THINK PINK!

This will be a pretty short post. Today, I planned out the weekly specials for the last two weeks in October and I wanted to let the folks who read my blog know about next week's special. The special is THINK PINK! We are offering a dozen of any flavor cupcakes and 10% of the purchase will be donated to the Susan G. Komen foundation. October is breast cancer awareness month and K.B.'s wants to do as much as we can to help raise awareness. If you would like to order, let me know. What could be better than cute pink cupcakes that support a good cause?

Fall Fruit Festival

Strawberry Pucker

More pumpkin spice

Vanilla with rum frosting


Chocolate cherry

What a great weekend this has been! We ended up having a nice, relaxing weekend with family after a crazy week! K.B's did 19 dozen cupcakes this past week and amidst that we had car trouble which put the cupcake making schedule off. I ended up doing 15 dozen of the cupcakes from start to finish in one day. It was a long day! I know for most bakeries, 19 dozen is nothing but for a operation with one oven and one girl, that's a lot of baking. I am definitely not complaining! I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, I could have done without the car trouble but that's neither here nor there.

For some reason, Fall gets me really excited about fruit. I want to eat apples with every meal. Have any of you had Asian pears? If you haven't, go to your local grocery store, buy one and come back and tell me how much you loved it. They sell them at Costco and my girls and I go through at least a case per week. Yeah, they're that good. Anyway, I have never baked with them. I don't even know if they would be any good for baking but I do know they are delicious to snack on.

I do know some other fruits that are fantastic to bake with and that gave me my idea for the weekly special for the sweet shoppe. I am doing a Fall Fruit Festival!! This week I am offering a half dozen of various fruit flavors (up to 2 flavors per half dozen). The flavors are: peach cobbler, caramel apple, cinnamon crumb, cranberry spice and chocolate cherry. If you know anyone in need of fruity cupcakes this week, I am their gal. Well, I suppose I had better get going. I will leave you with this question for today...what is your favorite fruit to snack on and what is your favorite fruit to bake with?

An apple a day...

Chocolate whoopie pie with mint cream

Pumpkin Spice

Peppermint Patty

So many cookies!!

How about 20 pounds of apples a day?? No, I am not going to eat 20 pounds of apples. The special for K.B.'s Sweet Shoppe this week is a dozen cupcakes with a free jar of apple butter. With more than 15 dozen cupcakes to make and 7 orders for apple butter only...well, you can see that means a lot of apple butter! It takes 12+ hours to cook but it is delicious and the smell in the house is heavenly!! With all this talk of apple butter, I may just have to keep some for myself!

I have been toying with some new flavor ideas lately. There was a pumpkin shortage for Libby's last season and that meant no pumpkin. Most local grocery stores are still not carrying canned pumpkin. However, I have found that Trader Joe's sells their own brand at a reasonable price so the pumpkin is flowing for the sweet shoppe. I have come up with a couple of new flavors that include pumpkin. I also tried a new cookie flavor: cranberry and white chocolate chip. I am not a big cranberry person myself, but I thought the cookies were very good! Some of my Facebook followers have suggested a couple of new flavors for me to try and I am hoping to get some time in the next couple of weeks to come up with a recipe for some of the ideas. What about you? Any flavors or specials you would like to see?

I will leave you with this. The next two weeks, my oldest daughter will be out of preschool for Fall break. Today, we were talking about different activities we want to do while she is on break. We came up with many ideas but her top priority is to make a pumpkin pie. With all of my baking, I have never made a pumpkin pie. Any tips? Also, share with me. What are some Fall inspired activities you will be doing? Thanks for reading. Have a good night!

Birthdays!!

Girly birthday cupcakes
Chocolate fudge cake, chocolate cream filling, mint buttercream

My take on bananas foster

Banana split in cupcake form

The Elvis

Well, the banana blitz is over. I posted some pictures of the flavors I did. I have to say that I was not completely pleased with how the fillings came out. It was the first time I had filled this particular type of cake and it was challenging. The cake was good but it was pretty dense so the filling did not "fill"quite as well as I had hoped. Either way, I do think they turned out pretty well and I am working on ideas for fixing the filling issue for the next time I make them.

Right now, I am working on a couple of birthday orders. I really like doing birthday orders the most. It's fun to be able to personalize things. Today, it was cupcakes for a little girl who LOVES pink and purple. I had a lot of fun making them very girly. Tomorrow, I am doing a cinnamon crumb cake for my sister-in-law's birthday. It is one of my favorite cakes to make and a fan favorite. Later this week, I have a layered birthday cake and some cupcakes for a 10 year old girl's birthday. I am hoping to make a trip to a bakery supply store this week that I hear carries Disco Dust. I have been coveting the disco dust for awhile now and I think it's time I get some for myself. I have been dying to try it out! Disco dust is super fine edible, sparkly glitter. What could be better than glitter for a girly birthday cake? Nothing, I say. Nothing.

I have a new flavor I want to try very soon. I am going to call it Strawberry Pucker. It will be lemon cake, strawberry filling and lemon buttercream. Of course, I will have to finish it off with Disco Dust :) I probably won't be able to try it this week though. We are headed to Disneyland on Friday. I know, poor me :) I am also wanting to get to work on some new Fall flavor combinations and bake up some cookies. Just your classics...chocolate chip, whoopie pies, sugar cookies. Simple is good when it comes to cookies, I think. Nothing says Fall like a batch of cookies in the oven. I just wish it wasn't 106 degrees outside. It might help me to be in the right mindset. Oh well, I guess I can just crank down the AC, close the blinds and pretend it's cold and rainy outside. A girl can dream, can't she?

