Raspy Strawmonade Cupcakes

Well, yesterday was Easter. When we gather to eat with our friends & family, it's a great time to bring out the grilling & barbecue entrees & fabulously light side dishes. Perfect time for veggies, salads, fruits, jellos, etc. It's also a great time to pull out some springy light & bright desserts, too!

So, for our 3 family gatherings yesterday, I made Raspy Strawmonade Cupcakes! They are lemonade cupcakes with a tart raspberry filling & a strawberry-flavored icing on top! Beautiful, bright & slightly tart. The raspberry filling is a raspberry jam that my aunt Karen made. She has fantastic jams, jellies & preserves! She sells them under Nine Shoes Farm!

They are a perfect cupcake for the spring & summer get-togethers! Oh...and they are delicious! Plus I finally used some very adorable baking cup liners that were part of a kit I got from my stepdaughter & mom-in-law for my birthday! So cute!

Outer Space Cakes

OK...these were WAY fun! Perfect for kids & kids-at-heart!

I needed white baking cups for some cupcakes (because I like color my slushie cakes to show through). At one point I could only find the ones that were with foil liners. I was baffled as to what to do with foil liners! However, it made me think of space. So...what if I made Tang-flavored cupcakes?

So, I made Outer Space Cakes not too long ago. Yes, they are Tang-flavored! I filled them with "lighter-than-air", almost gravity-defying marshmallow fluff. I colored the frosting with an edible silver pearl powder & added some blue food coloring to the decorating bag. Then, for the super fun final touch, I added pop-rocks to the top! And I baked them in the foil liners.

I took this batch to my son's kindergarten class for snack & they LOVED them!

These would be awesome for any out-of-this-world/space/rocket/astronaut/alien party!

Peanut Butter & Jelly

With my rising near obsession with creating & making cupcakes, I got some pretty cool stuff for my birthday recently to help me with the creation part of my ideas. One thing I got in particular was a cupcake pan & a device to help make way for fillings!

So, of all the ideas I had to try out the new device? Peanut butter & jelly cupcakes!

I made a peanut butter cake batter (YUM!) & then filled the centers with grape jelly. I then made a creamy, dreamy peanut butter & jelly frosting for the top.

I added a vanilla wafer "crust" on the bottom of half of the batch. So there was PB&J with crust AND crustless! I added crushed graham to the top of the cupcakes with the "crust".

Once I figure out the crust thing (see the previous Erin's Lush post), I should be able to adapt it here. So a future repost for this cupcake is a possibility, too!

I will also look to try this with strawberry jam/jelly. Looking to add a grape on top of the grape jelly filled & a strawberry on top of the strawberry filled ones! Of course, still crushed graham to decifer the difference between crusted & crustless.

Plus, add a glass of milk & some chips...you can have your sandwich AND dessert together, and still have a complete lunch!

Erin's Lush Cupcakes

My mom usually makes this really great pudding dessert (some consider it a salad) for St. Patrick's Day. It's a layered dish that has a crust, cream cheese layer, pistachio pudding layer, and then a whipped topping layer. It is SO good!! Love it when she makes it! I've even made it a couple of times, too. It's called Erin's Lush.

Well, if you haven't figured out yet, I am wondering how many different things I can attempt to put into cake form. So...why not Erin's Lush?

I attempted a crust that I tried to bake a little first...and it went "OK". So I tried it with just a crumble crust. Better, but very messy. So I am still working on the crust layer. So then I baked the pistachio cake with it. Then I made a marshmallow fluff & cream cheese icing that ended up with a beautiful iridescent sheen! Then it was topped with crushed graham.

As I figure out the crust thing, I will repost this. And since I missed a picture of this, too, I will repost with pix when I truly get it right! But...I must say, these were still VERY YUMMY!!

Seussy Cakes

I love doing themed things: costumes, parties, Christmas trees, baskets, and cupcakes, of course! One of my favorite times of year to play with food is March 2nd. This is the birthday of Dr. Theodore Gisele, also known as Dr. Seuss. So it's a lot of fun to bring some of his food from books to life, as well as be inspired by them!

This time I made Dr. Seuss-inspired cupcakes - Seussy Cakes!

