Creative Tuesday: Ideal Coffee Break

It's Creative Tuesday and I'm grateful for that.

This week was particularly special as I really needed the excuse to pause my worries and sit down with my pad and watercolors and create for the theme over at Mr. Toast's Creative Tuesday's assignment!

Here is a quick peak at my desk as I started.  Messy, yet inspiring.  And it's a little strange because there were no less than three times that the power went off and came back on while I worked (at times by candlelight).

This week's theme is Ideal Coffee Break!  Why so challenging?? 

Yes, I drink coffee.  In fact, I have a mug of it every morning.  But coffee for me right now is associated with driving to work in my car and I don't think I will be drawing that.  So, I let my mind wander back to college days when I would shuffle off to the book store, buy a cup of coffee and daydream in a big comfy chair.

My ideal break has an orange mug filled with coffee that has a little sugar and milk.  A pink frosted cupcake and my favorite idea pad accompanied by a nice sharp pencil.  Here is a look at the whole design!

Finished piece on my desk.

And here is a scanned version.  Although I realize now that the watercolor pad that I got is bigger than the scanner, so that colors got a little weird in this one.

I hope you consider joining in this or the next assignment (really hope you do) and please take a look other artists in the community here.   

The adventure has just begun!

On this day, two years ago, I married my best friend.

It was a 60 degree November day in NY.  The rain had stopped.  This mysterious fog had set in.  I put on a wedding dress and tied an orange ribbon around a bouquet of white roses.  As I walked down the spiral stair case I got to see my Mr. Happy smile ear to ear.  I think it was a moment where we were both realizing that today was the day we would marry each other.

We drove together, to one of our favorite hiking spots, talking the whole way about whether or not we were nervous or excited.  I was initially a bit nervous, but found the whole thing very calming, very natural.  We met the minister at the hiking spot.  Katie was all ready to go as our flower girl.  Our families arrived shortly after. 

We started the ceremony right before noon.  It was short and simple, but infused with words that held a lot of meaning for us.  Rings were exchanged and we were read this final blessing...

Old Apache Blessing (Author unknown)

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other.  Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.  Now there is no loneliness.  You are two bodies, but there is one life before you, and one home.  You will take each others hand and you’ll turn together to look at the road you traveled to reach this---the hour of your happiness.  It stretches behind you and the future lies ahead.  A long and winding road, whose every turn means discovery, old hopes, new laughter and shared tears.  May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years, May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.  The adventure has just begun!

Then came the moment where we shared our first kiss as husband and wife.  (and yes those titles still sound funny!)

Once the ceremony was through, we both had the biggest smiles on our faces.  I like to remember that moment.  I hope we can always be those two crazy in love happy's! 

We celebrated the rest of the day with cupcakes, dinner, and lots of merriment!

And they lived happily ever after!!

Mr. Happy, I love you so much.  I am so proud of all we have been able to accomplish together and feel like the luckiest girl to share my life with you. 

XOXO XOXO XOXO

Last year's anniversary thoughts and more wedding details can be found here.

Spicy Caramel Buttercream Frosting

Ok, so as if we haven't eaten enough Halloween candy... here are the general steps to make the homemade frosting I whipped up for the apple cupcakes I shared here and here.

I say general, because I had a specific taste in mind and didn't find a recipe to follow -- and that means I made a lot of it up as I went along.  I was also making a very large batch of frosting for 3 batches of cupcakes (biggies and mini's), so I haven't scaled this down yet for one dozen cupcakes. 

If you give this a try I would be very interested to see what variations you make and the results!!  Let's dig in!

I stared with pre-made (store bought) caramels and unwrapped a whole bunch -- the more you use the more caramel flavor you will add.  If you were really feeling ambitious, homemade caramel would work too!

I popped a bunch of caramels in the microwave to melt them 10 seconds at a time -- stirring in between each zap -- until I got a gooey sauce like this.

