Although Easter is over and I am sure that everyone is sick of carrot-related recipes, I couldn’t help but share this one. I have been meaning to make carrot cupcakes for a while now, only I couldn’t figure out how to make the cream cheese icing without being stuck eating the whole thing myself (see: Trevor’s lactose intolerance). It’s also worth pointing out that I refused to make carrot cupcakes with plain vanilla icing, which is practically criminal in my books. Carrot cake has to be paired with cream cheese icing, just like peanut butter and chocolate, mint and chocolate, everything and chocolate.

The only way I could make this recipe was if I used a milk free cream cheese substitute. I had been hearing about milk free cream cheese substitutes for some time now, only I was a little worried about how they would turn out. How close to cream cheese were we talking? Sure, it could look and smell like cream cheese, but I wanted something that tasted as close to the real thing as possible.

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The word of the day is almonds.

And cupcakes.

Sweet almond cupcakes. Doesn’t that name just roll off your tongue?

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After making my Green Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies (which only lasted two days between Trevor and I), I knew I had to bake something else minty and chocolatey.  Did I mention that these are my two favourite dessert combinations?

When getting ice cream as a kid, I always picked the mint chocolate flavour if they carried it (and I preferred the chocolate chunks over the chocolate chips – picky, I know). When I used to drink hot chocolate, I would go through tubs of mint flavoured kind. Now a days, while still enjoying mint chocolate desserts, I even go as far as carrying mint flavoured lip gloss and gum in my purse.

If I had my way, I’m sure I would even have a mint chocolate flavoured wedding cake!

Apparently February 19th was National Chocolate Mint Day, which explains so much that my birthday was only a few days beforehand. 🙂

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I always like to check out the discount produce section at grocery stores. I’ve always found its are the best place to get ripe bananas that are just begging to be baked into a delicious banana bread or muffin. One day when checking out our local grocery store, we found it loaded with packages of pomegranates. The produce priced at 6 for $1.49, was ripe, but still decent enough to last a few days. Considering the usual price of pomegranates, I thought it was a steal of a deal and picked up a package.

I spent the next few days covered in pomegranate juice. There was no dignified way to eat one and not look like I was in a terrible accident. When I was finally down to two pomegranates, I was at my wits end and turned to the internet for advice.

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B-r-a-i-n-s

I had a couple of outside influences when it came to making these brain cupcakes. One is that it is now thisclose to Halloween, although if you were to go the holiday sections of any store, Halloween began back in September. Another is that it’s Trevor’s favourite unofficial holiday. We always make a list of movies to watch leading up to the 31st, which always includes the Halloween series, Nightmare on Elm Street series and the Scream movies. Those are the ones I’ll sit through. On his own, I’m sure he watches many more. These cupcakes were to get us in the Halloween spirit.

You know, in between all the mini chocolate bars and Tootsie Pops we’re currently consuming.

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Last week, I was able to convince Trevor to accompany me to the first annual Canada’s Baking & Sweets Show in Mississauga. When I first heard about this conference, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. A show all about cupcakes, cookies, icing and fondant? A place where I could sample baked goodies from all over the Southern Ontario and beyond? I knew I had hit the jackpot!

The morning of the show, I made some green smoothies to counteract all the sugar we were about to consume and we hit the road. Upon entering the conference, we were greeted by the Halloween and Wedding themed cakes on display for the professional baking competition. It was surreal seeing these cakes up close and knowing that they were edible.

All the booths were selling baked goods and they were quite generous with their free samples as well. For my first purchase, I spent a good time checking out the adorable little boxes of macarons at the MoRoCo Chocolat booth before setting on a single passion-fruit macaron at the Vanille Cakes and Confections booth, as they were individually priced at $2 each.

Trevor was surprising game with trying one with me and now I can finally say that I’ve eaten one – we are macaron virgins no more! Now I just have to find time to try making them myself.

Since we opted for the (cheaper) Friday tickets to the show, we ended up missing Buddy from Cake Boss. I got my fix visiting the Pam Baking Spray booth and posing with the life-size cutout.

My second purchase was a red-velvet cupcake with delicious cream cheese icing. I was too smitten with it to take a picture.

Trevor’s favourite booth was the Sprucewood Hand Made Cookie Company, who was very generous with the serve yourself free samples. They made your usual shortbread cookies, but their standout product was their savoury cheddar shortbread cookies. We were big fans of the cheddar/rosemary flavour and must have stopped at that booth at least three different times. I’m sure Trevor and his lactose intolerance paid for it later.

There were plenty of cake booths, but my favourite had to be from La Casa Dolce. Their movie themed cake blew me away.

Also, a pancake/maple syrup cake anyone?

Beside baked goods, there were also candy booths, a bagel booth, and plenty of fondant and baking supply booths. I spent a good time wandering around Golda’s Kitchen booth before Trevor pointed out that this was the third time I had migrated myself there – lol.

The cake pop booths reminded me of Bakerella. Even though I met her last year, I’m crossing my fingers that she can be a guest speaker next year!

