Let Them Eat Cake!

I have officially launched my website!

Let Them Eat Cake will provide Ottawa and the surrounding area with all of your favourite goodies made from the best ingredients!!

Vote for my Cupcakes!!

I have entered my peach, cinnamon, and mascarpone cupcakes into a contest!  I would love to win all of their lovely prizes so if you would take a minute to head to this site and vote for my cupcake “Let Them Eat Cake I would very much appreciate it.

These cupcakes are cinnamon cupcakes with fresh, cinnamon dusted peach slices placed gently in the batter before baking.  They are topped off with a silky mascarpone buttercream icing.

I hope you’ll vote for me!!

UPDATE:  Well, I didn’t win the contest but I did alright for my first online baking competition. 🙂  I came in 28th out of 58 entries so I’m happy. 🙂  Thanks to those who voted!

Yum.

Head over to Let Us Eat Cake if you’d like to see the mini cupcakes I made this week!

Yummy!

Citrus Cupcakes

Citrus-y goodness….

This is my latest creation for an office bake sale… lemon-orange cupcakes and lemon-orange buttercream icing.

UPDATE: The cupcakes didn’t sell as well as I had expected.  I found out why… apparently they look too pretty, as if bought at the grocery store!  So people were sticking with the home made goodies instead!  When told they really were homemade people responded that I should go into business for myself!  At least now I know who I’ll try selling them to first!

You have Mail!

The cupcakes arrived at their destinations!! Both packages arrived yesterday as expected and the cupcakes were intact!

The box was $5 and the overnight shipping through Canada Post was $10.  The box was the perfect size, I wanted room to put packing material around all sides including the top and bottom of the box.  I used flyers from our recycling bin as well as a few pieces of styrofoam to keep them safe.

This experiment was a success! Later this week the2scoops will be blogging about the cupcakes he received.  For now here are some pictures the2scoops took of the packaging (thanks for the pics!):

Cupcakes by Snail Mail???

I have officially packed my Pina Colada cupcakes for shipping!

I obtained some cupcake containers from the bakery section of my local grocery store. I am sending 6 cupcakes to one friend and half a dozen to the other. Once the cupcakes were in their individual holes I wrapped the containers in 2 layers of plastic wrap and one layer of tinfoil to protect them against drying out. Then I popped them into the freezer. I’m hoping the frozen cupcakes will hold their shape best during shipping.

The post office had some standard shipping boxes that were the right size. I used some newspaper and and other random bits of packing material and tried to protect the now frozen treats from the battering they were likely to receive while being handled, tossed, sorted, shipped, and delivered to my friends in Toronto.

The boxes are in the freezer and will be sent out tomorrow by overnight delivery. If all goes well my lucky friends will have cupcakes at their doors by Wednesday afternoon! I have been promised photos of the cupcakes upon arrival so that I can see how well they survived their journey. I’ll post a follow up for those who are interested and you can also find out how my experiment went by checking in with the2scoops since he is one of the lucky recipients! Wish these little cupcakes luck!

Pina Colada Cupcakes… a taste of summer!

I have a bit of a cupcake obsession. It’s a love/hate relationship really. I love cupcakes, the taste, the smell, the over-the-top cuteness… but they are SOOOOOOO bad for me. I’ve solved this problem by bringing all baked goods to my friends or coworkers. That way we all get fat together.

This week I decided to try something new. I had a very ripe pineapple in the kitchen and the smell made me think of fresh pina coladas in the summer time. That is how the Pina Colada Cupcake arrived in this world!

To start I made a basic vanilla cupcake and filled each one with a thick and gooey pineapple filling made from the previously mentioned pineapple. I topped them off with coconut buttercream frosting and of course you can’t have a tropical cocktail without adding a decorative umbrella!

Oh… and apparently I’m more allergic to coconut than I previously thought. Go figure.

Cupcakes and Google

I had cupcakes on the brain yesterday… and today…. well, most days honestly.  You can’t help but smile when you see a yummy looking cupcake!

I was pondering the possibilities of shipping cupcakes.  I have a few long distance friends that could use some yumminess in their lives!  So I decided to head to Google to see what I could find.  I typed in shipping and cupcakes and was excited about my results!

In the giant blogosphere I found this great blog called Cakespy.  They have recently been having similar thoughts about cupcakes traveling through the mail and decided to take action!  A Cupcake Experiment was begun!

You really should check out the links to the cupcake experiment and to the experimental findings!  The evidence is surprising, entertaining and even educational!

Chocolate & Cinnamon

 

If you worked here you’d be eating chocolate cinnamon cupcakes!

But you probably don’t work here so you’re out of luck.

The cupcakes I made this weekend were a success. I used a simple chocolate cupcake recipe by Chockylit and added 2 teaspoons of cinnamon after reducing the cocoa by the same amount. It gave the cupcakes a light cinnamon flavour to complement the dark chocolate and the aroma was wonderful. I might add more cinnamon next time for a spicier cupcake.

The frosting was a basic chocolate ganache (another recipe from Chockylit!). I was a little worried at first as it was very runny and there was nothing to indicate how long it would take to thicken. I am not a patient person and it was already late at night so I decided to refrigerate it and deal with it later. The next day it was completely hard which I had expected. After melting it down I left it on the counter to firm up naturally and it worked out perfectly! The 70% dark chocolate made the frosting a great match for the sweeter cupcake.

As a garnish I mixed up some white sugar and cinnamon. The sugar added that little extra sparkle. I would recommend adding this right before serving. I sprinkled the mix on to the cupcakes the previous night and the combination of a very moist frosting and a water soluble topping such as sugar created a few droplets of syrup.

My coworkers have been happily munching on cupcakes since breakfast!

I also made these cupcakes for a birthday party at a local bar/restaurant and used red sugar crystals on top. I placed a red cinnamon candy in the icing since the birthday girl is a very big fan of cinnamon candies. Another friend managed to snap a photo but the sugar had already started to melt. Bar = high temps = melty.

 

I have silicone implants!

Okay, I lied… but I do have silicone cupcake wrappers!I recently located some lovely red silicone cupcake wrappers. They are reusable, oven safe, and look fabulous on the chocolate cinnamon cupcakes I made!

 

 

I also purchased a cupcake caddy. Now I can take 24 yummy cupcakes wherever I go!

 

 

 

 

 

I’m a busy girl so if you want cupcakes you better invite me to your parties soon!