We had a great time in Burlington, VT, even tho it rained pretty much all the time...we went to the Lake Champlain Chocolate place near Stowe that is hooked up to the Cabot Cheese store...do I have to say it out loud that this trip was all about food? Sunday night we went to the New England Culinary Institute (everone there calls it neci) restaurant, NECI Commons, for dinner. It was pretty good and very reasonable...(although it did lead to nightmares for one of our group (but I can't go into here)...hmmmm. The next morning (fully recovered from the night before), we ate breakfast at this cute place (highly recommended) called Penny Cluse Cafe which is named after a dog...which is okay with me, I love dogs.
This is a photo of the only cupcakes I could find in Burlington...and these actually turned out to be mini-cheesecakes...They are from the City Market Coop (yup...another food place...sigh) . It was a cool place and I bought some stuff for my cupcakes there, including, genuine Pure Vermont Maple Syrup, genuine Pure Vermont Maple Candy, homemade looking chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. I don't think cupcakes have discovered Burlington, VT yet...
And so, to my cupcakes. When I got home, I took Layla to a dog training lesson with our trainer, Rachel Jones, who owns K-9 Divine. She's so cool! When I got back home again, I conjured up some basic vanilla cupcakes so that I would have time to dedicate myself to the maple frosting I decided to make: Julie Hasson's 125 Best Cupcake Recipes Maple Buttercream Frosting. [Did you know that Julie Hasson commented on this site last week?] I did embellish it with my addition of genuine Vermont Maple Syrup and then I crushed up all of my genuine Vermont Maple Candy and threw that in, too. It was great, it left tiny chips of Maple candy in the frosting. Afterward, I decorated some of the cupcakes with the chocolate and white chocolate chips.
Comment from one taster: It tastes like I'm eating pancakes with maple syrup...yummm! Recipe later today.
Week 24: Vanilla Cupcakes with Vermont Maple Frosting
Headin' to Vermont!
[Note to Turner Krew and that other special cupcake group in Main Admin: No cupcakes Monday...they will appear Tuesday morning]
I 'm going to Vermont for three days starting tomorrow. So, just to to get into the feeling for the trip, I went to google and typed in Vermont cupcakes and this photo came up. They look pretty good, don't you think? Now I feel a little bit better about not being able to bake cupcakes on Sunday......
I do plan to look for cupcakes along with admiring the foliage (what is foliage, anyway?) in Vermont. I even found this cool flash "Vermont foliage" map thinggie. I'm going to Burlington, actually. My niece goes to the University of Vermont.
This does mean, however, that I won't get to make my Week 24 cupcakes until Monday evening. hmmmm, cupcakes...vermont...cupcakes....vermont...definitely a hard choice to miss that Sunday baking spree...but I don't think I can work it out at the local Holiday Inn! I'd have to bring my cupcake baking junk with me on flyI...and my mixer, apron, and, don't forget the spatula.
I guess will just have to eat...I mean, conduct some cupcake taste tests while I'm there! I'll let you know how it goes....
Week 23: Wellesley Fudge Cupcakes with Fudge Frosting
In 1898, two Wellesley graduates spotted an intriguing recipe for chocolate fudge cake in a Boston newspaper. Supposedly, they used Baker's baking chocolate for its unique richness. Apparently, Baker's had already been making fine chocolate for 135 years. The graduates made the cake for the Wellesley Tea Room. And this simple, incredibly fudgy cake has been famous ever since. The cupcakes, an offshoot of the famous cake, really do taste like fudge! I made them a bit smaller because I knew they would be very rich...which they are...so while this recipe is for a dozen, you actually can get 15 of them. They were easy to make and so was the frosting. The recipe is from Linda West Eckhardt's Cakes From Scratch in Half the Time.
The fun part was the "little people" decorating. I saw this idea on a french web site that is actually about artistic photography. It's called "minimiam." The site is all flash and very cool. I wanted to try this so I went to the local hobby store and started looking around for some "little people." I found the HO sized peeps and brought them home and the fun began!
However, the little people were very hard to photograph!
Download recipe: PDF
Donna Hay "Patty Cakes"
This photo is from Donna Hay's book called The New Cook. I may have mentioned that I only buy books that have cupcakes in them...I found a couple of cool recipes...and very nice photographs...in this book so I bought it.
So, here's my question: Has anybody ever seen these cupcake liners anywhere? They look so cool and have some printing on them that you really can't read, but part of one word looks like ...cuits...which could be biscuits?? Then, there's the beginning of another word...bour...which could be bourbon?? Dunno. But, I was thinking that since Donna Hay is Australian-based, maybe someone from Australia could help me out. Also, are cupcakes called Patty Cakes?
They Bake Up to 800 Cupcakes a Week by Themselves!
Cool story from the Hampstead and Highgate Express in London--Lifestyle: Selling like Hot Cakes
PRIMROSE Hill mums Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas can often be found whipping up a Victoria sponge at midnight.
The two friends are not only domestic goddesses but savvy businesswomen, who run a cake-making business from their own kitchens.
In just nine months, Primrose Bakery has supplied its pretty cup cakes and sponges to a range of clients - from a Kate Moss modelling shoot to the crew for rock band U2.
Martha, 36, and Lisa, 38, met when their eldest children were pupils at St Mark's nursery in St Mark's Square.
Read more here>
Ahhh...Cupcake Liners!
Some of you noticed the brown cupcake liners I used in my last batch of cupcakes. I'm always looking for some different kind of cupcake liner. I wish they had some with polka dots or wide stripes. Cool ones, you know? During my searching on the internet, I came across these brown and red ones from a company in Troy, New York. 
It's called Confectionery House. It has lots of cool stuff but these liners are the ultimate. I ordered some and they came right away, just in time for the apple cupcakes! This link takes you right to the brown and red cupcake liners! Enjoy...
Week 22: Granny Smith Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Icing
Today we got back from a few days at Bethany Beach. The weather was two extremes...90 on Friday and 70s on Saturday...but blustery and dark....the ocean was violent...it was almost fall-like. Then today we stopped at Elmer's Vegetable Stand on the way home and bought a pumpkin! This all put me in the mood for something fallish. I came home and broke out the cupcake books and found "Apple Cupcakes" and "Caramel Icing" in Sara Neumeir's Cupcakes Year-Round....mmmmm.
The cupcakes were easy to make...the longest task was dicing the apples. The cupcakes turned out so moist and made the whole house smell like fall. The caramel icing was the perfect match...especially with the Grannie Smith apples. The little bumps on top are actually pits of apple showing through the caramel. It took quite a while to make the caramel, because you have to boil it to 240 degrees and then wait until it goes down to 110 degrees before you can add the final ingredient...unsalted butter.
The caramel does take a long time, but the end result was four thumbs up from the tasting group of four at dinner tonight.
Download recipes here PDF
Week 21: Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
The other night I made another $100 visit to my favorite Barnes and Noble to check out anything possible dealing with my obsession: cupcakes...found More from Magnolia, Donna Hay's, the new cook and, in the magazine section, the donna hay magazine kids issue I had read about...which all have cupcake reciples.
I decided to try my hand at the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe, which turned out really well. The recipe was very easy to make. It's the first one I've done that called for both all purpose flour and self-rising flour...interesting. I frosted the cupcakes in three colors: pink, blue and green and added some cute little things. 
All in all, very fun to make and decorate! Layla liked them, too. Recipe is here.