These cakes are still using the slushie cake base, as do most of my first-run flavors, in lemon-lime. So they have a wonderful green color & a fabulously bright flavor! I then placed a thin layer of white icing on top & used red-cherry flavored icing to make stripes, like the hat of The Cat in the Hat! It ended up having a cherry limeade-type flavor to the overall cupcake!

I have more ideas to try with Dr. Seuss & cupcakes, but those shall come later!

Hope you enjoyed!

Cherry Sweetheart Cupcakes

I hope you all enjoyed my last post about the Slushie Cakes! Because they are the basis for a couple I did before Valentine's Day!

I took my cherry-flavored slushie cakes & topped them with pink, cherry-flavored icing & mini red cherry chips on top. SO adorable...and yummy!

I then made a batch of black cherry-flavored cupcakes with cherry pie filling oozing from the center. I topped it with a layer of cherry-flavored icing & adorable red sugar sprinkles.

Both batches looked like Valentine's Day had exploded in the kitchen!

Gourmet Slushie Cakes a la GLEE

Here's where it started, people!

I bring you the very first "specialty" cupcake that I ever tried - the Slushie Cake! (aka - Gourmet Slushie Cake a la GLEE).

In my first post, I said that GLEE was my inspiration for this cupcake so I could eventually serve it at a GLEE party...and DID!

I, first, played with coloring the sugar. This is to help give that icy look & crunch to the slushie cakes. As I used the different colors, I was trying to imagine what flavors they might be for.

I then wanted to actually flavor the cupcakes themselves to taste like a slushie in cake form. And I did it for SUPER cheap! I have done orange, cherry, grape & lemon-lime. I can also do strawberry, berry blue, blue raspberry-lemonade, lemonade, limeade (even w/ cherry). Any ideas on what I use?

I would then place a VERY thin layer of white frosting on each cupcake, use Wilton's spray food coloring to give the color & then sprinkle the matching colored sugar on top. I have since figured out how to flavor my icing to match the taste of the cake. For those who have had them can tell you that one of these cupcakes really do taste like a slushie in cake form! Add a licorice whip for a straw & you have the cutest little slushie cupcakes!





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A Mean Cupcake

Hi Everyone!

I thought I might start a blog about my cupcakes that I have recently taken to making.

What got this started? GLEE! Yes, my new cupcake passion was totally inspired by GLEE.

I was trying to find a great background for my GLEE Twitter account last summer & I thought the iconic slushee would be perfect! I looked all over the web for a great GLEE slushee/slushee-facial pic to use. I came across a pic of cupcakes someone made to look like the "Big Quench" slushees from GLEE! They were so adorable! And it was a cupcake...another GLEE reference. So that's the pic I used. But everytime I looked at it, I wanted a cupcake AND a slushee.

Well, when Season 2 was quickly approaching, I wanted to have a GLEE kick-off party...with all of the perfect GLEE food references & inspirations! So I wanted to make the slushee cakes...but not just LOOK like like the slushees, but TASTE like them too!

It took a couple of test runs, and I now make slushee cakes in several flavors! They are totally adorable & totally taste like a slushee in cake form!!

Then my mom's birthday was coming, and I knew her favorite chocolates are orange cremes. So, I took my orange slushee cake batter & also did a chocolate cake batter, then marbled them together! A new cake creation was born...so then I did one for my stepdaughter (upon her request) for a cherry cordial cake...with my cherry slushee cake batter & chocolate marbled together!

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Now onto the name "A Mean Cupcake":

My teenage daughter has a boyfriend who is apparently afraid of, not only dad, but me, too! Just how we would like it. YEA! I'm scary!

Well, when my stepdaughter found out that my daughter's boyfriend was afraid of BOTH of us, she said, "Why is he afraid of you? You make cupcakes." Oh really? Making cupcakes automatically makes you a total sweetheart? Interesting. I mean, I am usually a nice & caring person, but sometimes life doesn't call for it. At least for me.

So I can still be mean & make cupcakes! As a matter of fact...I can make "a mean cupcake".

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I plan on using this blog to share my cupcake creations. I have done some...and have plans & ideas for more!

My formula for coming up with them? It's my formula for any my creative ventures: Double I/Double R. Inspiration, Imagination, Research, Resources.

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