Easter Egg Nest Cupcakes

I wanted to quickly share some Easter cupcakes that we had a chance to make during our crazy stay at Tremblant. Logan picked this recipe out of the Bulk Barn flyer a few weeks ago.  Like mother, like son, I guess ;)

Before I get to the recipe though, I just wanted to thank everyone for the outpouring of love I have received since my last post.  I have received many supportive phone calls and e-mails.  None of which I believe I have returned yet (though I will!).  I also wanted to give special thanks to Antonia, who was sweet enough to surprise me with a beautiful arrangement of flowers delivered to my door this afternoon:

Nothing better to brighten my day :)  Your kindness is more touching than I can put into words.

Also, I wanted to give a shout out to Anonymous, whose encouraging comment, "Sometimes, the achievement is not that you got anything done, but that you simply keep going" has been graved into my mind forever.  This is going to be my mantra when the going gets tough, as it has been this past little while.

I just wanted to touch base and say that, despite the desperation in my last post, we are managing.  I am intensely frustrated with our system that provides no help to families until things are so crucial that they are almost unsalvageable.  I do not at all feel that we are at that point.  But I also don't want to get there.  And as time goes on, I can see that our ability to cope with the everyday stressors of raising our little monkeys is diminishing.  I want help before I get to the place of being a mom who screams at her kids all day long, no matter what they do.  That is not who I am as a person and it is not the relationship I want to have with my little guys.  And I just want help to manage everything so that I do not turn into that type of a mom for them.

We are surviving and we do what we need to do to get by.  As my close friend, who dropped by unannounced the other day, saw, our house is often a complete disaster.  We eat hot dogs or plain pasta when we need to.  I barely post any recipes anymore (mostly because I don't even have time to cook) and I blog more to deal with the stress of what we are living these days.  So things are still somewhat manageable, even if they are intensely stressful.  I felt I needed to comment on this because I was surprised at how many people contacted me after my last post - I don't think anyone needs to be particularly worried about us.  Though thank you for your love, concern and support.

Now let's get on to some delicious Easter cupcakes.  Made from a box, of course, because my life these days leaves no time to make homemade gf cupcakes.  If you have a bit more time than I do, and aren't gf, I highly recommend my chocolate sour cream bundt cake instead.  Or for those who are gf and want a healthy option, my chocolate black bean cupcakes.

3/4 C unsalted butter (Earth balance for a dairy-free alternative)
4-6 C icing sugar, sifted
6 tbsp. milk (almond milk for a dairy-free alternative)
1 /2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 /2 C sweetened coconut flakes
Easter coloured jelly beans or Mini-Eggs
food colouring
cupcakes

1.  Using a mixer, beat the butter until creamy.  Add 2 C of icing sugar and beat at low speed until mixed.  Gradually increase the speed of the mixer until the mixture reaches a creamy consistency.

2.  Add the milk and the vanilla and beat.  Add the remaining icing sugar and beat until the icing is creamy and has a thick enough consistency to pipe, adding more icing sugar or milk, if necessary.  Add food colouring to the icing, if desired.

3.  Pipe the icing onto the cupcakes using a star shaped decorating tip. 

Mine totally flattened... I'm having such a hard time figuring out the right icing
consistency with this dairy-free butter!!  Good thing the coconut hid the icing ;)

4.  In a separate bowl, mix together the coconut flakes and food colouring (separate into several batches if you want to do different colours). 

5.  Sprinkle the coconut on top of the icing on the cupcakes.
 

6.  Place jelly beans or Mini eggs on the coconut flakes and enjoy.

Someone was more than dying to get into these as soon as they were ready.
 

After a first bite, he wasn't all too sure about the texture of the coconut.

But I guess the sweetness of the icing was enough to convince him to take a tentative second bite.

And from that point on, he was sold :)

Difficulty level: easy

Happy Easter everyone!
 

Cake Pop Tiered Cake Tutorial

My goodness... it's like I almost don't even have a blog anymore.  

I'll admit that now that I am working, life has pretty much taken over.  Leaving almost no time to cook or bake anything that hasn't already been made a million times before.  And even less time to blog.  Bear with me ;)  I will most certainly get the cooking bug back again one day (maybe when the kids turn 18???).

Before it gets too outdated though, I wanted to share a cake pop tutorial with you.  Remember this post here?  My little baby's first birthday party?  This was my first stab at cake pops and I wanted to share how to make them for all of you who were inspired to one day make cake pops.

While daydreaming up ideas for my baby's first party, I conjured up a beautiful fondant decorated cake in my head that I was going to make for her.  So off I went, testing gluten-free cakes, trying to find one that would be dense enough to hold fondant.  

And I failed.

Twice.

 

And then I just gave up.  I didn't have time to keep making failed cakes.  And really, we couldn't eat them faster than they were going bad, so it all just seemed like a waste.  

The cakes tasted good, but they were just too crumbly to make anything with.  So cake pops it was.  The best thing about cake pops is that it doesn't really matter if your cake is crumbly.  They still work.  

To make yourself a batch of cake pops, you basically just need some cooked cake and icing.  Plus, some sucker sticks, such as the ones you can find at Bulk Barn.  And then whatever decorations you want, such as different sparkles, etc.

In order to save some mass time at a super busy time in my life (I'd also just started back to work!), I opted to use Better Crocker's new chocolate gluten-free cake mix, which also just happens to be dairy-free.  I can't believe I am admitting to this in writing!  But it's a true story.  I then mixed in my peanut butter frosting, substituted with sunbutter instead, for all of the allergic folk at her party.

For the vanilla ones, I used this gluten-free recipe here.  I then just made a plain old buttercream, using this recipe.  Plus, I stirred in a bit of pina colada flavouring to make them that much yummier. 

