There've been several reasons for cupcakes lately. Here are a few pics. All cupcakes are from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, my go-to cupcake book! I'm up to eleven different recipes so far.

First was our "bon voyage" supper for Clover and her friends before they all left for college last weekend. These are Snickerdoodle cupcakes with Seven-Minute Frosting.





Next up were my Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes and One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, both with Fluffy Vanilla Frosting. My school's theme for the year is "Catch the Wave," so I made beachy/fishy cupcakes to take on our first day back on campus! I used homemade Marshmallow Fondant to make fish and shark fins to decorate some of the cupcakes and crushed up graham crackers and paper umbrellas to make beaches on others. These were a hit at work...there weren't any left at the end of the day!






These are square one-bowl chocolate cupcake, leftover from the "Catch the Wave" cupcakes. I frosted them with powdered sugar frosting and sprinkles for dessert one night.

And finally, my husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on August 24, so I surprised my husband with Devil's Food Cupcakes, again with Fluffy Vanilla frosting. Our wedding cake was pink and white, so I used those colors for the cupcakes and added silver star edible sprinkles for the "silver" anniversary. My husband was thrilled...he said the devil's food was the best chocolate cupcake I'd made to date.

Cupcaking has slowed a bit here, but I did make a HUGE batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes a few weeks back. I took them to my husband's office and they were very well-received. I was there the other day and my husband's receptionist went on and on about them, so it was a success. I'll send another batch soon.


Posing by the pool!


Packed up in the courier, ready to go!


Mini with silver star sprinkles...I'm going to use these for cupcakes for my 25th anniversary...haven't decided on the cupcake yet.

Last week, I made Marshmallow Fondant, but didn't get much further than making it. It was sort of a pain and I don't know if I'll do enough with it to warrant making my own again, but it's waiting in the fridge (my brand new fridge!) for me to make into shark fins and little fishies for my "Catch the Wave" cupcakes for back-to-school. That's our school's 2010-2011 theme and I'm making some beachy cupcakes to celebrate!


Plain white marshmallow fondant...thrilling, huh?

And finally, I'm post a picture of my newest kitten, sweet Lady Jane! She's not really mine, she belongs to my daughter's friend Emily, but they are trying to get rid of a litter and Jane's the only one left...she comes to visit frequenty and I "babysit" her. We're trying to wear BK down and get him to agree to let Jane be ours. We already have two cats and a dog, though, and despite my pleas that I need a new kitten to take the sting of Clover going to college away, we haven't been able to convince him. I ask you...who could resist that sweet face?


Sweet baby Jane!

Tomorrow is my first day back to work, but only for workshops...we won't even be at our campus until next week. What a fast summer...but it sure was fun thanks to Martha Stewart and the world of cupcakes!

No particular reason for cupcakes this week, so I made some for fun! Actually, I got a new cupcake courier and that seemed as good a reason as any. (My new camera is scheduled to arrive today, so these pictures are from my camera phone...again, I apologize for the poor quality.)


New cupcake courier filled with treats

Veering a bit from my Martha Stewart Cupcakes book, I chose to make Sweet Vanilla cupcakes, a personal recipe of our very own Marianne. Let me just tell you, her cupcakes are as sweet as she is! They were dense, moist and very, very delicious. One of my favorites so far! I doubled the recipe and got 21 cupcakes. I suspect if I'd filled the liners just a bit less I'd have gotten the standard 24, but no matter...I wasn't making them for an occasion, so amount wasn't important. I frosted them with Almond Buttercream, a recipe from one of my Southern Living cookbooks.


Frostings ready to pipe

My tendency is to ice everything blue if I'm given a choice, so I branched out a bit and did teal (to match my courier!), yellow and pink. They're so cute and bubbly and summery!


Sweet Vanilla with Almond Buttercream


Last week, I realized that I'd never posted pictures of our Fourth of July cupcakes, so here are a few shots of those. Recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I added strawberries to the batter and the whipped cream to make them "patriotic." (pix from my regular camera before she died...I realize they're no better than my camera pix! :-/)

Fourth of July Blueberries and Cream Cupcake with whipped cream and strawberries

And finally, the little cupcake that's making a face:

Cupcake says, "Thanks for stopping by Lynna's blog!"

Summer has been lots of fun lately! Admittedly, I was a little cranky last week when I couldn't swim several days because of rain, but really, we needed it.

