Teacake Bake Shop

I went to the Bay St. shopping center in Emeryville recently to run an errand at Old Navy when I passed Teacake Bake Shop and noticed cupcakes in their window. Clearly I needed to check this out.

After Old Navy I wandered in to check out their selection. I also noticed an extensive selection of delicious looking cookies that I plan to return to try out. I picked only one cupcake since I had all my Cupcake Fever cupcakes to work through. Clearly, with my love of fruit cupcakes, I went for the Strawberry which turned out to be a vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream frosting.

Bonus points for the individual sized cupcake boxes. Lots of cupcake places make you get a bag unless you are getting 4 or more cupcakes. A paper bag is not the proper way to transport a cupcake.

The cupcake was really very good. The vanilla cake was very moist and delicious and perfectly flavored. The frosting was a little more wet than I normally like, but that's more for ease of transport than taste. The strawberry was a very strong flavor but tasted natural. Simple and delicious.

I actually think Teacake is more unique in its cookie selection than the cupcakes. They have a large variety of cookies, all of which looked delicious. I couldn't pass up a chocolate cookie sandwich (with a cream center). It was very good. Although I like their cupcakes, I'm more excited to return and try more cookies!

Cupcake Fever

I signed up for the Cupcake Fever class at Spun Sugar a few weeks ago and the class was this weekend. It was a lot of fun and I learned quite a few new techniques. First we baked a few kinds of cupcakes. My team made pumpkin, another team made petit four cupcakes. There were also red velvet, spice, and devil's food already baked.

While the cupcakes were in the oven we started on the decorating.

1st up was devil's food cupcakes made to look like hot chocolate. Devil's food cupcakes with chocolate gonache frosting, buttercream for the whipped cream, and a cookie straw. The instructor initially used plastic straws but I suggested the cookie. I'm all about the edible :).

Next was gumpaste leaves painted for the fall. She had made the leaves ahead of time, we painted them. She also demonstrated turning white nonpareils into bronze nonpareils using luster dust.

Peas and Carrots. This one is straight out of Hello, Cupcake! Except we used flavored tootsie rolls instead of Starbursts. I went and picked up a few bags after class from the 99 cent store.
This was the decoration I was must excited about. I saw this on a blog a few days ago and was glad to get a lesson in how to do it properly. I bought the proper tip to do this on my own. My plan is to do it with pumpkin.

Severed finger cupcakes for Halloween. The fingers are also flavored tootsie rolls.

Petit four cupcake with poured fondant icing. This icing is gorgeous. I love the simplicity. I bought the necessary ingredients to do this at home. The coolest thing I learned in class by far was that you can fill a cupcake without piping the filling in post baking. These petit four cupcakes had a dollop of jam put on top of the batter before going in the oven. The jam just sinks into the cupcake during baking without leaving a trace. So simple!

Tuxedo cupcakes. Mine is the retarded one on the right. I'm not so good at the fine tip piping.

My witch!

Freaky-eyed witch.

In the end we got to take one of everything home. I tried the best I could to take ones that I had decorated as I was really proud of some of mine (especially the pie) and ashamed enough of others that I didn't want to leave someone else with them :). I can't wait to try some of these techniques in my kitchen.

Lulu's Cupcakes

I've known about Lulu's cupcakes for awhile but in my many trips to Arizona had failed to find the time to make it out to Scottsdale to try them. I finally had time this past trip. I brought the cupcakes back to my hotel for photos and tasting.

Clockwise from upper left: peanut butter chocolate, lemon, berry vanilla, and cookies and cream.

Lulu's wins major points for packaging. Their box contains individual slots for each cupcake to prevent them from being knocked over and ruined. I hate buying a box of beautiful cupcakes only to transport them to a final destination, open the box and find cupcake destruction. I wish all bakeries did this!

