Here are some pictures of Cupcakes I've made, decorated and served in 2009!
Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream frosting and fondant flowers.
Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and fondant Lego pieces.
Elmo and Cookie Monster "Fixed Up" Red Velvet Cupcakes with
Gingerbread teacakes with cinnamon frosting, decorated by Audrey
"Fixed Up" Pilsbury Funfetti Cupcakes and frosting, decorated by Audrey
This post is soooo long overdue, sorry!!
For Kristi's Birthday I made her a batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. All from scratch!
I planned on just using a box cuz I had almost NO time to do this, but to my dismay, Red Velvet Cake Mix is very hard to find. So I sucked it up and just decided to make them the good old fashioned way.
I took a cue from my most favoritest cookbook, More from Magnolia Bakery, and dove in.
Red Velvet Cupcakes:
3 1/3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
6 tablespoons red food coloring (I used one whole jar of frosting dye gel from Wilton's)
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 /12 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
Preheat your oven to 350, and get your cake pans greased and floured then lined with waxed paper. I decided on cupcakes, so I just used liners, but three 9-inch cake rounds could be also used if you wanted to do a layer cake.
In a small bowl, sift the cake flour and set aside. It's very important to use cake flour because it creates a nice delicate tender crumb, and substituting all purpose flour can get tricky. If you can't find cake flour and only have all purpose, use this article as a guideline.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer, (I used my Kitchen-Aid) cream the butter and sugar until super light and fluffy. It should take around 5 minutes and should look like below.
Add the eggs one at a time, cracking into a separate bowl to make sure you get no egg shells, and then beating well after each addition.
In another small bowl we're going to make our red mixture! Using a small whisk or fork mix well the cocoa, vanilla and red food coloring until smooth. It's a pretty thick mixture so make sure you clean out the whisk a few times as you mix to ensure it's even.
It should look pretty red as above. When it's mixed, go ahead and add it into the batter.
The color should be nice and bright red when it's done mixing.
In another small bowl (omg I know right? I just rinsed and used the same dang bowl) mix the buttermilk and salt. It sounds odd, but just do it ok? You are going to alternate adding this mixture with the flour into the batter in as equal of 3 parts as you can get.
This is when it starts looking like the kind of cake batter you want to lick off the spatula. With each addition just mix til incorporated, but make sure you don't over beat. This is where Michelle's brother Jim would make a lewd remark.
In that same small bowl, once again rinsed clean, mix the cider and vinegar to make the kind of thing found inside a 7th grade Science fair volcano. It's going to foam up. It's ok, just go ahead and add that into the batter as well.
Turn off the mixer, scrape the sides down into the bowl and mix well again until the batter is nice and smooth. Divide the batter equally among your chosen pans.
For a layer cake bake them for 30-40 minutes, cupcakes about 15-20. They should be done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with small crumbs. Let them cool and then frost with the icing of your choice.
So one of my clients, Lisa, turned 40 this past weekend. She had a fabulous party down in Venice Beach at Big Red Sun, a totally awesome and adorable landscaping and plant arrangement studio, with a big beautiful backyard perfect for a celebration. 
The crowd was an awesomely amazing and eclectic mix of artists, foodies, hippies, and friends. The conversation was never dull, and the laughs were constant and hearty. I am amazed at how many people came to show Lisa how much she was loved, my hope is that, at 40, I'll have at least half the crowd she did.
Venice Wines provided an amazing wine bar, with everything you could imagine, including lemonade and sparkling cider for a non-alcoholic option. My favorite was the Argentinian Sparkling Chardonnay, and the sparkling rose.
Adam accompanied me as my date, and we just had the most fabulous of times.
Baby Blues BBQ took care of the grub, and boy was there a lot of grub.
Living in Atlanta for over a year, I got used to amazing BBQ. In fact, some of the best BBQ I've ever had was at Fat Matt's Rib Shack in downtown Atlanta. But I can tell all you Angelenos, that if you want some GOOD 'Q, Baby Blues is about as close as I've ever come in the West. When asking for sutible BBQ substitutes after I had moved back, a few people had mentioned, "I hear Baby Blues in Venice is pretty good." If I had known how close it came, I would have tried it YEARS ago.
Their Corn Cakes are, most simply put, the most amazing cornmeal based bread I've ever had in my life. Sweet, moist, with just the perfect amount of wow. Their ribs, come second to Fat Matt's, but are still fall right off the bone tender.
We had Baby Back and Kansas City ribs, as well as BBQ chicken, and all were just awesome. Their Mac and Cheese was also pretty much to die for. In fact, I don't really have much of anything bad to say about them. They even had collard greens with bacon, and sweet baked beans. I felt like I was back in the South.
My darling, very pregnant client Nina was also there, looking adorable with her newly trimmed bangs, so we had to have a photo op.
The cake, as amazing as I'm sure it was, I didn't get a chance to try. I was wayyyy too stuffed. BAD FOODIE! BAD BAD!
So thank you Lisa, for an amazing party, amazing wine, and amazing grub. Happy Birthday pretty lady!
Tonight was Mardi Gras and also my 28th birthday. We had plans to go to the Spaghetti Factory, but seeing as it is in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter, where Mardi Gras was being held, and wanting to avoid as much as a crowd as possible, we decided to go somewhere else. After much deliberation and delegration at my sisters house, her boyfriend stepped up and suggested Saska's in Mission Beach.
Saskas is a seafood and steak house off of Mission Blvd down at the beach in San Diego. It's been around for 58 years, and for whatever reason, I've never ever eaten there, or even noticed it. While we were there, they were celebrating their 58th "birthday" and the restaurant was decorated in loads of streamers and banners. I just pretended they knew I was coming and got the place all ready for me.
We started off with bread, as we checked out the menu. Their garlic bread is a variation of Texas Toast, and it was very yummy, warm and the edges were nice and crunchy.
Most of Saskas menu includes various cuts of beef, with a few seafood, and non-beef options. I opted for a New York Strip seeing as it was my birthday and my daddy was paying.
I started with a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, and forgot to take a picture until a few bites into it.
My sister Katie had a salad with blue cheese dressing. She thinks I'm weird for taking pictures of my food.
The steak was deliciously decadent, served medium with rice pilaf and a side of mushrooms I pawned off on my mom. Those are 3 fried zucchini on top of my rice.
The meal ended with the first of many birthday desserts thoughout the week. Mudpie, a long standing favorite of my sister and myself.
It didn't last long.
Posts
All Comments
