Christmas ornament cupcakes!!!

As Christmas drew nearer, my hubby started wondering what to give his colleagues as presents… as such, I asked if I could make cupcakes for them. However, I wanted something different from a normal christmas cupcake and started looking for ideas on the internet hoping for some inspiration.

Guess what!!! I found someone who had made christmas ornament cupcakes!!! What’s that you might ask.. well, it’s a cupcake that looks exactly like a christmas ornament or a christmas ball. Most of the cupcakes I had seen placed a dome shaped cupcake on top of a cupcake base and decorated the dome to look like a christmas ornament. I thought that was really really cool, but wanted to take it a step further by making the cupcake totally round rather than having it sit on a cupcake base. To do this, I had to make several cupcakes which had a totally round base rather than the usual flat cupcake base. To do this, I couldn’t use my normal cupcake pans, so I started searching for ways to bake a dome shaped cupcake.. luckily for me I found a silicon half sphere baking tray at Poon Huat!! Yay!!!

Since I love chocolate cupcakes and I have a fantastic chocolate cupcake recipe, I decided to bake chocolate half sphere cupcakes :p I then joined 2 halves of the sphere using buttercream icing to form a round ball.. this was what they looked like after joining them.

 Don’t they look cute This was followed by slathering the whole chocolate ball with buttercream icing, followed by a layer of fondant. To make the christmas ornament cupcakes look realistic, I also made little tops for the cupcakes using fondant.. I then left everything to dry..

 As you can probably tell from the pictures above, I had a really difficult time getting the balls to look totally smooth and round, hopefully they won’t be too obvious after adding on the decorations.. I can’t wait for them to dry so that I can start decorating them

To make the balls look like christmas ornaments, I dusted the balls with luster dust and also pasted on the little caps which I had did earlier on. This was was followed by using icing to pipe on the designs on the ball. This was the fun part! After the icing had dried, I then dusted the designs with luster dust for the final time and let them dry.. these were what they looked like.. don’t they look fantastic… I thought they really looked like christmas ornaments don’t you?

To be frank.. my first attempt at making these were a total flop.. I had so much problems with the fondant especially… it kept bubbling under the skin. After several attempts, I finally figured out what the problem was and finally solved the bubbling problem.. but I have to admit, the beautifully completed christmas ornament cupcakes came a little too late for a christmas present… oh well.. at least my hubby managed to give it to his colleagues for a boxing day present instead Here’s some close up shots of the completed cupcakes…

My favourite is the snowflake cupcake…

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Setting up my christmas tree

Well, as christmas is just round the corner, I decided to set up the christmas tree over the weekend. So, I went off to the store room to locate the christmas tree and decorations that we had packed away last year… after a long, dusty search, I finally located the christmas tree, decorations and christmas lights. My hubby being tired from work, wasn’t much of a help as he was busy snoring away on the couch, and despite my repeated attempts to wake him up.. other than eliciting several grunts from him, he lay more or less dead to the world on the couch. Sigh..

Jasper, my schnauzer on the other hand, was wide awake and busy poking his little nose into every single little box I took out from the store room, and was busy making a nuisance of himself by jumping around and running around me tripping me up. I believe he thought that I’d gotten him some new toy or treat to play with and was super excited at the thought. His attentions to the boxes did not make things go much easier.. the little rascal.

After dragging the boxes close enough to where the christmas tree would go, I started to unpack the broken down christmas tree. For every tree branch I took out, Jasper bit them and tried to start a tug of war with me… after many scoldings, he finally understood that I wasn’t playing with him, so he now entertained himself with the tree branches I had laid out neatly on the floor to be assembled into the christmas tree. The little fake pine leaves that had fallen off were just the thing for Jasper’s attention, and soon enough I caught him licking up bits of the fallen pine leaves and trying to chew on them. At this point in time, I tried again to wake my husband up, but again, other than getting a couple of snorts and yeah yeah’s… he was soon back in dreamland and snoring away..

Left to my own devices, I had no choice but to constantly watch out for Jasper to ensure he didn’t swallow any of the pine leaves while in the midst of assembling of the tree… not an easy task I assure you. After much huffing and puffing, I finally managed to assemble the tree and was now left with the fun part.. the decorations. Jasper at this point in time was busy sniffing around under the tree and after a couple of attempts to bite the boughs of the tree, he finally gave up and settled down to watch what I would do next.

The opening of the lightings soon brought him to attention, and he was soon poking his head again into the box and trying to munch on whatever he could get his little teeth on.. I finally decided to leave the lights in the box, and carry the box with me while I circled the tree to put on the lights. Jasper initially followed me round the tree and a couple of times even tried to startle me by going round the tree and meeting me on the other side thinking it was a new game. However, with my non-response, he finally gave up and started sniffling at my husband whose outflung arm was just enough in his reach for his little teeth and tongue.

After getting on the lights, I opened up the boxes of decorations and began to position them in the tree for what I hoped would give the optimum impact. Jasper after being scolded by my hubby for disturbing his sleep, was not put off and soon came over to investigate. The little christmas balls on the lower branches were soon deemed to be his new play toys and he had most of them pulled off by the time I’d noticed what he was doing. Luckily other than a couple of brand new teeth marks on the balls, they were none the worse for wear.

