60th Anniversary Cupcakes!

For my grandparents' 60th Anniversary, I wanted to do some kind of dessert that represented their interests. Unfortunately, I had to work the day before the party, so I didn't get to do as much as I wanted to, but I still think they came out pretty cool!

THE CUPCAKE:

I wanted the cupcake to center around wine and berries, because my grandpa is into gardening and wine making. The recipe I came up with was white cupcakes infused with a sweet wine, filled with a wine berry compote, and topped with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting.

The cake was moist; the filling, which was made of wine, raspberries, and blackberries, was tart; and the frosting was thick and sweet.

THE DECORATING:

I used an idea from "What's New, Cupcake" to make knitting cupcakes for my grandma, who loves to knit. However, I could not find any kind of cupcakes decorated with gardening or wine bottles anywhere online.

First, my mom and I made fondant from scratch. We decided that it would look cool if we shaped twinkies like wine bottles and covered them in purple fondant and white fondant labels. Well, they looked okay... until I put one on top of a cupcake and realized that they were ridiculously large for cupcake toppers.

So we started over and made miniature fondant wine bottles instead. Fondant was not nearly as easy and fun to work with as I had imagined!

The knitting cupcakes were decorated with blue frosting and pocky sticks for the needles.

Here they are! Enjoy!

KNITTING CUPCAKES:

WINE BOTTLE CUPCAKES:

Red, White, and Blue Beignets!

While watching The Princess and the Frog, I couldn't stop looking at the delicious desserts that Tiana served up at the restaurant. They were deep fried and covered in powdered sugar; two things that add up to a great dessert! Here is a picture from the movie where Tiana makes those amazing looking desserts:

After doing some research, I learned that the doughy desserts that Tiana was making are beignets (pronounced ben-YAY). Beignets are popular in the French Quarter of New Orleans, as they are pretty much the French version of a doughnut.

I wanted to modify my beignets a little by adding fruit and cream cheese topping. I ended up creating three different sauces for my beignets: strawberry compote, blueberry compote, and cinnamon brown sugar cream cheese.

Here are the fresh fruits I used for the compotes:

Frying up the beignets:

Here is a close-up of the doughy, powdery beignet pile!

And here are the beignets with the different toppings:

Enjoy!

Older Desserts

Because I just started this, I will attach some of my older recipes!

1. Here are my meringue cupcakes filled with creme fraiche and berry compote (courtesy of Martha Stewart cupcakes). These took 3 HOURS to bake! They were very yummy though and worth the wait.

2. Here are mini dark chocolate salted-caramel cupcakes (courtesy of Martha Stewart cupcakes). They are dark chocolate filled with a delicious salty caramel filling and topped with a dark chocolate frosting.

3. These are a variation of Martha Stewart's

Lemon Meringue

cupcakes. My family

prefers key lime to

lemon meringue, so I

substituted lime curd

for lemon. They are

lime flavored cupcakes topped with lime curd, browned meringue

frosting, and lime zest. They were really light and delicious!

4. These are mini raspberry cheesecakes topped with fresh raspberries (courtesy of Martha Stewart). They were pretty tasty, and I'm sure would have been even tastier had I used the right amount of cream cheese!

5. These are a combination of recipes. For my sister's wedding shower, she wanted blueberry cupcakes with buttercream frosting. I used Martha Stewart's blueberry cupcake recipe, and then added a basic buttercream on top tinted to be the colors of her wedding. They are in cute flower cupcake liners and topped with edible pearls.