Charm City Cupcake Camp

Last weekend I took part of a wonderful event called cupcake camp. It took place at the oh-so-stylish Blue Hill Tavern in Baltimore, Maryland. Participants brought cupcakes of all types. My favorite cupcake was a mini cupcake that had blueberry cake, maple frosting, and a piece of bacon on top (pictured below). Yes, bacon. Don't doubt it yet. It tasted like a blueberry pancake with maple syrup with a little bit of bacon in there. Fabulous. Breakfast in a cupcake. In fact, I believe it won best taste. Which leads me to the competition part of the event. Of course, I entered. The cupcakes I baked (in order from left to right, front to back, pictured above) were Chocolate Caramel Pretzel, Mexican Thanksgiving, S'mores Remix, and Apple Cider. (Descriptions of cupcakes can be found under the "creations" tab.) The categories for the competition included best taste, best use of seasonal ingredients, most unique, and best decorated. And guess what? I won!! My Mexican Thanksgiving cupcake won best use of seasonal ingredients! How amazing. I was so excited to be a part of an amazing event and win one of the categories. I am looking forward to attending again next year!

For Adults Only

I got the inspiration for these by flipping through a drink menu at a restaurant. The combination of Baileys, chocolate and caramel intrigued me. Of course, I took this inspiration and transformed it into a cupcake. I recreated the drink by baking chocolate cake filled with chocolate caramel ganache topped with Baileys buttercream and drizzled with caramel. These were a perfect mid work day treat.

Fall is almost here!

I love fall. After my birthday hits (August 17th by the way) I am so ready for fall to arrive. In anticipation of my favorite season I created wonderful apple cider cupcakes. The cake is a mulling spice cake (all of the yummy spices in apple cider) filled with apple compote (similar to baked apples) topped with cream cheese icing dusted with cinnamon. Delicious!

Take that Ferrero Rocher

Everybody love those delicious truffles we get from our loved ones during the holidays. They have the perfect combination of sweet crunchy nutty. So do these cupcakes. Ive taken chocolate cake and filled it with Nutella ganache and finished it with chocolate mousse covered in walnut pieces.

Starbucks in a cupcake

One of my favorite drinks from Starbucks is a venti soy no whip cinnamon dulce latte. Well, of course, I decided to take one of my favorite things and transform it into a cupcake. So here's the Scooter's Cupcake twist on a venti soy no whip cinnamon dulce latte. Angel food cake topped with cinnamon buttercream and a dulce de leche drizzle...expect more cupcakes with angel food, it is absolutely heavenly!

Sweet summertime

When I think of summer I think of popsicles, fireworks, fishing, and the beach. Since I couldn't put fireworks, fishing, or the beach into a cupcake I picked popsicles. Dreamsicles to be precise. These little delights have orange cake filled with vanilla pastry creme and topped with homemade marshmallow fluff and a candy orange slice.

The next best thing about summer is all the perfect pastries you get to eat a the numerous picnics you'll attend. One of my favorite pastries is a Boston creme pie. So, of course, I took my favorite doughnut and turned it into a cupcake. I crafted these out of vanilla cake filled with vanilla pastry creme. Topped them all off with vanilla buttercream dipped in chocolate ganache. These were fantastic. The only thing better than a Boston creme pie is a Boston creme cupcake.

Happy Easter Yinz....or Y'all if you're from the south.

Of course I made carrot cake cupcakes for Easter! Traditional carrot cake cupcakes with actual carrot cake, cream cheese frosting, and garnished with sliced almonds and a royal icing carrot. I must admit, I had some help on these cupcakes. My boyfriend Jonathan made the orange part of the carrots and I made the grass. Nonetheless, these ended up amazing. And all of my family is here to celebrate Easter. Cupcakes + family + Penguins game (even though we lost today) = great weekend.

Death by Chocolate

If you are craving something sweet these are the cupcakes to have. I do not usually try to attract one's sweet tooth but I figured I might as well add some diversity.

So these consist of my chocolate cake, chocolate mousse filling, buttercream frosting dipped in chocolate ganache. Death by chocolate might possibly be the best way to go out!

Something old, something new

These next two cupcakes I tried something new on each but stuck with my original (perfected if I might say so myself) cake batter formula.

These tasty tiramisu cupcakes are bite-sized! Thats right, I made minis! My mom and I attended a jewelry party and I brought these along with me. The perfect size for a party with many other sweets to enjoy. I made these by using my vanilla cake, which half was soaked in a secret coffee mixture. The icing is a mascarpone cheese based frosting and it was delicious. I garnished them by dusting with cocoa powder and adding a strawberry sliver to finish the minis.

So my new thing I tried was glaze. This glaze and I got into a fight at first but after I burned some of my fingers, we settled our differences and it ended up tasting amazing. For these guys I made a lemon cake loaded with cranberries and topped with my new best friend, lemon glaze. When I served them they were still warm which made it even better!

Forgive me.

Well, although I promised (and made it my new years resolution) to update with a new cupcake once a week that has obviously failed.

But I'm back nonetheless. And I come back with many new cupcakes!

S'mores are one of my favorite summertime campfire treats. I could actually eat s'mores year-round. These wonderful cupcakes are my way of eating them year-round. The bottom of the cupcake has a graham cracker crust with melted chocolate as the second layer. Following the double layer crust is my signature chocolate cake topped with a homemade marshmallow fluff that has been toasted with a torch.

Forgive me for the low quality mobile upload for this photo. These two cupcakes are ones I wasn't sure of at first but ended up being my two favorites.

The cupcakes in the back are honey cupcakes. I made these with a honey cake topped with honey buttercream and drizzled with honey. I know, it sounds like A LOT of honey but it tasted wonderful and was the perfect amount of honey.

The cupcakes featured in the front are pink lemonade flavored. These have a pink lemonade cake topped with a lightly flavored raspberry buttercream. These will be great in the summertime with a cool glass of lemonade.

Promise to update sooner next time!

New Years Resolution

Tis' the seasons for resolutions....but the great question is, will they actually get resolved?

I'm determined to resolve all of mine.

1. Clean out my closet! This proves to be harder than you'd actually think. I'm going to go about this by turning everything inside out on my hangers and in my drawers. Next New Year, if they are still inside out, they are getting put in a bag and given to Good Will.

2. A cupcake a week. Not just making a cupcake and thats it, but making it and perfecting it. I've planned out enough cupcakes to take me through the third week in July. Since I'm currently on vacation in Denver (one of my favorite places) this cupcake challenge will begin the day after I return, January 12th. I'll be starting with red velvet cupcakes for my moms birthday on the 15th of January. (Red velvet happens to be her favorite)

3. Start spinning again. I used to be a spinning freak! 6 days a week I was on a bike spinning my life away....and then real life started to happen and I couldn't figure out how to balance being a full-time college student, having a part-time job, and working out. I managed my job and school work perfectly and now, entering into my first semester of my senior year of college (yikes!) I'm going to fit spinning back into my daily routine.

So that's it, just 3. Not very difficult resolutions. Now let the prayers begin to that I keep up with each one of them!