Emma's Elmo Birthday!

What is about to follow is absolutely shameless posting of an adorable little gal... our little Emma-bean, niece-extraordinaire, who is growing up to be a wonderful little person because of her great parents (Alan and Kate) and the village that they have supporting them. 

H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y,   E M M A! !

Momma Kate has the market cornered in terms of family birthday cakes and prepares a special creation for the birthday celebrations in the family. This time, for Emma's birthday, she invited me over to help create the oh-so-loved Elmo birthday cake and Cookie Monster cupcakes for Emma's 2nd birthday.

Autumnal Sugar Cookies

Pinterest has been the most ridiculously addictive website for me... it's like an ever-changing, ever-accessible inspiration board of ideas, wishes, plans and such. I dream of a completely customized home with an expansive porch complete with swing, his and her sinks in the master bathroom off the master retreat (which, of course, has an awe-inspiring walk-in closet), an open central stairway filled floor-to-ceiling with art and photos and memories, a cupboard to a secret room a la Narnia, and a rolling ladder reaching to the upper echelons of a private library... and so on and so on. Oh, to have all of the money in the world.

Anyway, this really did start as a food blog post! (I did say that Pinterest got my imagination soaring...) So, I have been enthralled with photo after photo of beautiful handmade gifts, and wrapping and packaging that are as beautiful as the gifts within. I bookmark or repin and plan to make something like these. Today was that day.

After zipping to Michael's, I returned with a sale score of $0.80 cookie cutters in the shape of a ghost and a pumpkin! Sugar cookies were on the brain... and now they were going to be Halloween themed.

I'm not a fan of the sickly sweet, overly iced sugar cookies. Maybe they aren't sophisticated enough in terms of their flavour or I'm just a snob (maybe a bit of both)... I wanted to make a more "grown up" sugar cookie (mostly anyway!). A bit less sugar and a bit more spice.

Lovecakes

In this past week, I was faced with a tremendously important task. It was time for the preparation of a gift offered many many months ago. My dear friend Heather was married this weekend. For my gift to Heather and Marlon, I was going to make the “cake” for the wedding. Heather has always loved my baking and this just seemed like a natural extension of that… and such an exciting way to play a role in this special moment in her and Marlon’s new life together.

After much debate, we determined that cupcakes would be made and in the following flavours:
- Devil’s Food with Rich Chocolate Frosting
- Red Velvet with Buttercream Frosting
- Buttermilk with Maple Vanilla Frosting

The recipes for the Devil’s Food and Buttermilk cakes, as well as the chocolate frosting, came from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes book. (I just saw it at Costco today for $16… well worth purchasing.) The Red Velvet cake was written about previously when I did the first test run. The Maple Vanilla was a seven minute frosting to which I added maple and vanilla extracts. The buttercream is a recipe that I have been tweaking and enjoying for a few years now…

Red Velvet test run.

Whether overly ambitious or overly happy for my good friend, I offered and she agreed to me making the "cake" for her wedding in May. While we haven't decided what (cup)cake will be, I suggested a red velvet cupcake with my buttercream frosting (which she loves and I haven't yet found someone who doesn't)... perfect with the deep autumnal orange that they chose as their wedding colour.

So, this is the red velvet test run. I used a recipe from Magnolia Bakery in NY, after seeing a video of Bobbie Lloyd of the bakery making these cupcakes on Epicurious. (You can watch the video if you click on the video tab... note: She says 1 1/2 cups of butter when she should have said 1 1/2 sticks of butter... BIG difference.) If you follow this recipe exactly, yes, a lot of separate bowls are needed. I wanted to follow the recipe precisely to see if the result warranted the tediousness... and it did produce a wonderfully light and airy cupcake. The cake wasn't too sweet and the icing stayed in place (I didn't make her creamy vanilla frosting...).

I'd probably mix the batter a bit more than I did, while still avoiding overmixing, to ensure that the colouring spread evenly through the batter. I had a bit of marbling, which didn't impact the taste and actually looks kinda cool, but I'd rather not have it in the next batch. (A note to myself for test run #2. :) ) I may actually sub out the vanilla in the icing and opt for coconut extract, with shaved coconut, for that extra bit of punch.