Halloween

God I suck as a blogger. It's been over a month since I bothered to grace you with my presence. And it's been a busy month. But that's no excuse.

So I had my cupcake launch party the Sunday before last. It went extrememly well. I good time appeared to be had by all. I had Alix take a bunch of pictures and the few previews I saw turned out completely fabulous. I'm very excited to get them back so I can hand them over to Amanda and have an actual website...with pictures! Lots of people showed up and after tasting most of them took cupcakes home to share so that was encouraging.

I have two Halloween cupcake orders this week. One for an adult Halloween party and one for a kids school Halloween party. The adult party is getting pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting dyed black and orange. The kids are getting both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with both vanilla and chocolate frosting. I plan to do Halloween colors and I'm going to try dying some of the vanilla ones to look like candy corn. I think it'll turn out really nice. I'm excited!

I also plan to make some for the Halloween party I'm attending on Saturday. I'll probably end up just making extra of all the ones I already made since time will be short. (But I managed to bake and ice 18 chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow frosting during hockey intermissions last night...and that included clean up)!

Finally!

So a few weeks ago I accidentally (don't tell my Aunt LuAnn as she purchased it for me) threw away my 1m tip. It's that big huge giant tip that makes huge fabulous swirls on top of cupcakes. Well I finally made my way to Michaels and bought not one but two. (You know, just in case I accidentally throw one away or drop it in the garbage disposal or run it over with the car). And just knowing it's sitting safely all tucked away in my drawer makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And on a totally unrelated note, one of my favorite blogs I Heart Cuppycakes, made me so fabulously happy today! The author an uber cute girl named Clara announced she was started a business with her cupcakes! Check out her blog if you have a chance. Her cupcakes are beautiful and amazing. (Plus she knows how to do stuff like add pictures which makes her blog waaaaay better).

I don't have any orders for cupcakes until Thanksgiving. Ugh! I make a mean pumpkin cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and I have a few orders for those for Thanksgiving but nothing before that. However, my birthday, Halloween and the start of hockey season (Let's go Rangers!)are all before then so I think I can find some good reasons to make a bunch before then.

My Kitchen is OverRun with Cupcakes

I'm about halfway through the baking process for tomorrow. I've made all the full size cupcakes. They're cooled and covered and awaiting some fabulous frosting. I made two dozen of chocolate and two dozen of cinnamon. (The cinnamon sort of collapsed upon itself. I ate one. It still tastes delicious and once it has frosting on it no one will ever know, but it was kinda weird).

The jello with the rum in it is chilling in the fridge for the jello shot cupcakes. I'm going for a tropical fruity theme. Peach and raspberry. Total yum.

I still have to make the mini vanilla cupcakes for the actual jello shot cupcakes. That's all I'm going to do tonight. I'll make all the frosting tomorrow. The cinnamon are getting cinnamon. (Big shocker there, no?) One dozen of the chocolate is getting peanut butter frosting and the other dozen is getting vanilla. I'm going to make some whipped cream for the jello shot ones.

Again. We all know by now that I suck with pictures, but hopefully someone at the party will take pictures, that actually look good. It's only a matter of time until you guys think these cupcakes are imaginary.

Dana

Cupcakes 2.0

So it's Thursday and I'm making two sets up cupcakes for Saturday. I've got some for a BBQ my mom is going to and some for the birthday of a friend. I'm really excited for the birthday one since I'm doing jello shot cupcakes which I don't get to that often and are also a big crowd pleaser.

Plus the more people I can get to taste them, the more orders I'll get. At least I'm hoping that's the way it'll go anyway. Oh, speaking of orders, I recently finally decided on a price. I went back and forth and agonized over it for weeks. I ended up on $12/dozen or a dollar a cupcake for you non mathematical types like myself. I figure it's way less then you'll pay in a bakery, but more than a supermarket (which it should be because while I'm not braggart, mine are way better than the supermarket :P).

So I've got a busy Friday and Saturday with 4 dozen regular cupcakes and 3 dozen minis. Again, I'll try to take pictures, but my photography skills are really horrible.!

Buttercream Flowers Part 2

Okay. So I went to Target got the stuff I needed, came home and began the project. Just as I was finishing up making the frosting, my father-in-law calls to ask if he and my mother-in-law can stop over for an hour. Check with hubby, he says okay. I abandoned my frosting and spend the next half hour doing a mad dash clean. I had just enough time to cover the frosting in Saran Wrap before they walked in.

They ended up staying about two hours. But it was nice.

As soon as they left, I ran back to the kitchen to get started. I tried to make several kinds of no name flowers and a few roses. It didn't go to well. Let's be honest, they were terrible. Each and every one. I used the last bit of frosting to make nice classic swirl on the last cupcake just so I could end on a positive note.

I wanted to make more and try again, but I was out of butter. In case you hadn't noticed, I run out of stuff a lot. Oh, one more thing about me. I can't cook. At all. I sent hubby to work with a couple dozen cupcakes yesterday and one of the girls said to him, "Wow. You are so lucky. These cupcakes are amazing. Your wife must be a wonderful cook." He laughed and said, "Cupcakes are the only things she makes that taste well." He's 100% correct.

Buttercream Flowers

So I stayed up half the night watching YouTube videos on how to make buttercream flowers. I woke up late (remember I was up half the night) and excited to try them for myself. So I went into the kitchen and started gathering the ingredients together as I waited for the coffee to brew. (In addition to cupcakes I'm also a coffee fiend).

It was then that disaster struck. Not only was I out of cupcake liners, but also disposable pastry bags! I ordered a ton of each from Amazon last week, but they haven't arrived yet. Forgetting it was Sunday, I went to check my order online to see if they would be arriving today. Nope. Not until Tuesday!

I want more than anything to attempt these flowers today. So I'm going to suck it up and go to Target and get a teeny tiny amount of liners and bags. I know I'll pay a little more than I do when I buy from Amazon in bulk, but I have to have them today. It's seared into my brain and I can't think of anything else until I do it.

I'll post later to let you know how they turned out. Hopefully I'll also be able to figure out how to post pictures of them.

The Beginning

I'm working on starting a small home baked cupcake business. Ferris Wheel Cupcakes, named by my beautiful and fabulous mom. Join me as I blog about it's conception, birth and hopefully it's thriving future success. We'll have some fun along the way and hopefully help each other out.



Since I'm still in the very early stages, I don't have anything. Not even a website. Eek! But I've just commissioned my fabulously talented friend Amanda to make one for me. Websites are just her side business check out her musical goodness here http://www.amandaduncan.com/.



In addition to that I'm also setting up a small open house for people to come and sample the cupcakes. They will leave full and happy. And full of business cards to give to their friends. Thankfully I have a lot of talented friends and I've got my friend Alix to take some photographs, so while there is no website yet, it's definitely on it's way.