Cupcake Toppers

I love baking and I love adding a little more then frosting to my cupcakes, which is where cupcake toppers come into play! I have really enjoyed creating different types of unique and fun toppers and I just opened an Etsy account. I must say it is all really new to me and I am completely lost when it comes to marketing and using Etsy but it will soon all fall into place! Here are some pictures of recent toppers! Here is my Esty page: http://www.etsy.com/people/katysylvester

Cake Balls

This weekend I had an order for cake balls for a soccer team to fill their snack bags with at the end of the game. I originally wanted to do soccer ball cake balls but in the process of trying to do that I realized how difficult it was to draw a soccer ball on each one with the large size of the cake ball. Therefore I just decided to sprinkle the top of the cake ball with the colors of the team, black and white. I then created a cute tag for the bag and the kids LOVED them! Here are some pictures of the process I used.....

 Bake the cake and cut into pieces

 Put pieces into bowl with icing & stir

 Roll into cake balls and freeze

 Put chocolate covered tips of sticks in cake balls

 Dip cake balls in melted chocolate

 Sprinkle

Bagged and ready to eat!

MIA

Well I have been pretty busy the last few weeks and I do apologize for not posting very much but to be honest I have not been doing very much when it comes to desserts. My husband and I have been dealing with a short sale for the last 8 months and in the last couple of weeks we have been dealing with a lot of paper work and decisions because we are finally going to close escrow in a few weeks! We are very excited and cant wait to begin remodeling the town home and building a family in something we actually own! Owning a home has been something very important to my husband and myself. It is important to us to own something, take care of it and mold it into something we will live in for a long time. On that note I have also been debating on what in the world I want to pursue with when it comes to Savory & Sweet. I want this company to bloom into something big but at this moment I am not too sure what I want it to grow into. Right now I have the opportunity to begin selling my cake toppers at The Sugar Plum Festival. This will give me a chance to see if it is worth my time to continue to pursue creating paper products or if I should just concentrate my time on desserts & dessert tables. I would love to end up having a one stop shop that pretty much has everything to do with dessert tables, but that is in the far future. I will also begin selling my toppers and other paper products on Esty as well. I have been working quietly on toppers in the last couple of weeks which is another reason no blogs have been posted. I plan on posting some toppers on here and eventually having a link to my Etsy shop, which I have yet to create! In the mean time I do have an order for some cake pops that I will begin creating in the next couple of days that I would love you to check out. I will be posting a blog on that soon! As for now, I hope all is well!

***By the way I know I was suppose to make a Tuesday Treat Blue Cheese and Strawberry cupcake, which I will get to, I promise!

Savory & Sweet Cupcake Inspiration

I absolutely LOVE salads and one in particular that I have had many versions of but I must admit Mimi's makes the best of is a Strawberry, blue cheese, walnut & balsamic vinegar salad!

katyelliott.com

While creating yesterday's Tuesday Treat: Maple Bacon Cupcakes I began to think of other savory and sweet dishes that I could create into cupcakes and that salad was the first thing that popped into my head! I am really excited (and a little nervous) at the same to to create this amazing cupcake! I want it to taste just like the salad so I am planning on making a strawberry cupcake (real strawberries of course) and then topping it with a blue cheese frosting and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar along with a sprinkle of walnuts! In my mind is sounds amazing but we wont find out until next Tuesday :)

Tuesday Treat: Maple Bacon Cupcakes

So I stayed true to what I was going to create for the first Tuesday Treat, which is Maple Bacon Cupcakes! I was daring and took a small bite and to my surprise it was not too bad. The hubby loved it and that is all that really matters!

Here is how I made it!

First I made the base; maple cake

2 tbsp flour

1.5 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp oil

1 tbsp imitation maple extract 

(you can use Grade B pure Maple syrup if preferred, imitation was cheaper)

*Stir*

Next I cooked up 1/2 a piece of bacon to a crisp and then chopped it up and added to the cake base. I also add about a tsp of the bacon grease.

I then baked it at 350 degrees for around 10 minutes. It came out looking more like a muffin but still had the consistency of a cupcake :)

I then created my cream cheese maple bacon frosting by just taste testing until it was deeelicious!

Cream cheese

Powder sugar

Unsalted butter

Pinch of brown sugar

Imitation maple extract

I then crisped the other half of the bacon cut it up in little pieces and topped the cupcake with it and TADA here is....

SAVORY & SWEET Maple Bacon cupcake with a Maple Cream Cheese & Brown Sugar frosting topped with toasted Bacon crumbles :)

The hubby loved it!

Pie!

So I have never baked a pie before and recently I have been having the urge to at least try to make one. Well, although sometimes I may seem crazy, I am truly not because there was no way I was going to make a pie from scratch for my first pie! Therefore, I bought 2 frozen pie crusts and canned cherries and threw them together! I dumped the cherries into one of the pie crusts and then covered with the other pie crust. With the left over crust I made two little cherries to put on top of the pie and then put some holes in the top and tada, a cherry pie! I put it in the oven for a total of 45 minutes and out came the pie. Now it was definitely not the best looking pie we have seen but it gets a 10 for taste! Now I guess the next pie I make will HAVE to be from scratch since I believe you can only get away with making 1 pie in your lifetime from frozen crust and canned fruit :) Here are some pictures!

 Before the top crust

 Crust on top cherries made

 Up close!

 Done baking

Cherry & crust goodness!

UPCOMING: Tuesday Treats!

I have decided to create a new dessert every Tuesday for you all to try out yourselves or maybe just enjoy reading about and drool over the pictures. This upcoming Tuesday I have decided to finally create something Savory, because this is a SAVORY and sweet blog isn't it?

I do not like bacon, I know, call me crazy, but I truly don't eat anything pork related (I know I am missing out on a lot of yummy things). Let me explain, growing up I really looked up to my brothers and sister. For a good part of my childhood my oldest brother did not eat pork because pigs were his favorite animal, therefore I did not eat pork, which has followed me into adulthood. However, just because I do not like pork doesn't mean all the people around me don't as well. My husband loves pork, actually he loves ALL types of meat! So I have decided to create Bacon Maple Cupcakes just for the hubby and I might actually have to try a bite!

I have not completely decided on how I am going to make them but I definitely know I am going to be making a maple based cream cheese frosting sprinkled with toasted bacon bits. For the cake I am not too sure what base I am going to use yet but I know it is going to have sprinkles of toasted bacon in it as well. I hope you are all looking forward to the upcoming Tuesday Treat next week!