Well, I had better be going. I have cupcakes to frost tonight. My family is from Ohio and most of us are Ohio State fans (except those backsliding Michigan fans). I thought I should do a cupcake to support our team and a delicious candy we make in Ohio, the Buckeye. I will post pictures when I finish them. For now, I will leave you all to your weekend plans. Feel free to comment or leave feedback...I would love it!

Diaper cakes

We are halfway through the week and the madness begins tomorrow. Tomorrow, the banana blitz cupcake making begins and I start my orders for the weekend as well. There are still a few more hours to get in orders if anyone reading is interested.

My post today is more for my own amusement than anything else. First off, the grilled cheese debate has been decided by a combination of Rachael Ray and DirectTV. I would just like to say...I win!! My girls were upstairs and I was cleaning up in the kitchen and it was quiet. I thought it would be a good time to turn on the TV and see what Rachael Ray was cooking up. This is super rare. There is very rarely a non-kids show on our television. Anyway, I digress...it had to be fate because she was cooking up, what else? Grilled cheese! She was cooking up 6 different sandwiches and throwing all kinds of things into those sammies. She still called them grilled cheese! Imagine that...I dare you to call Rachael Ray a liar! (P.S. The description on DirectTV called them grilled cheese also)

My second topic for today is the diaper cake. No, I am not going to try my hand at making them for 2 reasons. 1) I think they are a little silly and 2) I just don't think I could even do it. Anyway, my brother comes over to workout yesterday and walks right to my computer and says in a panicked tone, "I have to look up this website I saw on the back of this lady's car. I am so confused!" I asked him what it said and it said "Diaper Cakes by Stephanie". He was so baffled and disgusted and I started laughing because, of course, I knew what he was talking about right away. Any girl who has been to a baby shower recently knows what they are. This conversation led to a lengthy one at dinner between Kyle, Casey and me. I had to spend some time explaining the diaper cake idea to them and they had to spend a LONG time telling my why that was the dumbest thing they had ever heard. So...what's your take on the diaper cake?

Time for me to go. Bella has her first night of Club L3 at church tonight. She is pretty excited to hang out with the big kids in the gym. Have a good night, everyone!

Going bananas!!

Chocolate fudge cake with champagne buttercream

Lemon cake topped with raspberry and buttercream

More lemon raspberry

The Mocha

Red Velvet topped with champagne buttercream

Well, no fondant this weekend. I didn't end up having enough time for it to set to allow me to work with it so I opted for royal icing instead. I think I really like working with royal icing. I had a baby shower for a new customer this weekend and she wanted baseball, basketball and football cupcake toppers which you can see pictured on this post. The colors were navy blue and red and I think they came out pretty darn cute! Bella watched me pipe all of the balls and kept saying, "Mom, I think your customer is going to love these!" (Heavy emphasis on the "love" part) I think it always helps to have a really cute cheer section in your corner when you are dealing with cupcakes, don't you?

This week I am all about bananas...hence, the title. I am doing my usual 6 pack offer with all banana based flavors this week. The first flavor is the Elvis: banana cake, peanut butter cream filling and chocolate frosting. I don't recall Elvis' creation including chocolate but a cupcake has to have frosting, right? I think the King would approve. The next flavor is Bananas Foster: banana cake, caramel filling and rum frosting. The final flavor, and my husband's personal favorite, is the Banana Split: banana cake, strawberry filling and buttercream with a touch of chocolate ganache. Yum!!

Well, I think it's time for me to go. I will leave you all (or maybe just the 2 faithful readers I have...spread the word, folks) with this debate. This is a hot debate in my house right now...drumroll please...when is a grilled cheese no longer a grilled cheese? Kyle and I think it's a grilled cheese even if you add something to it. My brother (who dines with us most nights) thinks once you add something besides just the cheese, you have to call it something else. Thoughts? Let's settle this hot debate! My thoughts...I made the sandwich, I can call it whatever I want :) Have a good night, everyone!

Busier than I thought!

My little helper

Pumpkin spice cupcakes with brown sugar buttercream


Cinnarum


Cocoa Banana

I am sitting here typing when I should be baking!! I am going to be very busy with orders again this weekend and I could not be more excited. I will be doing cupcakes for a baby shower on Saturday, a couple of grandparent's day orders and I thought I would sell my overflow of cupcakes from these orders and that far exceeded my expectations. The flavors for this weekend are pumpkin spice, chocolate champagne, red velvet and lemon raspberry. This isn't going to give me time to work on the new flavors I have been dreaming up but there is always next weekend.

Some of the cupcakes I am doing for this weekend are pumpkin flavored which just gets me all excited for Fall! Nothing makes your house smell better than something "Fallish" in your oven! While I am feeling inspired for the season, I think I am going to try my hand at some fondant shapes. I have tried fondant in the past and I was not overly thrilled with it. However, I have high hopes this time. I am going to start small with some leaves as toppers for my pumpkin cupcakes. I found a new fondant recipe that uses marshmallows which sounds good to me. Who doesn't love marshmallows?? Anyway, wish me luck with that!

I guess I had better be going. 9 dozen cupcakes by Friday morning is a lot and then you add a 4 and a 2 year old to the mix and look out!! I hope everyone is having a great day! Before I go though, today is grocery list and meal planning day. It is actually one of my favorite things to do during the week...don't judge, I realize it is sort of sad. This week, I am drawing a blank...any dinner ideas for me? Have a great day, everyone!