Practice, practice, practice

I have been making cupcakes and baking for many many years. Like 20 years. Yowza! Yummy cupcakes, cookies, bars and all the things that you bake when it comes to Christmas time. I've done pumpkin rolls, drop cookies, stained glass cookies and all the others. I. Love. Baking. I also love trying new things. Almost every cake I see is covered in fondant and is adorned with fun characters or flowers of some kind. 

I have done a few wedding cakes, but they were covered with buttercream. Delicious, amazing buttercream. There is something very beautiful about a cake covered in messy buttercream. But, I can't ignore all the fun character cakes, and the beautiful flower cakes. So I have been watching You-Tube and practicing everything! Like everything else; of course, it's going to take practice. But, I have to start somewhere. 

Looking on Pinterest I also became slightly obsessed with purse cakes. How much fun are those?! Just like a real purse. Beautiful and full of personality, just like their owners! I was watching a video on You-Tube and she was making little individual purses in minutes. This made everything seem so much less daunting. Yes, it's cute, but could I actually make something like that in less than 5 hours? Yup. she did it in a six minute video! Minus the baking of the cake of course. And then I watched more videos on making gum paste flowers. The first video I watched was 27 minutes long. Yikes. I'll never be able to make flowers. Next video? 4 minutes! Perfect! I can do this! It's like riding a little roller coaster of emotions, but I'm a woman, so I know how to handle those.

So, video after video I soaked up all the information I could and started playing. I've got fondant and I've got gum paste. Once you understand the medium you are working with, you feel like a ninja. Master of your craft. You can conquer anything! Pretty much the same feeling when I'm holding a glue gun. You can make anything with a glue gun. Just look on Pinterest. 

So, here are my adventures in gum paste and fondant for the day! With more practice I'm sure I will make more intricate flowers and venture into fondant characters. Little by little I will get there! 

Homemade and Handcrafted

What's the difference between my cupcakes and heading to the store and picking some up? Mine are all homemade, and handcrafted. Every filling, cupcake and frosting I make from scratch. No boxes, no pre-made anything. I have learned to make things from lemon curd to pastry cream. We tap our maple trees and make maple syrup from the sap. I use that maple syrup in my cupcakes. We are also going to start brewing our own beer soon. I will for sure use our home-brewed beer in some cupcakes and create new fun flavors!

All of my ingredients are the best of the best. I love being able to tell people exactly what is in each of my cupcakes; from memory, because the ingredients aren't complicated. Fresh fruits and fresh ingredients are what make my best cupcakes. And to top them off? Natural ingredients. Lime zest or lemon zest. Chocolate shavings or homemade chocolate sauce. Fresh raspberries or blueberries. Nothing artificial or tons of sprinkles will be on the top of my cupcakes (unless it's for a special order of course). 

I love using ingredients that you wouldn't normally see in a cupcake. Hibiscus, blood orange, lavender, green tea, chai tea, black cocoa, and goat cheese. You will find all my flavors in the menu section, but my favorite thing to do is come up with new flavors! Mangoes are coming in to the stores and sound like a great place to start for a new flavor, or rhubarb! 

When you taste a cupcake that is handcrafted and made with love you can tell the difference. I love making cupcakes. I love creating little culinary masterpieces for people to savor and enjoy. A new experience in cupcakes. 

Fresh lemon cupcake filled with homemade lime curd and topped with lemon juice and zest buttercream. Garnished with a lime and lemon zest curl.

How to make a dessert table more interesting!

So you're having an event and you have amazing desserts from Amy's Cupcake Shoppe of course. So, how do you make your dessert table look amazing? 

Step 1: Delicous cupcakes 

Step 2: Table of seemingly random items and some trays

Voila! A table with vertical interest and displays your delicious treats for everyone to devour. Add more decorative items to your table to go with your theme and you have an easy set-up and take-down. So bring a little height to your next event and display in style! Enjoy!

Shirts and Coffee Mugs!

We got in some shirts and we've found a way so I can print them myself! The shirts are American Apparel baseball style shirts and will be available in women's, men's, children's and puppy sizes! I will be selling them at the Minnetonka Farmer's Market. Kiddo and puppy shirts will be $10 and adult shirts will be $15. 