Close up of cookies and cream cupcakes. The frosting of all of the cupcakes was really delicious, but it was almost a separate entity from the cupcake. I could pick the entire frosting off the cupcake and not leave a mark of frosting where it was. This might have to do with the weather in Arizona. In general the cupcakes were a bit dry but the frosting was really good.

This is what Lulu's calls a Blonde Bombshell, which is a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. However, this day had a special Blonde Bombshell which added mixed berries to the batter. It was tasty.

Chocolate cupcake with peanut butter buttercream. Really rich and delicious.

Lemon cupcake with lemon wedge. The lemon wedge made the frosting even more lemon-y. So delicious. Lulu's claims they are 100% natural and this lemon cupcake proves it. Very fresh tasting, no lemon extract.

Post tasting :). You can see my fork marks in the frosting. That's how dense it is.

Sprinkles Palo Alto

Sprinkles opened a new shop in the Stanford Shopping Center, a development that excites me greatly. Someone ordered a few dozen for a birthday at work. A birthday that happened to be on Yom Kippur. I made it until 4pm before devouring my cupcake in complete bliss.


It was splendid. I think fruit flavored cupcakes really are my favorite. Lemon and strawberry especially. I'd like to make strawberry cupcakes with lemon frosting or vice versa. I think it would be divine.

Strawberry Cupcakes

I finally took the opportunity to try the Sprinkles strawberry cupcake recipe a few weeks ago (but just got around to uploading photos now). I would say the recipe was an overwhelming success given how much everyone raved about the cupcakes, but they weren't quite strawberry enough. I think I would double the amount of puree in the frosting (which needed to be thinner anyway - I ended up adding milk to make it spreadable) and in the batter. The recipe was a bit more difficult than my usual recipes - it involved pureeing strawberries and separating eggs. But I think the work was worth it.

Scott: "That wins the internet."

AMAZING

$10 million cupcake

Woot! Cupcakes in the new Apple ad:

WWAGD

I saw this bag in a store window last night and cracked up.

From Dogeared Jewels and Gifts. Perfect for every "fake American" in your life!

I heart nerdy cupcakes

First there was the Settlers of Catan cupcakes. Then, Periodic Table cupcakes. Now, via Geekcake (awesome blog name) comes Guitar Hero cupcakes!!

Geekcake's blog is dedicated to baked goods of the nerdy persuasion. Including an xkcd cake, which just about the most awesome thing ever. Hmm...I need to come up with an idea for nerdy cupcakes of my own!

LOL

Booby cupcakes!

Breast cancer charity cupcakes from Carousels Cupcakes in Australia. From Courier Mail:

Naturally, the cakes - playfully titled Dolly Partons - come in pairs and are packaged in a box with a pink ribbon for $12.
And 10 per cent of proceeds will be donated to Cancer Council Queensland.

I love it!

Yes We Carve

I think I now know what I'm going to carve in my pumpkin this year.

http://yeswecarve.com/

Heiress Love or: How I Learned to Stop Judging and Love Paris Hilton

The fabulousness continues.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

See you at the inauguration, bitches.

Hello Kitty Cupcakes

For Lindsay's birthday she asked for Hello Kitty cupcakes. This is my attempt at almost success. I couldn't find any cupcake toppers or anything I could stick in a cupcake that was Hello Kitty so I decided to adopt the method of the Hello Cupcake! butterfly cupcakes I made awhile back and trace Hello Kitty in chocolate. I bought black chocolate discs (hooray Halloween) and red chocolate discs from Michaels. I figured I could use white chocolate chips for the rest of the face. I also bought 2 squeeze bottles for making candy. I figured I'd use those and the two I had at home. I printed off a sheet of Hello Kitty faces.

Step one: trace the face in chocolate. Again with the random non-rotating photo, Blogger! The plan from here was to fill them in with white chocolate and then do the details of the face. Things didn't quite go as planned.