There wasn't much menu planning that week, although I did sort of have some things in mind. Mostly, though, I was saving all my cooking for the weekend when my son and his girlfriend arrived for three days! This was BIG for us...we'd met her before, but she's the first college girlfriend that he's brought home to meet us. His reason for the visit was to have us dogsit his dog, Rawlins until he moves into a new place...although his current roommates said they don't mind, they complain a lot about the dog hair and won't let Rawlins in the house unless Cam is home and since he works a lot in the summertime, he's not home much.

I cooked a lot for them/us. They were out with friends Saturday night, but Clover had two friends over, so I made pasta pomodoro, salad, garlic bread and pan-fried chicken breasts. I made pesto and grilled burgers with a panzanella salad Sunday night with a peach crisp. We had chicken/tomato panini for lunch Sunday and I made fruit salad too. I'd made cupcakes for a baby shower Saturday, so we had a few of those leftover. I just served homemade granola Sunday morning...they slept in quite late Sunday and Monday! We went to the Fort Worth Zoo Monday, so we met my husband in town (he works there) and had lunch at deli before we went to the zoo. On the way home, Cam requested my Jose's Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas, so we had those and this rice (I used brown this time) and smashed pinto beans leftover from another meal. I made some spinach enchiladas because I had enchilada sauce and Clover prefers them. That meal was a smash hit.

They left mid-morning on Tuesday, so I got up and made them Cinnamon Griddle Cakes, baked bacon and fruit. One of the things I *love* about Megan is that she doesn't eat like a girl. She enjoyed her food and even went back for seconds on the enchiladas! Clover eats so little meat that she seems pretty picky to me and Cam...well, I can't figure out where he got his horrible eating habits.


My camera died a horrible death by dropping last Thursday, so I had to use my camera phone to take photos of my baby shower cupcakes and the Bastille Day cupcakes I made yesterday. I'm ready for a new camera! Hopefully we'll get one soon. In the meantime, I apologize for the poor quality of these.


Baby Shower cupcakes...I was pleased with how well the icing matched the invitation. I made marble cupcakes from my Martha Stewart book and used her fluffy vanilla icing. The hostess had a quarter-sheet cake made with the "Howdy" and the little cowboy from the invitation and our colors matched perfectly. Since the cake was marble cake, I made marble cupcakes. The invitation also had little white dots around the border, so I used white sphere sprinkles. I was pleased with how they turned out. The only disappointment was the cupcake liners. I bought some natural brown ones, hoping they'd look like the cupcakes were wrapped in craft paper when they were done...I thought that would match the invitation well. They just looked sort of clear when they baked up. I made some cupcake wrappers from scrap paper for some of them...those were cute and were the colors of the invitation.

Yesterday, for Clover and her buddies to "celebrate" Bastille Day, I made Brown Sugar Pound Cake Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese frosting and decorated them with blue, white and red Jelly Bellies to represent the French flag. Clover took AP European History and studied the French Revolution in her academic decathlon class, so she was immersed in French history last year and really enjoyed it. She made a 5 (highest score possible) on her Euro test! Anyway, these were from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book as well, which makes FIVE different cupcakes I've made from the book so far.


Bastille Day Cupcakes

I was going to post my menu for next week and something I accomplished whilst shopping today, but this is already really long, so I'll save that for another blog. Until then, Libert, Egalit and Fraternit! That's French for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity! I told Clover I thought "Let them eat cake!" was a better quote for our particular Bastille Day celebration, but she reminded me that Marie Antoinette never actually said that.

For fun...some of the things I've made lately that weren't a part of my menu.

My third cupcake from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes...not really a cupcake...more of a muffin...which the book calls a tea cake. Hey, in my mind, a cupcake's a cupcake! These are pistachio and raspberry and they were incredibly dense and sweet and we ate them like they were going out of style. The recipe only made 15, so I didn't give any away.


Adding raspberries...


And the finished product!


I have talked before about my love of weird, non-breakfasty foods for breakfast. My latest is turkey sliders. Yup..this weekend I made up a bunch of sliders with shallots, mushrooms and teriyaki sauce and topped them with good old American cheese. BK ate them for lunch this weekend and the rest are for my breakfast. I think they're delicious and so simple to make!


Topped with cheese!


Adorable little turkey sliders!

I bought Texas peaches and Georgia peaches on Friday and used the Texas peaches for a salsa for catfish. I decided to make one of BK's favorites with the Georgia peaches, peach crisp. I have these little ramekins that I've never used, so I made individual crisps this time. They were cute, but not that practical...you have to let the ramekins cool down quite a bit before you can eat the crisp. This stuff is so good, especially topped with cream.


