got to chat for a little while. She's doing catering now, on a small scale, and she had made some salads for the party that looked amazing! I'm trying to figure out the next time I need to have a party catered so I can order from her. Here's what I heard about those cupcakes: Once again your cupcakes were a delicious hit with all my neighbors. They raved about your moist cupcakes and every cupcake was gone by 6pm!! I loved both flavors.

It was an exhausting weekend, but all of the great feedback made it so worth it. So I'm on to the next ...

Mom's Whipped Cream Frosting
1 tub Cool Whip
1 small package instant pudding (any flavor)
1 cup cold milk

In a medium bowl, whisk instant pudding and milk until smooth. Fold in Cool Whip. If not using immediately, cover and store in refrigerator.

You can also add flavors that you can't find in pudding by starting with vanilla pudding and adding flavored extract after mixing pudding and milk.

Harrisburg Cupcake Cup 2.0

I have GOT to start getting better about updating this blog! First thing's first - I finally made a real Cupcakes by M.E. Web page and it's been getting pretty consistent traffic and great feedback. Why didn't I do that sooner?

So this weekend I had three cupcake-related things to do - A wedding on Friday, a 12th birthday party on Saturday and the second Harrisburg Cupcake Cup on Sunday.

Things started Thursday night when I went to Costco for my supplies after work. I got started on my baking but I didn't stay up too late - I had the whole day Friday to bake since I took off of work. The order was for 130 cupcakes (65 peanut butter cup and 65 chocolate chip cookie dough) and a jumbo cupcake cake (white with vanilla buttercream). Jill and Brad were getting married at The Civic Club of Harrisburg at 6:30 p.m. Friday. I had met with Jill about a week and a half before to talk about her vision for the cupcake table, and we finalized all of the little details. She wanted a vintage, organic feel for the whole wedding.

Jill set up the whole table on Thursday, and all I had to do was bake, decorate, show up and put all the cupcakes in place. I loved how the whole thing looked. Don't you just love those paper fans Jill and her friend Beth made? Simply beautiful. You can read more about the little details and see some more pictures from Jill's wedding on Beth's amazing blog, The Stories of A to Z.

Saturday, I dropped two dozen chocolate raspberry cupcakes off in Palmyra. Jen had contacted me and asked me to make some "grown-up" looking cupcakes for her daughter's 12th birthday party. I made fondant flowers in purple, pink, orange and yellow. I hope the birthday girl enjoyed them! I got home in time to welcome my cousins Carley and Brad into town from New Jersey. They brought their beautiful dog, Kona and our dogs, Sheamus and Bruno, loved having their puppy cousin in town, but boy did they crash hard when Kona left Sunday afternoon. It's a tough life running around and playing all day!

Sheamus, Bruno and Kona

Sunday was the second Harrisburg Cupcake Cup! Last year, I was runner up in the amateur division, but since I've been baking and selling cupcakes on a consistent basis this whole year, I had to enter the professional division this time! I was so nervous, but also completely confident in my chocolate mocha caramel cupcake I made especially for the event. The event was just as fun as last year, but had more contestants and raised even more money for the Central PA Food Bank. Such a fun way to spend a Sunday! My husband, parents, sister, cousins and some friends came to support me and take in the cupcake sights. I didn't place this year, but I'm still so proud of my cupcake. It was mocha cake with a dusting of coffee, caramel in the center and chocolate frosting on top, garnished with some more caramel, white chocolate shavings and a mini pirouette cookie. My husband declared it his new favorite cupcake, and I consider that a pretty impressive feat since he's tried ALL of my creations.

Chocolate mocha caramel (needs a better name ... Any suggestions?) I'm adding it to my menu!

Coming up this weekend - orders for some teachers at a grade school, a Toy Story themed birthday party, a bridal shower, an engagement party and a family picnic. See you soon!

I made fondant!

Last summer I made 150 cupcakes (pictured above) for my friend Natalie's wedding. She wanted raspberry cake with raspberry champagne buttercream, but gave me free reign on how I wanted to decorate the cupcakes. I decided to place a medium-sized fondant flower on top, and used the boxed Wilton fondant from Michaels since the whole order was going to be a major undertaking. They looked cute. However, when I was walking over to the cake table, a little girl walked past me with a cupcake. She stopped, ate the flower off the top of the cupcake, and promptly spit it on the ground. I laughed, but vowed that was the last time I would used boxed fondant.

