Blackberry & Cream Cupcakes

I received Martha Stewart's Cupcakes for Christmas. There are a lot of amazing ideas such as the Blueberry & Cream cupcakes.  However, I've been on this blackberry kick for awhile now and thought I would trade in the blueberries with blackberries.  I can see how blueberries would be the better berry for this recipe, especially if you want to make mini cupcakes.  I made both mini and regular sized cupcakes.  I could only place one blackberry in the mini and two-three in the regular.  Of course they were all topped off with whipped cream and a cute blackberry on top.  They also tasted better after being refrigerated. Eating them warm wasn't so great.

Overall, I would say they were a success.  Unless you talked to my mother. She swore they tasted like olives. They didn't.

They do look pretty! 

Rubber Duck Cupcakes

Yes, Rubber Duck Cupcakes. My friend bought me this amazing book called What's New, Cupcake? by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack.  It's a pretty awesome book and I suggest everyone should buy it. And I do mean everyone. Anyway, I decided I would make the Rubber Duck Cupcakes for a New Year's Eve party I attended. There are definitely a few things I'm going to change for the next time I make these, but I'll get to that later. 

Just so you know, I cheated and use packaged cake mix with the directions that the book provided for a vanilla cupcake.

After purchasing some delicious iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts, I cut marshmallows at a diagonal.

Above are the beaks and tails, I created them out of Starbursts.  Like I said earlier, the book is really neat and gives you so many ideas on how to use candy to decorate.  One such suggestion is to microwave Starbursts for 5 seconds, so I did.  They're much easier to manipulate like that.  As you can tell I did have some problems with the feet. I think next time I should spend a little more time on detail.

After the cupcakes cooled, I began to assemble the cupcakes and let them freeze for a bit.

Now for the frosting, they suggest you do not used whipped frosting.  I have to agree. I had some issues, but I think the end result wasn't too far off.

Eyes are a little different, but to each their own!

Yeah... those beaks are a little ridiculous. 

I had more cupcakes, so I was lazy and used more prepared frosting. 

For some reason the pink ones don't look as good as the yellow ones, but I didn't want to toss them! You should also buy the appropriate amount of frosting and not just wing it - like I did. 

Ahem

First things first, I really have no idea what I'm doing.  Well, I kind of have an idea now.


I suppose I will try to back track to the beginning of my baking adventures. Most of the time I only take pictures of the finished product. I generally make cupcakes but I will stray occasionally just because it's fun, duh.