The hiatus has been lifted! While the baking has continued, the blogging has been lacking but I'll make it up to you with a few posts of "Here's what you missed."
What better way to start than with the Blackhawks?!
As the Hawks enter the Stanley Cup Finals yet again, I took advantage and created a cupcake to support my team.
I've made these cupcakes before, but the decoration is really what's key here. I'm bringing back the red velvet cupcake with KitKat frosting, which is always a hit. But this time I jazzed them up with the help of Party City.
That's right, I found Stanley Cup confetti for decoration! The baby Stanley Cups fit perfectly with the red flag toothpicks I found. Write your favorite team's name and boom. Welcome to the Stanley Cup(cake) Finals.
I think that Kik-Kats are kind of underrated. They're not usually the first thing people think of when you say candy bar but I realized it's the perfect mix of chocolate and crunch and good consistency for a frosting. I've also had requests for red velvet cake and instead of the normal cheesecake frosting I mixed it up with some crumbled kit-kats. Simple, but delicious.
I've done red velvet before - for Valentine's Day, how cliche! - and I wanted to mix it up. I did before by adding chopped up white chocolate and chocolate chips to the frosting and white chocolate chips in the batter but anyone can make a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. My creativity escaped and I've been thinking about what I can make with Kit-Kats and this was perfect. I LOOOVVEE Red Velvet and balancing it out with a buttery frosting with the milk chocolate from the Kit-Kats balanced it out pretty well.
I've got quite the knack for turning candy into cupcakes. Any more ideas??
Hallmark Holidays are good excuses to bake and Valentine's Day is no exception when it comes to themed sweets. I admit, I fall victim to the cliches but what can I say, they're tasty.
First what every cupcake tends to be in the month of February: Red Velvet.
I added chocolate chips to the batter for a surprise but the frosting is what I'm most proud of... I took the leftover red chocolate chips and chopped them up with some white chocolate chips to mix into the frosting.
And it's pretty epic... The white chocolate balances out the dark and the dark chocolate balances out the sweetness of the cream cheese in the frosting. And that combo balances out the richness of the cake.
I'm not finished yet! I'm on a constant quest to jazz up sugar cookies and the Valentine's theme was easy to go with. Found some red food coloring, made some white icing with heart sprinkles and voila!
Whether you're a fan of Valentine's Day or not, it's always a good excuse for a cookie or a cupcake ;). I should also apologize to my neighbors if I freaked them out by leaving cupcakes and cookies outside their doors.. I had too many!