Step 2: Vanilla cupcakes (from Amy Sedaris's I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence). I leveled the tops for the kitties to lay nicely once the frosting was on. I have never leveled cupcakes before. It was much easier than leveling a cake. I just used a butter knife. I'm clearly very technical about these things.


I was unable to fill the faces with white chocolate as the white chocolate chips I was planning on using just wouldn't melt properly and actually killed 2 different squeeze bottles by getting so hot they melted them too. Time for plan b: make frosting the face.

Step 3: Ice with Vanilla Buttercream frosting (also from Amy Sedaris - enough sugar in this recipe to kill Hello Kitty. I love it.)

Step 4: Lay Hello Kitty faces on frosting to create face. The plan from here was to then use the rest of the black chocolate to finish the details. Alas this was not to be.


The chocolate now did not want to re-melt and I was unable to make all of the faces work. I did get enough chocolate to make 2 complete kitties. See one below.

Step 5: Use chocolate that will melt to make rest of Hello Kitty face.


Oh, I also ended up burning the bottoms of the cupcakes b/c my oven sucks and is either way too hot or something else that would explain burning my cupcakes when I baked them for the time the recipe called. I need to do some testing with it. It's not the first time it's happened. Usually I remember to bake for about 4 minutes less than called for. Over all the cupcakes were a winner as everyone who gathered for Lindsay's birthday at the Academy of Sciences at least said they enjoyed them. I enjoyed them as well and I think I'm going to return to Amy Sedaris as my go to easy vanilla cupcake recipe. Happy birthday, Lindsay!

My favorite video of the moment

Very creative

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

First they claim Alaska's proximity to Russia as an example of Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience. Now, Richard Fontaine, a senior foreign policy advisor for John McCain, brings us this little gem:

”Talking a little about his personal experience, he was famously born in Panama and has traveled all over the hemisphere for many years.” Fontaine said. “In fact, I saw, I guess it was last week, that his old girlfriend in Brazil has been found from his early days when he was in the Navy and was interviewed. She’s a somewhat older woman now than she was then, but it sorta speaks to the long experience he has had in the region — in the most positive terms.”

(via Oliver Willis)

Mmmm...political cookies...

Because I love Black & White cookies I had to post this awesome photo from Lily Koppel at the Huffington Post

"The black and white cookie just went national. At a bakery in Grand Central Terminal full of commuters rushing home before the vice presidential debate, many slowed at a cookie display advertising, 'Today's Special Obama and McCain Black & White Cookies.'"

Read the whole post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lily-koppel/the-election-its-a-black_b_131574.html. 

Lipstick on a Pig Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for Yogi's VP Debate Watching Party. They are vanilla cupcakes (dyed pink) with vanilla buttercream frosting and pig sprinkles. I bought the pig sprinkles from Spun Sugar this weekend but later discovered I already had pig sprinkles in a barnyard animal sprinkle set. I clearly have a sprinkle problem.



My mom actually suggested I find some way to put lipstick on the pigs. I tried dipping the mouth of the pigs into red food coloring but quickly gave up on that once I decided it would take all night. I used my favorite buttercream frosting recipe, which also happens to be the easiest recipe on the planet, from Amy Sedaris's I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. The recipe is called Tattletale's Vanilla Buttercream Frosting and it calls for 1 box (16 oz) of powdered sugar, one stick of unsalted butter, 1/4 cup milk (I use whole - they're cupcakes, this isn't a fat-cutting project), and 1 tsp. of vanilla. It is buttercream just the way I like it - super sweet. The vanilla cupcake recipe was from A Baker's Field Guide to Cupcakes: Deliciously Decorated Crowd Pleasers for Parties and Holidays. It was pretty good, but not my favorite. They weren't as moist as I would prefer and were a bit dense. I think I'll stick to the Magnolia's recipe or the Amy Sedaris recipe.

Periodic Table of Elements Cupcakes

Such a cute idea:

These were sent by a reader, an astrophysics grad student at Cal, to the lovely ladies at Cupcake Takes the Cake.