The Hunger Games movie came out this weekend, and I've never felt this excited about a movie in a long time. The books were fantastic and if you read them you will agree you cannot put them down. They didn't disappoint with the movie. Rare.
I had some fun this weekend making more tie dyed themed cupcakes and inspiration came to me to make cupcakes on fire.

Using Wilton tip #97, I filled half the side of a piping big with red icing, the other half with yellow icing.

And it piped out like this:

The original "on fire" cupcakes from this weekend:

I invited my cutsy little cousins over for a couple days of their march break. I had activities planned almost hour by hour (and apparently I still managed to miss a few hours). My favorite part was making tie dyed cupcakes. Every kid loves colour, and is excited by the thought of eating things that look like rainbows. I assume that's why they love sprinkles so much. Each of them choose the shade they wanted to dye the white gluten-free cake. Then they each got to spoon a bit of their batter into the cup. It's important not to mix the spoonfuls or you'll end up with an unpleasant shade of brown.

Turned out like this:

Then set up a sprinkle bar for them to decorate. The sprinkles you see below on the right are the most dangerous... I am still finding little balls everywhere.
Just don't say I didn't warn you.

And here is their little cupcake gallery:

It's been a crazy week. A lot of it had to do with march break. While baking up some colored cupcakes with my little cousins (more on that in an upcoming post) I threw in some all green cupcakes for St. Patty's day tomorrow. Last year I made this green dessert. Or if you prefer something with beer, this cake is a good one.

The cupcakes were a white gluten-free cake mixed with green food colouring. The sprinkles are yellow gold and the shamrock was made from gumpaste.
Happy St. Pat's!

It's been a pretty mild winter in Toronto. Next week we are expecting some early spring weather, and I can't wait to wear my blue joe fresh mac coat.

Had to throw that in there.
Today we have just witnessed a snowfall and I am taking it as an opportunity to post my white snow cupcake.

Click here for a tutorial on how to make the royal icing snowflake topper.

I stuck to my theme, gold and white (with a little brown) and I'm liking the feeling of this colour scheme. Sort of like a classy festive palette.

On the top of these cappuccino cupcakes is a little sugar cookie. Yes I really do have that small circle cutter and you better believe I used it.

Below: The simplicity of these is what makes them so beautiful, don't you agree? With a little bit of white sugar crystals sprinkled on top and black & white swiss chocolate and vanilla bean buttercreams. The gold liners complete the perfect package.

stay tuned...

Double post today!
Come back later for a yummy and nutritious christmas morning cranberry oatmeal recipe.

This past weekend was the gift fair I participated in. This year I decided to do sugar cookies. They make great kris kringle gifts and stocking stuffers. I did a gold and white scheme throughout.

The lighting was pretty terrible but here is my table:

Of course cupcakes were there. Chocolate, peppermint and marble were thrown into the mix, plus I did some coconut flavours (because white went with my theme).

My personal favourite was the box of snowy tree cookies:

Above were the sugar cookies. I made holiday tags for the individual packages and as a treat for you here they are for download. These can be used on those last minute gifts I know you are all scrambling to purchase. You're not alone.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FREE HOLIDAY TAGS!

It's not a cherpumple, it's a cakie! Brownake? Brownieake? Cupibrown? Brownilla? Wish I was better at the naming game.

Inspired by the dulce de leche brownies, and by your excited reaction to them, I wanted to create a cupcake that has some of that fudgy, more dense chocolate batter. In attempt to get you more excited. After trying to incorporate brownie batter two ways (as a bottom layer and as a marble) I found it's better as a cupcake bottom layer. Click read more (below) to get the recipe.

In this cupcake you get two different textures which I think makes it so great. The texture of the brownie on the bottom (fudgy and dense) with the light cake texture on top.

The marble one got tossed aside, still good and all but you couldn't tell it was specifically brownie swirled in the middle. Maybe if it was more chunky portions of batter. Now if I could only figure out how to bake a pie in the middle of this...
Cherbrownake...