Batter Up! Colourful Cupcakes!

It feels as though is has been raining non stop. Baseball games have been cancelled, shoes have gotten muddy...you know the drill.  Tonight the Boy and Hubby went to a concert and I got the evening to myself.  What did I do with my time to myself you ask? I baked cupcakes.  A friend's daughter is having her birthday party this weekend and they have asked me to bake the cupcakes so I wanted to play around with some colours in the batter.  I keep seeing these lovely multi-coloured and swirled cupcakes everywhere and it is high time I gave them a go.

Tonight I played with the colours of our favourite Major League Baseball team: The New York Mets! Orange and Blue were the colours of choice!!

So simple.

So easy.

So much fun.

Make your favourite white or vanilla cake batter. (Boxed cake mix is just fine)
Divide the batter into different bowls, one bowl per colour. Add a healthy dab of gel colouring (I used Wilton) and mix until the colour is well distributed.

Alternate colours into your cake pan or cupcake tins.

Swirl with a toothpick.

Bake as normal and allow to cool.

Mix up or favourite icing (or use a container of white icing)
Prepare an icing bag with a swirly type tip and paint the inside seams with gel colouring. I used a wooden skewer and that worked perfectly. Make sure to get more colouring than you think you will need into the seams.

Decorate!

The boys just came home from their concert and were giddy with joy about the Mets colours....

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.  (Stay dry)

Cake, Cake, and More Cake

Hi everyone! Is it really December 11 already? Oh my how time flies when you are busy. I think we are now officially past the busy birthday season in the Little Kitchen.  I have been making cakes this fall and it has kept me out of trouble...well almost out of trouble. :)

Since September, I have made 3 cakes for 3 special birthdays! My friend Allison's son had a birthday back in September. Her son is kind of like me and is a Star Wars nut soooooo he got this cake for his birthday:

I found some neat Yoda cakes online and did the best I could with what I knew I could do. I want to try this one again.

Then Nephew's birthday was last week.  He has been on a pirate bender so he asked for and got this:

For this pirate cake, I searched for pirate ship cakes online but ultimately did this one on the fly with my own drawings.

Today my friend John-Luke's son celebrated a birthday and being only 1 he loves Elmo so....

Full instructions on how to make the Elmo cake can be found here.


Well, I do hope to be able to make a post or two in the next little while but with this busy season, I make no guarantees.  In case a I miss the chance, I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season this year.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Busy But Fun Birthdays

 
Times just keep getting more and more exciting in the Little Kitchen! It was birthday weekend! Hubby and the Boy both celebrated their birthdays Saturday!!  Everyone had Friday off work and school so we spent the day roaming the city.  Partly due to the fact that we had no running water and partly because our day seemed to quickly fill up with appointments and opportunities. First we stopped at the CTV studios at 7:30am (thanks to Susie for setting that up for me) for a spot on their morning show, next we stopped at the sports injury clinic for an appointment and checked up on my stupid ankle which, by the way, is still being stupid. Third, we stopped at the Travel Health offices and the Boy got 4 needles divided between both arms...he is all vaccinated and ready for his exciting trip to Kenya on spring break.  After that we stopped at the book store, because at least they had running water. Our last stop of the day was the movie theatre to see the new Muppets Movie.  It was an awesome movie! We also stopped for a bite to eat somewhere along the way!  It really did feel like we had been out all day....oh wait, we had been out all day....

You see, I don't kid around about being busy!!

Saturday, we ran a few errands then came home as the Boy was having friends over.  Then I got myself into the kitchen, cranked the tunes, and starting baking.

I find all too often that I bookmark things from other blogs with the intent of trying things out and half the time I never get to them.  This cake recipe is one I knew I would make for birthday day. I found it on Brown Eyed Baker's blog and couldn't resist!  Michelle's recipe is for a bundt cake but I don't seem to have a bundt cake pan so I turned this moist cake into cupcakes and Marvel heads.  Why not? Here is the link to Michelle's post with the recipe.  I used it as is with the exception of the cake pans. The cupcakes took about 17 minutes at 325F and the marvel heads took about 22 minutes.

This cake smells sooooooo good while it is baking. I didn't want to wait for the birthday party. I was tempted to sit in the corner and eat the whole batch by myself.  Instead I opted to drink the rest of the rootbeer....

 Make this cake a day ahead if you can...the rootbeer flavour gets better as it sits!!!! It is actually quite an easy cake to put together and well worth the rootbeer!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.

Please Help Us Meet Cake Boss Buddy Valastro

Traditions can be fun, especially when they involve meeting someone you admire, or look up to, or they are a celebrity you follow.  I said follow, not stalk. There are laws you know!

