Homemade Funfetti

I'll spare you my usual diatribe about Funfetti. Suffice to say, while I can understand its appeal I don't feel it is a unique flavor.

A few weeks ago, I wanted to whip up some cupcakes for my husband's friends who were getting together to brew some beer. It probably didn't hurt that I was going to be hanging out with the wives, and wanted something to snack on.

Vanilla cupcakes are something that should be in your back pocket- a recipe you can customize by adding other flavors or ingredients (ie chocolate chips). I don't like making vanilla cupcakes. I feel like they never come out the way I want- they're always too dense for me.

At any rate, I used my current favorite vanilla cupcake recipe (Billy's Vanilla) and to jazz it up I mixed in rainbow sprinkles (jimmies- whatever you want to call them). I think I probably used about 1/2 cup of sprinkles (the recipe makes around 2 doz. cupcakes).

I topped the cupcakes with my favorite Vanilla frosting recipe (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World). If you haven't used this recipe yet, I could not recommend it more highly. I always make more than I need, so I can eat some directly from the mixing bowl later. In fact, I have some in my fridge right now (from a batch made last night), mmm. Where was I? Right, ok so then I topped the frosting with some rainbow nonpareils because I'd almost exhausted my sprinkle supply on the batter.

Viola! Homemade funfetti.

One housekeeping note: I know I've been very lax in my posting. To be honest, I haven't been doing that much baking or crafting recently. Work is typically very busy for me over the summer, then I went on a nice long vacation, and when I came home I learned I was pregnant. While I can't wait to meet this new little person, I haven't had the energy or the time to devote to baking and crafting that I did previously.

I am working on a number of crafted items for the Holidays, which I will photograph and blog after the recipients have opened their gifts. And, I hope to tackle some new cookies this weekend or next.

In short: even though I'm not posting as much, I'm still here and eating desserts!

Cake Truffles

Mmmm, cake.

But what do you do with all those left over cake bits after you level your cake and put it all together?

Cake truffles, my friends. Cake truffles.

If you haven't already visited Bakerella's website, go there now. I'll wait. Bakerella does amazing things with her leftover cake crumbs and pieces.

A few weeks ago I went to a dinner party with some friends. I offered to bring dessert because, well, it's what I do. I made minature chocolate cakes (with yummy orange swiss meringue frosting in the middle). I ended up with a LOT of cake bits left over. And I didn't want to waste them.

Viola, cake truffles. I've made these before (as Cupcake pops) and they are always a huge hit. You take your cake bits, mix them with frosting, and dunk in chocolate. That's it. It's easy, but time consuming- be forewarned. And it makes a lot.

The ones you see above are chocolate cake (my favorite Martha one-bowl recipe) with vanilla buttercream (also homemade) in both white chocolate and chocolate coatings. We like to keep them in the freezer in our house.

I bet once you eat one, you'll need to eat at least two more.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies
Originally uploaded by Cup O'Cake Designs

(Sorry for the not great picture quality. I'm working on getting a photo editing program installed on my home computer.)

I've been majorly busy recently with a few close friends getting married, which has led to more time out of my house than I care to think about.

Last week, there were two birthdays at my husband's office. I have become the unofficial cupcake supplier when it comes to birthdays in his office.

For Monday's birthday celebrant, I made an old favorite: Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. I had to improvise a bit and use finely ground candy canes instead of peppermint extract. Otherwise, it was a very routine day for baking.

Friday's birthday celebrant, however, was a bit more challenging. This coworker doesn't really care for cupcakes or cake. Luckily for me, by now most of my husband's office knows to expect cupcakes on their birthdays. That makes it much easier to figure out what kind of sweets to bake.

When I found out that the birthday celebrant liked peanut butter cookies, I was a little stumped. I must admit that I'm not really into peanut butter cookies. I checked around and find a nice simple recipe, with a twist. Dipping the cookies in chocolate.

I dipped half the cookies in chocolate (not knowing whether or not the birthday celebrant would want that), and then half of those went into sprinkles (for a festive look) and the other half into peanuts.

The cookies were a huge hit at the office. And, it's always nice to try something new.

Hi Hat Blackout Cupcakes in Ice Cream Cones

(click image to enlarge)

Oh man, when I saw the recipe for Hi Hat cupcakes on the Barmy Baker's blog, I knew I had to try it. I immediately wanted to make the cupcakes in ice cream cones because they reminded me of DQ soft serve cones.

Since this was going to be quite the project, I gave myself two days to accomplish it. I started with the Blackout Chocolate Cake recipe (though I used a different one than posted on that site, as I do not care for coffee).


Here are all my ingredients for the cupcakes lined up. The batter was really easy to put together- but bear in mind that I've been baking for a while and love to bake from scratch. I had 24 ice cream cones, and ended up making a double batch of the cupcake batter. That filled all 24 cones, as well as 6 cupcake wrappers. The batter was very thin.


I ended up baking the cupcakes for about 25 minutes. For the most part they came out fairly flat- though a few of the ones in the cones sort of imploded after cooling. I neglected to take any photos of the cupcakes after being baked.


I put the cupcakes in the fridge overnight, and made the meringue the next day. I got all of my ingredients ready to go and started boiling the water, sugar, cream of tartar, and corn syrup. Unfortunately, I don't think the burners on our stove go hot enough to really cook it into a nice candy mix. There was absolutely nothing I could do about that, so I just got it as hot as I could, and added it to the whipped egg whites.


Everything puffed up according to plan, but it definitely did not stiffen up the way a meringue should. There was really not much I could do here, so I thought maybe if I put the cupcakes in the fridge after piping on the meringue, it would help stiffen the mixture.


Here are my little cupcakes all covered in meringue and ready to go in the fridge. Piping the meringue on was really easy. I don't have any piping bags (because even though I say every other month that I want to take a Wilton cake class, I still haven't managed to do so- this summer, I swear), so I just used a freezer sized ziploc with the corner snipped off.

These went in the fridge for forty five minutes before I started making the chocolate coating. The coating was just melted chocolate with some veggie oil in it. I usually don't put any oil in my chocolate, but the recipe called for it. I'm not sure I'd do that again.

I heated the chocolate in the double boiler and turned the heat down before I started dipping. I started with the regular cupcakes, just to see how it went. The chocolate was so warm that it was melting the meringue. Well, to be honest, I think it was a combination of the heat of the chocolate and the non-stiffening of the meringue.

As the chocolate cooled, my meringue stayed in place. I did reheat the chocolate to get it melty again and that caused one of the meringue toppings to slide right off into the chocolate. I just scooped it up with the spoonula and put it back on top of the cupcake.

After dipping them in chocolate, I put the cupcakes on wire cooling racks (with waxed paper underneath) to drip and added the sprinkles. Once that was done, I loaded the cupcakes back into the fridge so the chocolate could harden.


Let me tell you, these are delightful to look at. Not as delightful? Trying to transport them. I have a cake/cupcake carrier and they were too tall. I ended up laying them on their sides for the trip to the party. It about killed me to do that, but that was the only option. As soon as we got to the party, I went and set them all up right and we left them on the porch until we were ready to eat them (it was chilly enough outside that I wasn't worried they would melt).

Even though the meringue didn't turn out as I would have liked, they tasted delicious and everyone enjoyed them. They were quite messy to eat- if the meringue had set up as anticipated I think it would have been much easier to handle.

If you try the recipe, just give yourself a LOT of time to make them. They are time consuming and a leave a mess in your kitchen. The compliments you get are worth all the effort.