For those lucky ones out there who are not gf and don't have their own favourite cake recipes, you could use my pound cake recipe or the chocolate cake that I made for Logan's first birthday to make these.

Though they are a little bit time intensive, cake pops are actually much easier to make than they look.  You basically just crumble an already baked cake into a bowl and then stir in some icing to moisten it.  You want to be sure to not mix in too much icing, so start slowly.  It's also best to mix with your hands, so you can get a real feel for how moist the mixture is.  You want it to be a texture that can be easily shaped into balls without it being mushy.  

Once you've got the perfect texture, you can start shaping the cake mixture into little balls.  I'd recommend not making them too big for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, because the bigger they are, the heavier they will be.  Hence, the higher the chances that they'll end up falling off of their sticks.  Secondly, and much more importantly, the smaller you make them, the more of them you will be able to eat before you start to feel sick ;)  Plus, the higher the chocolate to cake ratio, which is clearly also important.

When all of your balls are rolled, you can start melting your chocolate.  I used Enjoy Life's dairy-free chocolate chips, but any good tasting chocolate will do.  My original goal was to make a white chocolate (dyed pink) variety.  But I ended up scorching both batches, by heating it too quickly.  So I just gave up and stuck with regular chocolate.  You can melt your chocolate in the microwave or using a double boiler.  I always scorch chocolate in the microwave, so for me, the double boiler is best.  Unlike myself, be sure to not heat the water too hot or you will still end up with burnt chocolate...

di.sas.ter

Once the chocolate is melted, dip one end of the sucker stick into the chocolate and then put it into your cake pop.  Your cake pops will look best if you can avoid pushing the stick all the way through to the other side - at the same time, be sure to put it in far enough that you won't lose your cake pop.

When all sticks have been placed, you can put your cake pops into the freezer to harden.  This will make dipping them in chocolate much easier and will make the chocolate harden more quickly.  You can prepare your cake pops up until this step in advance.  I did mine about a week or so in advance and then left them in the freezer like this until the day before our party.  Just be sure you don't eat them all before you need them ;)

When you are ready to decorate your cake pops, prepare your decorations prior to coating your cake pops in chocolate.  Again, melt your chocolate using a double boiler.  Take the cake pops immediately from the freezer and dip into the melted chocolate.  Shake off excess chocolate by gently tapping the sucker stick on the edge of the pot.  If using sprinkles, you can dip the cake pop into the sprinkles immediately, or shake sprinkles over top.  

Then place upright into a small hole in a box to dry.  I used mostly diaper boxes, which I had pre-cut little holes into with a sharp knife.  This makes it much easier to slide the sucker sticks into the hole without ruining your beautiful cake pop.  Be sure to leave enough room between cake pops so that they don't end up touching.  Let the cake pops sit in a cool space (I used my unheated office) for several hours to set.  

My house became completely scattered with diaper boxes ladened with decorated cake pops:

If you're having any problems with your cake pops, you can check out this post here, which walks you through solutions to some of the most common cake pop issues.

Next comes the tricky part... assembling the cake.  This was much more difficult than I had thought.  I bought two cake dummies from Bulk Barn and assembled them using some royal icing, so that they wouldn't slip all over the place.  Once that had dried, I got to work trying to insert the cake pops into the styrofoam dummies.  Not so easy.  

I used an empty sucker stick to poke holes in the styrofoam in advance, but still kept cracking cake pop after cake pop.  And man, oh man, my hands were getting sore!!  I should have worn a thimble.  At one point, I got fed up and we even got out the drill to try to drill holes into the sides of the cake dummy.  But we sadly did not have the right sized bit.  So off I went, one by one, jamming those darned sucker sticks into an unrelenting styrofoam dummy.  I was still at it when my parents showed up at 11pm!!!   But I lived to tell and I was pretty impressed at how the cake looked in the end. 

Next time 'round, I'll be sure to have a proper sized drill bit and pre-drill all of the holes.  That should make it a cinch to put one of these together next time for all to enjoy.

So there you have it, folks.  Though this takes a bit of time to make and assemble, it's a relatively easy way to make a fairly impressive looking cake.

Difficulty level: moderate, but time consuming 

October Cake Club: Halloween Skeleton Treats

This month's cake club hands-on project was a cute little skeleton, made of a brownie, some yogurt covered pretzels and a marshmallow.  Easy peasy.  And super kid-friendly. 

 

 
If you're looking for something cute to make for a last-minute Halloween get-together, these are your guys.  If you use store-bought brownies, as we did at cake club, it will literally only take you minutes to put together a good sized batch.

my guy's face got a little beaten up on the drive home ;)

brownies (store-bought or homemade)
sucker sticks (you can purchase these at Bulk Barn) 
yogurt or white-chocolate covered pretzels
large marshmallows
black gel
toothpicks or a fine paintbrush (that you have OBVIOUSLY never actually painted with!!!)

1.  If using homemade brownies, cut them into rectangles.

2.  Place the sucker stick towards the back of the brownie.

3.  Pile the pretzels onto the sucker stick.

4.  Place the marshmallow on top.

5.  Dip the toothpick or paintbrush into the black gel.  Decorate the face on the skeleton, as in the picture below. 

Difficulty level: couldn't be easier if you tried.  I'm pretty sure that even little Logan could do these with his eyes shut.

I also wanted to share a few of the super cute cupcake decorations that they showed us during our meeting:

Happy Halloween everyone!  Let's cross our fingers that the rain holds off for some trick or treating!!

Taken from: Eek, Shriek and be Scary Halloween Party on the Wants and Wishes blog