happy bday leah!

this page came up on my google reader and inspired a batch of birthday cupcakes for my favorite/bestest sister ever

doodles

looking a little creepy and powdered sugar crack-y

faces!  btw.  what the hell do real bakers use for black lines?  i bought these in the hope they would ...work.  but to no avail.  mostly the markers have dried out [they need to be refrigerated???] and smoosh the fondant around, even after it has dried for an hour.  i ended up with my fall back.. cheap black gel icing from the grocery store that leaves blobs and drips like no one's business and is sticky as shit.  do i need to learn how to do chocolate piping?  cos that seems like a pain in the ass. 

but they turned out ok in the end.

babo

uglyworm

ox

note to self-do not attempt to make colored underlays for letters again.  pain. in. the. arse.

the ugly doll cupcakes ready for transport [on butter-chocolate cake with dark cocoa and peanut butter frosting]

lone ox.  cos i cant add.  and i am a math/sciences grad student.  umm.

the best frosting ever:
1 stick butter [room temp not melted]
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teas vanilla
2 tablespoons milk or soy milk
1/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
powdered sugar [around 2/3 pound]
yield: 24 cupcakes [and 2 snacky roommates]

cream butter and peanut butter until well mixed.  add vanilla, soy milk, cocoa, and several cups of powdered sugar.  mix on low until powered sugar is combined [to avoid horrific explosion].  mix on high until color lightens slightly.  add more powdered sugar as needed until frosting is fluffy and able to form peaks

eat with spoon.  i mean..

2 years and counting

welp i missed my 2 year "blog-a-versary" by a few days.  damn.  good thing my mom still reads this.

since florida, i have shoveled a declared shitload of snow  [unofficially 20" in my neighborhood] and searched fruitlessly for a part time job.  doing ANYTHING.

see the antennae?  thats my car.

after some help from neighbors.  note, i had to shovel a path thru the yard just to get across the street to my car.  unpictured-helping elderly neighbor shovel out his 2 cars, my roommate's car and our driveway, and a further car-shaped spot next to our driveway for another roommate's car.  and back pain. 

i also attended a housewarming party with a bunch of particle physicists.  and of course i made cupcakes.

yes that is a radiation symbol.  i was going to make the house look like an atom with electrons circling it.. but my fondant decorating pens were a bit dodgy.

 

neatly arranged in my birthday cupcake tree! needless to say, the radiation cupcakes were readily consumed over the house cupcakes.  and it was explained to me how to actually make a cupcake radioactive using only household materials.  much wine was consumed but the gist was... cannibalize the smoke detector and therein lies some radioactive isotope/element/part.  then schmear it on the cupcake.  voila. 

zhen's bday cupcakes

its a leaf.  cos were environmental people...

and a happy sun

cupcake toppers!

cupcakes getting ready to go party

halloween cupcakes part deux

raaawwrrr vampire fondant topppers!

rocky horror lips

generic happy face + fangs

for once i only had a teeny tiny bit of fondant left over instead of...shitloads like usual

lemon cupcakes with dark chocolate buttercream and vampire tops

and just for good measure... our pumpkins

ghetto cupcake season

the "worst ny summer ever" has broken.  thank god.  it was officially cool enough to use the oven yesterday.  keep in mind, we have possibly the most uninsulated oven in existence.  and the thermostat runs about 25 degrees hot.  but i digress.  I MADE CUPCAKES! 

but as it turned out, the mental picture i had was... about what i created.  not. so. great.

back to school!  ummm its a school house that reads "PS 71" and an apple.  in case you couldnt tell.  PS as in..public school.  and 71 is our house number.  which a former resident of the house ::ahem:: didnt seem to realize when she picked up her cupcakes-to-go. 

frank cupcakes.  noone likes black fondant and... i dont think i even know how to make black with food coloring.  and in these pictures it only is sort of apparent the cookie cutter was a cat... but whatever.  plus one cupcake is missing as a current roommate enjoys cupcakes without frosting.  too much sugar.  even though he eats half a box of children's cereal daily...

a closeup of a particuarly good looking apple.  it was a heart cookie cutter with the bottom cut off.  and yes with a layer of power sugar crack. 

a crack kitty close up

and just for good measure since my purchase of discount disposable [recyclable] cupcake containers has "creme filled" stickers... theyre your mom filled instead.  yep.  went there.

sarah's birthday cupcakes!

what could it be? polka dots and... arrows?

umm nope. the absolute most simplistic engineering cupcake ever.

and safety vests.. and orange cones. not weirdo candycorns.

and another shot just to show the powdered sugar does eventually absorb in. so they dont look like crack cupcakes. and the mini stoplights cos i got tired of rolling and smashing little balls of fondant at 1130pm.

happy birthday katie!

roommate katie is an anthropologist doctoral student. since she does digs in exotic places and dissections.. i figured bones would be appropriate. but who wants a creepy birthday treat? hopefully no one. so after googling for a bit, i decided on the "kawaii" look

fittingly i also was eating sushi. in between filling the kitchen with powered sugar clouds. and yes i pick out the faux crab. the vege only sushi looked like crap and i dont trust raw fish thats been sitting in a grocery display case. plus that whole texture thing..

for some unknown reason we only have a 12 cup cupcake pan. well one 12 cup and one 6 cup. and 12 silicone cupcake cups. but those are a pain in the arse.. so i went with an 8" cake. which fell. surprise, surprise. the blue gel shit is hard to write with and i have absolutely no clue how it tastes.. but it shows up well on dark chocolate buttercream frosting

a skully closeup. ["buttercream" fondant with lemon cake underneath!]

and since everything is inherently more badass in black and white...voila

what rhymes with door hinge?

yea. i know babies arent supposed to be orange. and car tires arent either. so sue me.

cupcakes for the schneiders! ignore the powdered sugar. it eventually absorbed in.

"congrats amy & seth" "welcome baby schneider" [to my knowledge he was as yet unnamed]

leftover cupcakes and fondant

i got too lazy to fill more cupcake liners and made a short 8" cake.

fleurs from the back yard

umm they opened overnight quite a lot. and now the house smells of old ladies.

happy bday ali!

drew this at work in .25 seconds. good thing sanrio characters are ridic easy to copy

the cupcakes getting ready to travel in their makeshift carrier. ie two tinfoil pans rubberbanded together. gheeeetto. but functional

cupcakes after their removal from silicon baking thingers. the shocked and angry ones have the right idea. shortly after taking the picture, i tried to plastic wrap the top and smeared 5/6 of their poor little faces

the last cupcake waiting to be stored somewhere. and the remnants of my horrible decorating induced mess

oddly enough after finishing i opened a box from the parents and found two seasons of boston legal and a coloring book! hours of fun? fuck yea!

happy bday leah!

hello kitty cupcakes! inspired by lyndsay of coco cake cupcakes! made w/ box cake mix [i cant bake for shit], rolled buttercream fondant [should have made a 1/4 batch instead of half], chocolate buttercream, weird black frosting pen from the grocery store, and edible red glitter [made from rice paper!]

the sis admiring the blanket i finished at 12 on tuesday night

the back is minky fabric [?] and feels like puppies

whilst buying a bottle [or 2] of wine after work one day, i happened upon a bottle of cupcake brand sav blanc. and where is it from? FUCKING NEW ZEALAND!!!!! i had to buy it. and then wrapped it for the birthday celebration. salut!