I managed to pick up a ton of business cards and pamphlets for baking classes around the GTA, so hopefully I can get back into the swing of taking classes and baking again. This conference really inspired me to start baking again, so hopefully there will be some new and exciting recipes on this site soon.

I’m already thinking about the deliciousness of next year’s conference – haha!

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I hate to admit it, but I’m a little excited for fall. As much as I love the warmth and sunshine that summer brings, I’m happy that its over. Now its time for crisp, orange leaves, the cool fall nights and the smell of pumpkin and apple in baked goods. I’m definitely an autumn girl at heart.

Another things that comes with fall is the new television schedule. Yes, I’m a TV addict. Want to hear something sad? When I bake, I like to watch DVDs of my favourite shows even though our TV doesn’t even face the kitchen. I’ve watched them so much that I guess I’m good with just listening to the episodes.

This week, the new shows I’m looking forward to is Glee, The New Girl, Modern Family, Glee, Community, The Office and Glee. Did I mention Glee? To say I’m a fan of the show is a huge understatement.

I must say, in regards to Glee, this summer hiatus has been torture. Although, if you ask Trevor, there was no hiatus for me. There was the Glee Project reality show that ran for two months to find new stars for the show and there was their summer concert. Luckily for me, their only Canadian stop was in Toronto and we got tickets. It was awesome and I got my photo with one of the Warblers.

Love the t-shirt? I won it on a Global TV contest. (We don’t get the Fox channel, so I watch it on Global channel, which airs most of the Fox shows in Canada).

So in honour of my favourite TV show that starts up again on Tuesday, I made simple rainbow cupcakes. It was the easiest, happiest treat I could think of. All the colours swirled together in one delightful, decedent dessert, it just reminded me of Glee.

The cast of characters – white cake mix and food colouring. Not pictured is the eggs, oil and water that is needed for the cake mix.

I used five colours, but you are welcome to use less. Actually, I suggest using less for the first time you make this. You’ll see why below.

Be sure to lay out enough bowls for the different colours you are using. You will be dividing the cake batter evenly and mixing the appropriate colours.

Like so!

Carefully spoon the batter into the paper cups. Don’t mix the colours, merely layer them on top of each other.

As you can see, I got a little over-excited in making sure that each cupcake contained part of each colour. Therefore, added too much batter to the cupcakes, especially the ones on the left. I was supposed to end up with 24 cupcakes, but instead I ended up with 18. Lesson learned, use less colours next time or smaller spoonfuls when dishing out batter.

Luckily, this didn’t affect the overall presentation of the cupcakes. They cooked up fluffy and beautiful, with each colour visible.

If you are going to a Glee season 3 premiere viewing party, I suggest bringing these as dessert, or else a variation of my Glee Cookies.  I made these on a whim and thought they turned out not too shabby. Also, if you search around on the internet, you can find tons of other Glee-themed cookies and food items. Tots anyone?

I won’t be hosting or attending any premiere party. Instead I’m going to plant myself on my couch with a bowl of popcorn and annoy Trevor by squealing during the musical numbers.

Right after Glee, there is also going to be a new show called The New Girl starring Zooey Deschanel. To say that I’m also excited for this show is a complete understatement. I think I’m addicted to my TV. And rainbow cupcakes. If you don’t think about all the dirty dishes it creates, this is one easy cupcake recipe.

Enjoy!

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Although he’s not a big cupcake fan, I just had to buy this book.

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I love using Groupon and a couple weeks ago, they posted a 50% discount for a new company that offered a wide variety of cupcake decorating classes in Toronto. I knew I couldn’t miss this opportunity and I’m so glad I got to be a part of it.

I signed up for the cupcake decorating introductory class, which according to the website, included teaching us how to properly colour and use fondant which is something I hadn’t tried yet. The class itself took place downtown in an area of Toronto I had yet to explore. There were sandwich cafes, sushi bars, pubs, bakeries and cute little shops everywhere – definitely my kind of area to live in and the perfect place for a blooming cupcake decorating class.

Our instructor, Lisa, was amazing! She had set up little stations with placemats for everyone to work at and she had plates of fondant cutters and food colouring and bowls of corn starch and all the tools we were going to need to decorate. She got us started right away, colouring, rolling and cutting shapes out of fondant.

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Trevor prefers unfrosted cupcakes, claiming that their frosted friends are overpowering and can be too sweet. Most bakeries tend to pile on the icing and decorations and this tends to overshadow the overall flavour and loveliness of the cake underneath.

I usually prefer frosted cupcakes, just as long as it’s not too sweet and I think it’s nice to have a little “extra” on an already amazing, bite-sized dessert. Some cupcakes can be a little dry and this can mask the problem very well. Plus, cupcakes are awesome to decorate and icing is part of the decorating process.

A good website I like for amazing cupcake recipes is cookies and cups, but I’m always on the lookout for more baking blogs to check out, especially for just cupcakes. If you know of any, feel free to leave links in the comment section.

Have a great night!

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