I also found a new vendor for mugs! The artwork and order is still in the works, but when I get them in my hands I will let you know. They should be $10 a piece. Much better than the other vendor I had! They will be two tone mugs with of course the Amy's Cupcake Shoppe logo. Everything should be ready and rarin for the market, and of course delicious cupcakes! 

Caleigh and I modeling shirts! I am wearing the men version. Very comfy! "Baker in Training" for kiddo shirts. Women's shirts have light blue sleeves.

Puppy shirts! "Clean up Crew" 

Movin on up!

I'm so excited to announce that I am going to be in the Minnetonka Farmer's Market! The market will start Tuesday July 1st and go through September 30th. The market is open from 3-7pm and this year they are adding lots of exciting events like live music! They are also adding some family events, so any and everyone will have fun! And of course eat delicious cupcakes.  

This will be my first on-going event! I'm going to prepare myself as best I can and hope that everything goes off without a hitch. They will be doing tokens that you can purchase, or I can take credit cards, checks or cash. 

I'm thinking around four varieties each evening that will be available for purchase. I am ordering more packaging, so people will be able to purchase anywhere from 1 cupcake to a dozen! 

I visited a church this morning with a licensed commercial kitchen which I will be using to bake everything fresh the morning of the market! I am in the process of getting licensed with two commercial kitchens. So if you have an event that requires you to have goods made in a commercial kitchen, I got you covered!  

I have a few events lined up for the next month I'm so excited about! So much is happening so quickly I love it! All the fun opportunities seem to be coming my way. I also got tshirts in and printed. I am hoping to have them ready for the farmers market, so we can spread the word about Amy's Cupcake Shoppe! They are available in men's, women's, children and puppy. Thanks so much for your continued support!  

Clean up Crew

Baker in Training 

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

I love trying new flavors and recipes! Especially with cupcakes and macarons. They are both so versatile you can really make them into almost anything. Since the Boston Marathon is coming up and I happen to also love Sam Adams beer, I thought I would try my hand at some Boston Cream Pie cupcakes. I haven't made pastry cream before, so that was going to be a new thing for me. Yellow fluffy cupcake? Check. Chocolate ganache to pour over the top? Check. Put them together and I couldn't believe the amazingness of flavors hitting me.

First you get the texture of the fluffy cake and then the rich chocolate ganache hits your taste buds right after, and then last but surely not least the silky smooth and creamy pastry cream fills your mouth with a little bit of heaven. I brought some testers into work and I have never seen people eat them so quickly! Wowza! I loved every bit of these cupcakes and will for sure be making them for a lovely Easter treat tomorrow. I will definitely be adding them to my menu as well. For the pastry cream I used King Arthur Flour's recipe for vanilla pastry cream. So. Good.

Now that I know the process of pastry cream and have a base recipe the flavor variations are endless! This should be in all cupcakes; it's just that good. So feast your eyes on these beauties and I hope you have an amazing weekend! Get out and enjoy the warm weather that is finally here!

The pretty picture version. I let the ganache cool a bit more so it was thicker on the top of the cupcake. Cutting the cupcake in half also allowed for more pastry cream to be added which was obviously necessary after tasting it.

The packageable travel version! I poured the chocolate ganache over the top and filled the cupcakes with pastry cream. Both amazing!

We made it to 1,000!

So excited to announce my Facebook page has made it to 1,000 Likes! I started this journey a little over two months ago and I can't believe how far it's come already. So far I've gotten to do my first wedding cake, and a multitude of cupcakes and macarons. I've dabbled in shipping macarons and have had success many times! Cupcakes on the other hand, not so much. 

I also got to do cupcakes for the Target Halloween photo shoot! Incredible opportunity I am so excited about! When I get the go-ahead to share the pictures I will! I made three different types of cupcakes and we'll see which ones made the shot. It'll be a couple months till I get to see them, but I'm so excited already!

I also have the opportunity to attend an event in June as a vendor. There will be around 600 attendees, and I can't wait for the opportunity for all of them to try my cupcakes and macarons! I'm not sure how many samples to make, but it's for sure going to be a lot! 

