Black Bottom Cup Cakes

I just couldn't resist these mouthwatering sight whose recipe comes from Eleanor's blog. I think hers turned out better or at least hers looks better through lenses. She was the one who directed me to Smitten Kitchen who is hosting the recipe. Really easy recipe and lots of helpful hints. I was really excited to taste them but I found that these need to get quite cool before they really show a good tasting. I did use a piping bag to pipe the filling into the cupcakes. I also made some large and some mini just to see which works better. I've only tried the mini ones and they are yummy... but only after they were well cooled. When they are just fresh out of the oven, they tend to taste a little cheesy, overpowering the chocolate.

Baby Shower Cake

This is the first baby shower cake I've made and I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I would have added a little baby's face but due to the lack of time and also I had to make another shower cake that I will post tomorrow.

For some reason, my icing didn't turn out the way I like. There seemed to be alot of air bubbles. Might have been due to the fast whipping of the icing toward the end of the mixing. For this cake, I made a rainbow bits cake. I used to love eating this cake but now, I'm more into the golden cakes and of course the chocolate cakes. Humm... that makes me think of the carrot cake I used to make. I just might have to make that some time soon. The cake is iced with Wilton's classic butter cream icing and the blue morning glory flowers are made of royal icing.

Mini Flower Cup Cakes

Don't these look cute? I just love how they look and they taste pretty good too! Pre-mixed cakes are easy and convenient but I find that it always taste better when you spruce it up with something else. In this case, I like to brush my cakes with Grand Marnier or Kahlua or Cream Sherry before giving them a dusting of icing sugar or a coat of butter icing. Then to make them pretty, my favourite way is to use royal icing flowers that I made myself earlier. These royal icing flowers are hard and can keep for a very long time. If I'm out of these, I'll just pump flowers out of butter icing. Here are what my cup cakes looked like before they got decorated.