Lovely Georgia peaches


Even lovelier peach crisp!

Busy week, man!!! :D

Clover had a great time at her college orientation. She's going to St. Edward's University, which is a small school in Austin. They call UT, where my son attends, the "big cattle ranch up the road." I must say, this orientation was very different than the one we attended when Cam started UT four years ago. Very small, very, very, almost to the point of ridiculous, thorough. I know more things about St. Edward's than my own alma mater! It's nice to be back home though and cooking again. We had some nice meals out and I even ventured out on my own at lunch one day and totally enjoyed the solitary dining experience. Austin is a fun, fun town to visit and I always enjoy a trip that way...

When I got home Saturday, my first order of business was grocery shopping, then I made my second recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting for my dad, my father-in-law and for my kids' dad, BK! BK told everyone all weekend that they were really rich, so much so that he could "only eat two at a time." *shakes head* He's a nut. This recipe was much more time-consuming than the first ones I made...the cupcakes themselves weren't too difficult, but the frosting took a ton of work. I had to chop a POUND of semi-sweet chocolate, melt it *AND* make a cocoa powder mixture to add to the butter/sugar frosting. It was a PITA, to be honest, probably because I don't really like chocolate that much. I was totally sick of it by the time I finished the frosting! I decorated them very simply and added a few sprinkles. There were plenty from this recipe to take a bunch to both dads and we still have a bunch left here...including some cute little minis.


Mixing cupcakes

Filling cups

Chocolate frosting I

Chopping chocolate

Chocolate frosting II


Father's Day dinner for BK was Mango Salsa Chicken...he really loves it, so I made it again not long after we just had it. Roasted some asparagus and made a big green salad and it was yummy! On Saturday, I made Grilled Spiced Rubbed Chicken with Alabama Barbeque Sauce. It didn't have a picture, so now it does! This was really, really good and I made Pioneer Woman's Crash Potatoes to go with it, along with the obiquitous green salad...we do love our salads, especially in the summertime!


Yummy grilled chicken


My agenda for cooking this week isn't very experimental...sort of the same old favs. We're definitely taking it easy for a few days. I worked this morning in my classroom and am going to make Jay's Signature Crust in a bit and then get into the pool to catch some rays this afternoon. We'll just have a cheese and basil pizza for supper. No stress at all.

I made this dip today for lunch. Not that healthy, but man, it's yummy. I'll just workout a bit longer to keep all the fat from the cheese from settling in to stay!

For the rest of the week, I've got Chicken in Caper Cream Sauce planned one night and turkey burgers with mushrooms another night. That pretty much gets us through Wednesday and I'll worry about the rest after that...I really am being lazy!

Here are a few more pictures of my adventures in cupcaking:


Cupcakes I

Cupcakes II

Mini!

This is how I packaged up the cupcakes I gave away last week:



Next up in cupcaking: Blueberries-and-Cream Cupcakes with raspberries added for the 4th of July! Should be awesome!!

This weekend I made my first batch of cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: Chocolate Malted Cupcakes with Fluffy Vanilla Frosting. BK ate FIVE before the day was over, so I'd call them a success!


FIVE CUPCAKES! And the man is still skinny as a rail...I don't know how he does it!

My goal with these was two-fold. First, make a cupcake from scratch that tastes really, really good. Successful on that end, even though I thought they didn't taste very malty, BK and Clover did. Second, I wanted to use a recipe with frosting so I could practice my totally amateurish decorating skills. I didn't feel like messing with the Marshmallow Fondant yet, so this was a good starting point.


It was easy enough to get started and can I just say, all my years of baking with a hand-held electric mixer were wasted moments. A Kitchen Aid mixer makes this stuff so much more fun and much more simple.


I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but even I found this stuff pretty tempting!


I decided to make the frosting blue...thought it looked pretty with the dark brown cupcake. I gave Clover a taste and she said, "mmmm...fluffy!" She didn't know it, but the frosting *is* called fluffy vanilla frosting!


I made a cupcake wrapper with some scrapbook paper...I don't scrapbook, but I love looking at the papers in craft stores, so I'm glad to find a reason to buy some!


Experiments with icing and tips. I need work, but all in all, I had a really good time with this project! I can't wait to make more...next up: Raspberry Pistachio Cupcakes.