Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream for a 3rd birthday party.

This week, the parents of LePort Montessori got together to provide the wonderful teachers there lunch everyday. Today is actually Teacher Appreciation Day, so I made and brought in cupcakes with LePort’s logo, apples and a a THANK YOU message for them! Teachers are wonderful people and deserve many thanks for guiding and supporting our children’s development and foundation for the rest of their lives.

Source: Amy Moore Photography

For Erin’s wedding in Indiana, Van asked me to make the toppers I did for Thea’s wedding but in Erin’s color theme. I decided on using the round blossoms thinking they will ship easier than the pointier flower I used for Thea. They came out great. Erin order cupcakes from a local bakery and the girls all put the cupcakes together at home! We had one break with the toppers (good thing I made extra for insurance!)

Congrats,
Erin & Mike!

Roger’s mom ordered 2 dozen red velvet cupcakes for Rochelle’s birthday. She said “Hello Kitty and maybe flowers” and I gave her both. The Hello Kitty cupcakes came out so much better than I expected. It’s very difficult to do known character cupakes…they have to be executed perfectly otherwise it looks weird. I think I did a good job and are very happy with these!

40 cupcakes in two flavors (chocolate and lemon) with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream and homemade fondant toppers for a black & yellow themed wedding. The groom just said he does not want his wedding looking like a bumblebee. It was a lot of fun to make these since the bride said, “I trust you. Do whatever you want!”

Congratulations, Thea & Brian!

For the twins’ second birthday, we decided to do a Mickey & Minnie themed because they’re obsessed with Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse.

These are red velvet with mini chocolate chips and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream:

For Roger’s niece’s 3rd birthday, his mom asked me to make 2 dozen cupcakes. The theme of the birthday was a Sanrio character. A black and white pig called Monoruku Boo. It’s pretty cute and a lot of fun to make. Because Kayla is only 3, I wanted to add a little color so I added pink based off a graphic I found online of the character.

Pound cake cupcakes w/ vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream

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Image I used for inspiration

I made cookies and creme cupcakes for Lauren’s 3rd birthday. The theme was Disney Princess and because when replicating characters, you need to be spot on otherwise it could just look bad, I got these premade Disney Princess cupcake rings to decorate a a dozen of the 3 dozen Joy asked me to make. I could have gone the abstract route but I figure, these are for kids, so they need to be very obvious. Plus, the little girls LOVED the rings!

It all started with a sweet offer:

Wife craving cupcakes but didn’t feel like baking. Sweet husband offers to bake cupcakes. Wife laughed at this offer. Husband remarked that his cupcakes are better than wife. Wife says, Game on…

We decided to bake up four dozen cupcakes for close family and friends and let them be the judge of whose cupcakes are better. The judging was based off: taste, moistness, frosting and creativity. We baked two categories of cupcakes to go head to head: one classic flavor and one couture (or “It’s My Prerogative”).

Mike took a few weeks to finally decide on his flavors (with the support and encouragement of his all-male carpool buddies). Classic will be a play off the Hostess cupcake which he coined as the Fauxtess. His couture cupcake is a churro cupcake with dulce de leche and vanilla Swiss Meringue buttercream.

Fauxtess cupcake (left) & Churro cupcake (right)

I decided on doing a coconut cupcake for classic called the Haupia cupcake. Haupia is a Hawaiian dessert that I fell in love with when we went to Maui a few months ago. The Haupia cupcake is a coconut cupcake filled with haupia filling and whipped cream topping. I decided this challenge will be a good opportunity to try it. For my fancy-schmancy cupcake, I went with a spumoni cup which was half cherry batter and half chocolate batter with a pistachio Swiss meringue buttercream. I have to confess I came up with this idea to win Bao’s vote. Hahaha.

Haupia cupcake (left) & Spumoni cupcake (right)

So last Sunday we threw it down. Before he had even ONE cupcake in the oven, Mike turns and says to me, “I’m already tired.” Oh, he’s a goner. LOL. It was a lot of fun and we will definitely be doing it again. I had so much fun tasting and working WITH Mike on our recipes. We stayed up all night baking and tasting each others cupcakes.

All the cupcakes were delicious. I have to admit when I ate that churro cupcake, I thought it was over for me. It was definitely something I want to eat again. But at the end, the baker beat out the family chef with the haupia cupcake…coconut cupcake won of all things!

Filed under: Cupcakes, In Real Life by Thi
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