Finally managed to get my hubby awake to do the final honours of placing the star at the top of the tree.. which I would have done, except for the fact that I was too short to do so. Once it was up, we turned off the hall lights and turned on the christmas tree… I couldn’t help but give a little sigh at the prettiness of the tree.. and of course in my devious little mind, I was now thinking of what presents I could hint to my husband to get for me, which would all go under the empty base of the christmas tree until christmas day.

After all what’s christmas without some presents right?

Here are the pics of the christmas tree… couldn’t seem to really take the pictures of the tree with the twinkling christmas lights.. but don’t you think the tree still looks great?

Here’s another picture…

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Christmas peppermint mocha cupcakes

As the christmas season is drawing nearer, decided to experiment with a recipe I’ve been dying to try out. The inspiration came from coffee bean’s peppermint ice blended coffee… This is one of my favourite drinks of all time but coffee bean only has it once a year during the christmas season. Yummy… I just love the blend of coffee and peppermint.. plus it comes with a miniature peppermint candy cane… :p Ok.. I’m crazy about candy cane’s… but can you blame me.. its delicious.. and oh so festive

So with that in mind, I decided to try and make my own peppermint mocha cupcake recipe…

Of course, what’s a peppermint mocha cupcake without candy canes! So I just had to make a trip down to buy candy canes during one of my weekly shopping trips to NTUC Fair Price… I ended up buying 3 packets of candy canes.. think I overbought.. but I just couldn’t resist… I just loooovvve them.. don’t you.

So armed with 3 packets of candy canes, I started my foray into the peppermint mocha cupcakes…

First, I started out with a basic mocha cupcake recipe, then added some peppermint essence and placed everything in the oven to bake… Soon enough, the wonderful smell of coffee and peppermint permeated the kitchen and drew my ever hungry husband to the kitchen to have a look.

I forgot to take pictures of the unfrosted cupcakes unfortunately.. sigh.. stupid me.. but the cupcakes turned out a nice browny colour and had a rich aroma of coffee….

As I placed the cupcakes out to cool, I began to work on the frosting. Hmm.. what to use? Royal icing.. nah.. too sweet… hmm.. buttercream icing… hmm.. maybe.. cream cheese frosting? Hmmm.. I think that’s it.. decided on a cream cheese frosting so as not to destroy the delicate melding of coffee and peppermint. The cream cheese would add to the delicate flavour without detracting from the overall taste of the cupcakes.

Luckily for me, I had some leftover cream cheese from my last cheesecake baking session. Next was to decide whether the frosting should be a plain vanilla frosting, coffee frosting or peppermint frosting… hmm.. decisions, decisions. Oh.. what the heck.. I’ll do a cream cheese mocha peppermint frosting to complement the cupcakes

So mixing and mashing, I started whipping up a batch of cream cheese frosting… but horrors of horrors I just couldn’t seem to get the frosting to a nice piping consistency to enable me to prettily pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes.. oh no!! Oh.. for those of you that don’t know… this was my first try at making cream cheese frosting.

At my wit’s end, I rushed back to my computer and started vigourously searching for alternative cream cheese frosting recipes. In the end, decided to try and salvage my original cream cheese frosting recipe by adding a little bit of butter and putting the cream cheese in the fridge to harden up.

After an hour of frantic searching on the internet to see what went wrong with my frosting, and nail biting to while away the time, I finally went back to the fridge to check on the frosting. Luckily for me, the frosting did harden up some and I was able to pipe on the frosting. Last but not least… not to forget about my candy canes, I mashed up some and used them to decorate the cupcakes to give it that little bit of crunch…

As can be seen from the pictures below, while trying to take pictures of the cupcakes, the frosting started melting.. sigh.. in the end, the overall frosting was more of a runny consistency. Sigh.. back to the drawing board to try out another frosting recipe.

These are the pics of the cupcakes before the frosting started melting…

These were some of the pics after the frosting started melting…

Final verdict.. even with the disaster of the runny cream cheese frosting, the cupcakes were delicious.. the blend of coffee and peppermint was perfect and did bring to mind the christmas season. In addition, the cream cheese frosting although runny was not too sweet and perfectly complimented the cupcakes itself without overpowering the delicate flavours.

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Jelly donut cupcake

Sorry for not having made any posts recently… been taking out time to read other people’s blogs, and researching for new and interesting cupcakes to try out, and I think I’ve finally found an interesting and very delicious and sinfully sounding cupcake which combines the best of 2 worlds…. donuts and cupcakes… combine these 2 and you get the jelly donut cupcake!! Yum yum…

In Singapore recently, the craze for cupcakes and donuts its just getting fanatical. I’ve commonly heard of people queueing up for 3 to 5 hours to buy donuts from the donut factory… just look at the queue…. I mean is that crazy or what… Are the donuts really all that good? I’ve even heard of donut shops in Singapore not allowing the customers not to buy more than a dozen cupcakes per person… is that all true??

For me, the only donut I have found to be irresistable are Krispy Kreme donuts. I brought some back for my hubby from the US and even after 3 weeks of being in the fridge, the donut still remained soft and moist.. now that’s a great donut! How many donuts do u know can stand that test!!

Haha.. I don’t know if this recipe i found can stand that test, but it turned out looking really great and looks really yummy! Gonna wait till my significant other returns and tries them out to deliver the final verdict.

Here are some of the pictures of the donuts… I’ve yet to sprinkle the icing sugar on it.. but I thought it best to sprinkle it on when they were ready to be eaten

Here’s what they look like freshly baked…

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