While the caramels were melting I put 2 sticks of unsalted room temperature butter in the mixer with a bunch of powdered sugar.  I let this mix and kept adding powdered sugar until the butter looked consistently mixed and had stiffened a bit.

I then tried to just add the caramel to the butter.... didn't work.... the caramel cooled too quickly as it hit the metal bowl, hardened and made all the drippy mess that you see on the sides of the bowl. 

This is part of the fun of experimenting, right?!!

With that not working, I decided to add a little bit of apple cider and vanilla extract to the melted caramel to loosen it up a bit.  And then I ended up also adding a small amount (2-3 tablespoons) of the sugar-butter mixture to the caramel goo to keep it from hardening.  And it worked! 

I did mix in more of the sugar-butter just to make sure the caramel was really softening.  Then, it looked like this... a little bit lighter in color and a little more soupy.

Next, I was ready to incorporate the caramel into the remaining sugar-butter.

Gave it a good whizz in the mixer.  Don't you love mixer in action pictures!!  I know I do!

I also added spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper... add to your liking.

When you step back and take a peak at how I roll in the kitchen you can see I'm all over the place!  Lots of things out, using a lot of counter space, and happy happy as a clam!!

When I picked up the paddle and the frosting started to look like it does below; I knew we were there!  Not too thick that I can't pipe it.  Not too thin that it would run off the cupcakes.  Just right.  It's neat how the caramel gave a bit more of a goo-texture to the buttercream.  That's buttacream -mmmm!

This turned out to be a tasty experiment!

I put the frosting in a big plastic zippy bag (in lieu of a real piping bag) using this measuring cup to help support the effort.  Cut off a very small part of one of the corners of the bag and start frosting.

I made swirls since I knew I could do a ton of swirls rather quickly.

Yum!  I love how you can see the black pepper and cinnamon flecks in the frosting!

More yum!  I enjoyed mixing and matching cupcake liners for a more festive presentation!

A peak at my display for the actual competition!!

I felt really good about this effort! 

And I received so so so so many compliments on the cupcakes.  The judges did their thing and I didn't end up placing, but hey... I had fun, made people smile, and got to spend quality 'cooking with Katie' time in the kitchen -- and that's all that matters!

What goodies have you experimented with lately?

I am also linking to the Creative Juices linky party over at These Creative Juices... hosted by the lovely Beckie!  Check out the other creatives there!!

Spiced Caramel Apple Cupcakes

I am so happy with how these cupcakes turned out!!

More details about the crazy caramel frosting and snaps later! -- general steps for creating this frosting can now be found here.

Apple Bake Challenge Cupcakes

Yup, like the title suggests I entered an Apple baking challenge!  It's really a cooking with apples challenge, but you get the point.  For my entry I decided to go with an apple spiced cupcake.  You know I can't resist a reason to make cupcakes!

I have made this recipe a few times now but more recently I made them this weekend as a trial run and then I made my big batch of the cakes last night.  These snaps are a mix from those two baking sessions.

I started by peeling and dicing a bazillion apples.  Not really a bazillion... it's actually only 1 cup of diced apples for 12 regular sized cupcakes.  Pretty reasonable in my book. 

I know it only called for 1 cup, but I thought a heaping cup made more sense!

In the mixer I creamed 1/2 cup of white sugar, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature.  I really like how this cupcake 'feels' more healthy overall -- you will see what I mean in a minute!

Then I created a mix of the dry ingredients: 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder and baking soda,  1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (I may have added a bit more), and 1/8 a teaspoon of nutmeg and cloves.

I added 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the butter-sugar mixture, then 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mixed it up.

Then you add my favorite part... 3/4 cup of homemade strawberry applesauce (healthy!) that I showed you here as Straw-pple Sauce.  The recipe called for regular applesauce, but I liked the twist! 

Add the remaining dry ingredients.  And lastly fold in the chopped apples.

This is the batch from Saturday.  So pretty as the rough chunks of apples stick out of the cupcake liners!

As, yes the batter tastes as good as it looks.  The cinnamon and apple flavors really stick out!  Can you see all those cinnamon flecks!!