Back in 2002, Trina and I met Martha Stewart. She was in town being honoured at a dinner by the Asper School of Business. We were fortunate enough to get to attend the dinner and meet the woman herself.  Why do I bring this up you ask? Well I ask because now Trina and I have the opportunity to meet Buddy Valastro, The Cake Boss himself!  We have both entered our cakes in the Bake Boss contest sponsored by Redpath Sugar on Facebook. 

You can help us out by going to the Redpath Sugar voting page and voting for our cakes! Trina and I are so hoping to continue this tradition and greatly appreciate your vote.

Since you will have to scroll through the cakes to find them, Trina's cake is the mermaid cake:

My cake is the Plants vs zombies cake:

Trina and I have been vying for votes and are now falling behind in the contest.  Please take a moment to go to the Redpath Sugar Voting page and vote for our cakes. 

Just imagine the fabulous post I can share after Trina and I meet Buddy Valastro!!

Thank you for voting!


Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Marvel-ous Zucchini Chocolate Cakettes

The season's first zucchini, fresh from the garden!

Bless me fellow bloggers for I have a confession to make....it wasn't a pretty sight......my Tupperware and other assorted containers got completely out of control!  I didn't know where to put them anymore.  It seems no one else knew where to put them either.  Lids and containers stood perilously on counters, fridge tops, and window sills.  The slightest of miscalculations in movements would cause a landslide of plastic container hell to come tumbling down.  It was unsightly, it was bothersome, it was not what the Little Kitchen needed.  Especially since I have been on holidays for a while....how did I let it come to this?

A small portion of the un matched and un used plastic explosion!!

 Too much time in the hammock? Too distracted by Cleo Coyle novels? Too many doctor appointments?  Who knows.  I think I have fixed it.....for now....as long as everyone else co operates...I mean there are only 3 of us in the house.  It must be the cats getting into the plastic containers messing them up and hiding lids....hmmmm.

Neatly stacked, lids stored

Lids!!!

Now that I have cleared away the clutter, it is time to de-stress with some baked goods!  These honestly made me giggle while baking...I am sure the boys assumed I was up to no good: they were right. I turned zucchini into chocolately cakey goodness.....it just so happens the cakes were in the shape of Marvel superheroes! (A special Thank you to my sister for picking these up at the Williams Sonoma when she was in Oklahoma City, OK!!!!!! According to the sales lady, it was the first day they had them and my sister snagged it up!! THANK YOU!)

Best Cake pan ever!!!

I can assure you that chocolate zucchini cake is a delectably moist and chocolately cake, you won't taste the zucchini at all, just chocolatey cakey goodness!



Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Printable version

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup oil
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk soured with 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups zucchini, grated (or shredded)
3/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)


Pre heat oven to 350F



In a bowl and set aside until ready to use, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a bowl and a hand mixer, or in a bowl with a wooden spoon and some elbow grease....) cream together the butter, oil, and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time until mixed in.  Mix in the vanilla and butter milk.  Keep the mixer going for a few minutes on medium low until the mixture is a nice pale yellowish colour.

Now find the bowl you set aside with the dry ingredients and add it all to the mixing bowl.  Mix until well combined.

Add in the zucchini and the chocolate chips, and once again mix to combine.

Now scoop the batter into a pan that has been greased and floured or muffin tins with liners.


This pan takes 1/2 cup of batter per form.

Make sure the batter gets into all the nooks (ears) and crannies!

Bake cupcakes for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
With this pan, I give it a shimmy shake to make sure the cakes are loose.  After a 10 to 15 minute rest, flip them out onto a rack to cool.

Oh Thor, you are so handsome!!!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Plants vs Zombies Cake

Today was a great day! The sun was shining, I got to spend some time in the garden, and I delivered the Plants vs. Zombies cake!! This cake was so much fun to make. I even found myself giggling as the characters came together.  I really don't have pictures or directions for the characters but I made them from fondant (marshmallow fondant)  and basically just played around until I got what I thought looked great.  I also had lots of 'artistic direction' from the Boy and Hubby as they play this game and know more about the characters than I do.
The cake is my favourite devil's food cake recipe and the rest is just a lot of fun!  I hope the birthday boy enjoyed his cake!

Here are the characters I made to put on the cake.

Here's the cake for the characters to rest on!

And the cake all put together!!

Sooooo much fun!!

Rain, Rain Go Away...

It has been raining ALL WEEK!!!! We really don't need any more water here.  The flooding situation is still pretty tense here on the prairies. So tense in fact the Government is considering an intentional dike breach in order to save a town....say what? CBC explains here.  For some amazing aerial photos of the water situation on the prairies, click here.  My best thoughts and wishes go out to everyone affected by the flooding as well as the farmers and property owners whose land will be flooded my this measure...I would not want to be the one making this type of decision, that's for sure.

I have been planned and working on a cake for this weekend.  So that post will come later this weekend.  What? I can't unveil the cake before the party!

In the meantime cake scraps and leftover icing makes for a tasty snack!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.