I have been working as a full time CT Technologist at a clinic on the U of M campus for the last 10 years. Baking has always been my passion, and for the first time in a long time I will get to focus on it. I gave my month's notice last week and I will be working part time Mondays and Wednesdays at another job. I will have lots more time to focus and grow my cupcake business and of course spend more quality time with my sweet 2.5 year old Caleigh! 

I will also finally be able to cook dinner for my family. Working till 7:00pm is a little rough when it comes to cooking dinner. Can't wait to find new recipes and provide amazing meals for my family. If you have any recommendations for delicious dishes let me know! Can't wait for all the opportunities coming and the ones I have had in the past. I have the most amazing family, friends and supporters. Love this journey I am on and can't wait for the future adventures! Thanks again for your support. Sweet weekend to you all!

Maple Syrup is done!

Well, the sapping season is done at this house! We boiled down about 50 gallons of sap from our two maple trees in our back yard, and finished up with 2 gallons of syrup. Or 16 pints, however you want to look at it. Last year after we finished boiling down all the sap we ended up with 13 pints and didn't quite make it through the year. This year we should be good to go! It seems like a lot of syrup but with a pancake and waffle loving house, homemade maple syrup doesn't last too long.

Once you have all your sap boiled down and it's almost syrup (temperature varies each year) around 217 degrees Fahrenheit, you need to filter out what's called sugar sand. It's just a bi-product of sap that is coming out of the trees and literally looks like sand. And just like sand I imagine, it doesn't taste very good. We use filters purchased from www.andersonmaplesyrup.com  

For the most part people will boil in batches and then filter at the end of each batch. We decided to save filters this year and keep the boil going and filter once. Last night we finally had all our gallons of sap boiled down. Once it reached 217.9 degrees according to the hydrometer, it was syrup. If you boil too long it gets more candy like and if you don't boil it long enough it ends up like semi sweet water. But when it's officially syrup, that's when the magic happens. 

Once our sap can now be called syrup we needed to filter it. We ran it through the filter into another clean container and then that one goes on the stove. The syrup needs to come back up to 180 degrees in order for it to be safe for canning. We got the temp up, the jars and lids sterilized and started pouring out the goodness! And here is our result. 16 jars of beautiful, delicious, and perfectly sweet home made maple syrup. It was a great year for us and can't wait to see how the season turns out for next year!

Making Maple Syrup

Despite the weather's best efforts we have been collecting sap like crazy! The last couple days we have gotten at least 10 gallons a day of sap. At this rate we will finish up with at least a couple gallons of syrup when the sapping season is over. 

Homemade maple syrup makes the best everything! Pancakes, cupcakes, waffles, ice cream topping, it also goes very well on a spoon!  

The sap is literally running out of the trees. We have to empty the sap bags every couple hours to make sure they don't overflow or fall off the tap. More sap cooking tonight and this week! Can't wait till our liquid gold is jarred and ready to make amazing food! 

Sap sack hanging on the tap

Tap with sap just waiting to be collected! Taps are usually placed 3 feet off the ground. 

A new kind of blog!

I am definitely new to the whole incredible world that is blogging. I read other people's blogs and think "wow, they really know what they're talkin about!" But they also talk about so many things! I realized while chatting with my mom the other day, there are so many aspects of my life that are blog worthy! I am a mother of a beautiful two year old daughter Caleigh, a wife to an incredible husband (his name is Jeff by the way), I love planning parties, and I love creating. 

After I had Caleigh I learned to knit hats, plan birthdays, make invitations with my Cricut, I've dabbled a bit in photography and I've even knit a few baby blankets! Oh! And I also have a full time job as a CT Technologist at a clinic on the U of M campus. That alone is a whole different world. But my passion, is baking. Creating so many fun and beautiful desserts for everyone else's special moments. Getting to be a part of those moments is magical. 

Having those moments of my own with my family is incredible! So from now on I will try to blog, and blog often. Sharing moments, recipes, and life's many adventures. Together we can make the world beautiful and sweet!  

Smile like a goofy little girl!

Twirl in the kitchen like no one's watchin!

And eat yummy cupcakes :)