I've gotten away with not using it at all in the past year, but my office roomie, Kristin, saw the pictures of Natalie's wedding cupcakes and wants me to do something similar for some of the cupcakes I'm doing for her wedding. The fondant flowers will go on top of the chocolate with raspberry buttercream cupcakes (the other ones she's having are strawberry with strawberry buttercream and red velvet with cream cheese frosting). A couple weeks ago, Bridget at Bake at 350 did a blog post about homemade marshmallow fondant. I used her recipe and instructions last night and made my own.



It was easy! It made a mess, but it was nothing some Clorox wipes and paper towels couldn't clean up. The fondant is resting now, wrapped in plastic wrap and waiting for me to roll it out and cut it. I'm doing that tonight or tomorrow. I tasted some of it before I wrapped it up, and it's a major improvement over the boxed crap!

You can find Bridget's blog post on homemade fondant here: http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/2010/05/homemade-fondant.html.

One more thing

My cousin designed business cards for me, and I absolutely love them. Kristin is letting me put some out at her wedding.



The backs of the cards have the same cupcake logo, in reversed color. It's such a sweet touch. What do you think of them?

It's been a busy month!

My summer is already chocked full of cupcake orders, and I'm loving every minute of it! This month already saw a graduation and 5 year old birthday party and I have a wedding order on Saturday and a 1st birthday party on Sunday. Phew!

I also made cupcakes for my mom and mother-in-law on Mother's Day. Luckily, they both love carrot cake, so I took a tip from Martha and made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut.



The cake was really moist and flavorful but I thought the frosting was just a little too soft. The toasted coconut was a really nice touch.

On that Sunday, I got an order for SpongeBob cupcakes for a 5 year old's birthday party, which was to be Wednesday. My client wanted strawberry cake, which I always suggest go with a cream cheese frosting. She was worried that the kids wouldn't like the cream cheese, so I made it using a bit more sugar that usual so it would be sweeter. I have to admit that I was a little intimidated by the SpongeBob theme (as well as the short amount of notice), so I looked for inspiration online. I bought SpongeBob liners and went to work (with a little help from my husband!). The cupcakes were delivered Tuesday night. Overall, I'm pleased with the result.



That same week, I had an order for Penn State graduation cupcakes for a good family friend. Her parents were heading up to State College on Friday, so I dropped the cupcakes off at their house on Thursday evening. I baked Wednesday and decorated after my Culinary Math final (I got a 92% in the class!) on Thursday. Unfortunately, the metallic blue and white liners I had ordered didn't arrive until Thursday, so I used blue and silver instead. The order was for two dozen mint chocolate chip (chocolate cake with mint buttercream) and two dozen strawberry with cream cheese frosting (and I finally developed the perfect one! Stiff with a distinct cream cheese flavor) with a Penn State theme. I dyed the mint buttercream blue and made lion head picks to stick in those cupcakes, then drew nittany lion paws on the cream cheese frosting in blue. I also made picks of a graduation cap, gown and diploma - one for each grad. The feedback was great, and they loved the way the cupcakes looked!

Here are the strawberry ones with the lion paws:



And here is a cell phone pic of the grads with their cupcakes (squint and you can see them!):



Tonight I'm making fondant and baking some of the wedding cupcakes to freeze. It's going to be an exciting summer!

Cupcake Club

I should have thought of something like this back in high school!

From The Times-Tribune (Scranton):

Scranton Prep
Senior girls tennis player Christina Gontarski and the rest of the Cupcake Club - a group of students who get together to talk about different kind of cupcakes and, more importantly, activities they can do to sell the cupcakes - sold cookies and cupcakes during lunch periods before the Christmas holiday. They were able to raise more than $100 for a local family in need. All the extra food was donated to a local food bank.

Now I know (and so do you)

(Photo from homebrewunderground.com.)

Thanks to class last night, I now know that ...

3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon
16 Tablespoons = 1 cup
8 oz. = 1 cup
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
4 quarts = 1 gallon
16 cups = 1 gallon
4 pecks = 1 bushel
16 oz. = 1 pound

And now you learned something today. On a Friday. You're welcome!