rainbow cupcakes & carrot cake cookies

Where do I begin? Between Father's Day, PRIDE, and Westword Music Fest, I don't know where I found the time to whip up such delicious sweets, but somehow I made it work :)

Friday night, I got together with some friends to make rainbow cupcakes, and properly kick off Pride weekend with dinner, dessert, and drinks. I was nervous to make the technicolor sweets, but I'm actually really proud of the outcome!

Stuff you need: 1. A box of white cake mix 2. White frosting 3. Food Coloring 4.Rainbow sprinkles

Start by making the cake batter according to the back of the box. When all the ingredients are mixed together properly, divide the batter into 4 separate bowls, and dye each bowl with a different color. Grease a muffin pan, and pour dollops of each color batter into every hole. Once again, follow the package for baking times, and when they're properly cooked, swirl on some frosting and top with rainbow sprinkles. For how phenomenal they turned out, they were actually quite easy, and fun, to make!

This was also my first time using a decorating bag with an icing tip, and I think they turned out great! Now all I need to do is practice, practice, practice, and hopefully I'll be making beautiful treats in no time! See how happy I am with my rainbow cakes? Yayy!

After a rowdy time at X bar, a day of great local music, and the Pride parade this morning, it was finally time to tackle my Father's Day gift! But first, did I mention I saw Mondo at the Pride parade?! He's one of my all-time favorite designers from Project Runway, and I just about peed my pants when I saw him this morning. *Insert squeals here* OMG MONDO I LOVE YOU!!

Anyway, back to baking. One of my Pop's favorite treats is carrot cake- it also happens to be the cake that my parents had at their wedding. I knew I had to do something special, so I went to Tasteologie, and found this great looking recipe for Carrot Cake Cookies. I followed the instructions as written for both cookie and icing, and let me tell you, they turned out so so good. My crappy phone camera does these cookies no justice. You'll just have to trust me- these babies are outstanding!

My Dad loved them! He said that eating just one of these cookies, was like devoring a giant triple layer slice of a great carrot cake. They're soft, decadent and the flavors are perfection. If you have a carrot cake fanatic in your family, I highly recommend you try these out.

Well it was a wonderful, crazy weekend filled with great people, great food, and great music. I love that this weekend was all about celebrating local music, equality, and fantastic dads- 3 of my favorite things! Happy PRIDE & Happy Father's Day!♥

funfetti cupcakes

It's been far too long since I've made a fun, healthy, creative meal. When work gets busy, and the groceries get sparse, it's always the dinners that fall by the wayside. A person can eat only so much pasta.

Last night I had the pleasure to host a birthday dinner for one of my favorite ladies, Kelly. We ordered in Chinese food, drank far too much wine, and devoured some vegan funfetti cupcakes. That's right. Vegan funfetti. Now, when you buy the funfetti cake mix, the instructions tell you to add oil and eggs, but my friend Christy and I vegatized it!

So here it is, super simple. For every egg that the recipe calls for, replace it with a little over 1/4 cup of applesauce. That's it! The cupcakes turned out super moist, cakey, and delicious. Our frosting skills are seriously lacking, but more importantly, the sweets were tasty.

Making a recipe vegetarian or vegan is actually surprisingly easy. Here is one of my favorite articles on vegan baking substitutes from the Post Punk Kitchen. Vegan baking is great, because your meals will be delicious, and you'll feel good about eating them too! Highly recommend you try it out :)

chocolate mustaches

Last Friday was my friend Sam's birthday. I work with Sam and he is an awesome guy with awesome facial hair. Of course, this meant that his birthday treat had to be equally as awesome- which was no simple task.

This was my first attempt at chocolate art, and it's not much of a recipe, but I'm sharing them, because I'm super proud of the outcome, and Sam liked them too! :)

Stuff you need: 1. Cupcakes (homemade or lazy-style & store bought like me) 2. Plastic bag or melting bottle 3. Candy melts (but I think melted chocolate would work too) 4. Wax paper lined cookie sheet

Take your candy melts and put them into your melting bottle. I lost the cap to my bottle, so I had to use a ziplock bag instead- a little sloppy, but it did the job. Run the bottle under hot water until the candy melts have turned to liquid- make sure all the candies are properly melted, otherwise you have to deal with big clumps and it sucks.

Snip the end off your plastic bag (or just take your bottle) and squeeze out some chocolate mustaches onto your wax paper lined cookie sheet. Work fast so you can use all the chocolate before it begins to solidify again!

When all your handlebar mustaches are created, pop the cookie sheet into the freezer for a hot second while you clean up. They only need about 5 minutes before they'll easily pop off the paper.

And here is a picture from Sam's superior camera phone:

Since this was the first time I'd ever tried this, and I used a messy plastic bag, it took me quite a few batches to get the mustaches right. Luckily, after a few attempts, I managed to find 6 good looking 'staches in chocolate and peanut butter. Finally, I sunk the mustaches into the tops of the cupcakes and presented them to the birthday boy.

For my first adventure in chocolatiering, I'm very pleased, and am totally excited to try it again! Most importantly, Sam loved them and had an awesome birthday. Yayy!