This is a snap of the triple batch I made last night.  I seriously think this is the most I have ever had in my mixer bowl at one time.  It's a light batter thought.  As soon as the mix is together the chemical process takes over quickly and adds a lot of air to the dough!

One change I made last night was to tuck a small piece of caramel in the center of each uncooked cupcake as a sweet surprise once you bite into it!

I was making both regular and mini cuppies last night.  I think the mini's will be a real crowd pleaser as the crowd gets to sample and pick their favorite dish!

Batch after batch I popped cupcakes in the oven.

And yes, I am going to leave this hang right here.  I am whipping up spiced caramel butter cream frosting tonight and decorating all bazillion cupcakes.  I will be sure to take a ton of photos and see if I can't get a few on here pronto. 

Till then, I leave you with the smell of baking apples and cinnamon in your nose and the thought of biting in to fluffy moist cupcakes!  I'm a stinker... ain't I?

You've Got to Smile

"When you look at a cupcake, you've got to smile"

-- Anne Byrn, award-winning cake baker!

I was looking through my draft blog entries this morning and found these cupcake pictures just begging to be posted!  I still in shock that I haven't put these up yet!!

These are the Cocoa-Strawberry Cuppies that I made for my birthday (two weeks ago -- where has time gone?)

I took a chocolate base and made it more rich by adding extra cocoa and a pinch or five of cayenne pepper.

Then I topped these sweet delights with a homemade strawberry buttercream. 

I didn't follow any specific directions. Or rather, I didn't follow them well.

My buttercream ended up being a little more runny than I had hope, but it was jam packed with flavor and real bits of little diced strawberries!  Not bad for only the second time of making homemade buttercream.

A blueberry made the perfect topper to finish them off!

I can still taste the moist cake and sweet frosting now. 

I'm still kicking myself for not throwing a few in the freezer for a later date; maybe I'll remember to do that next time around!

Hope your having a sweet Monday!

Feeling so loved!

My birthday was Friday.  I turned old.  But, had a blast!  And even more important... I feel so loved!

Here are some of the highlights:

Check out these delicious cuppies!! Cocoa Cuppies with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream  *drool*

We said good bye to our intern with style!

Mr. Happy and I went on a great big hike (at night) to see the meteor shower -- and the weather was perfect for it!

I got birthday wishes with dogs!!  Thanks Liz!

Thanks Joan!  I warn you... this song will be stuck in your head...  more of the cute goldies Augie and Ti here.

Hope your weekend was amazing and hope you're feeling loved too!

Blurry blurry wizz bang!

Oh boy.  Monday was a blur.

Such a blur in fact that I thought it was Tuesday for most of the day.

Didn't figure out Monday's blurriness until I went to look for my show... So You  Think You Can Dance...  that's when I realized it.  Monday.  My show is on Tuesday and Wednesdays.

The good news?  I got an extra day back in my week.  The down side.  It was a blurry extra day.

The good news?  I have a whole lot of time coming up to hang with Mr. Happy. 

And for you my loves.  Here are a few things that have made me happy.  Hope they make you even just a smidgen happy too!

I made mini choco cup cakes.  AND... I made my own butter cream frosting for the first time.

It was a thrill thing really.  I mean there had to be an official butter cream frosting taster, right?  And I couldn't think of anyone better for the job other than yours truly.  I promise more frosting made it on the cuppies rather than in my tum.  Too cool!

It was fun to play with a new way to top these little nibblets too!

And then, I was in a cute little town and saw this guy.

I'm not sure if I would be smiling if I was putting ketchup on myself like that, but maybe it's like hair mousse.  It could be like he is putting hair mousse on, right?  I mean...  he's not gonna eat himself.  Is he?

Last, but certainly not least.  I made shrimp noodles.  Reminds me of familiar days in familiar places with people I miss dearly.  With each bite I could remember happy stuff.  Sigh, wonderful happy stuff!

Here's hoping your Monday was delectable!