Nicole's Baby Shower

Over the weekend I was one of three co-hosts for my good friend Nicole's baby shower (longtime readers should know this is the same Nicole of birthday cake fame and a regular taster of BlB food).

We held the shower at a restaurant in the Ballston area of Arlington, called Rustico, but of course I couldn't help making some baked goods for all our guests.

For favors, I made a gingerbread mama and baby:

Gingerbread Mama and Baby

I used King Arthur Flour's gingerbread cookie recipe, and I don't think I will ever look for another gingerbread recipe in my life. These have just the right amount of spice, the center stays chewy and the edges are crisp. I used KAF's royal icing recipe as well. Meringue powder is really easy to find. I bought mine off of Amazon, but you can find it at AC Moore, or other craft stores that carry Wilton products.

I found the adorable gingerbread cookie cutters at CopperGifts.com. The mama is 4 1/2 inches and the baby is their mini size.

For our dessert I made red velvet cupcakes.

Red Velvet Cupcake

I used the same red velvet cupcake and cream cheese frosting recipe that I used for my friend Amy's bridal shower last year. (If you don't want to click through, the recipe can be found on Simply Recipes.) They were delicious!

Brunch menu and favor

Tower 'o' Cupcakes

Our crafty friend, Michelle, made this adorable diaper cake snowman. Nicole said she doesn't think she can stand to take it apart!

Diaper Snowman

Michelle also made these great, simple centerpieces.

She spraypainted branches silver and hung a couple small ornaments from them. They were pretty and festive!

Marshal Mike's Peanut Butter Birthday Cupcakes

Mmmmm...

Today is Marshal Mike's 32nd birthday! In honor of this special day I made peanut butter cupcakes with milk chocolate frosting. I used this cupcake recipe from Elinor Klivans' cookbook, Cupcakes! and this milk chocolate frosting recipe from Joy the Baker. I haven't actually had a cupcake yet, so I can't tell you how they turned out. But the batter was delicious and the frosting was delicious, so I have high hopes.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Shark and Beach Cupcakes

Apologies up front for the shotty photography. I am clearly in need of a better camera or lessons in how to use my camera!

I made these cuties for my friend Amy's bridal shower this past weekend. Luckily my mom was in town, so she helped me get them all together on time! Naturally, the idea came from the crafty Martha Stewart, which my even craftier friend, Nicole, had found. Nicole also procured the perfect wrappers and the decorations.

I decided to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for the beach cupcakes.

I used this great recipe from the blog Simply Recipes, which is actually a guest blog post from Garrett, who runs the blog Vanilla Garlic (should you have an extra 10 minutes in your day, search "Eat Beast" on the Vanilla Garlic site - you will cry you are laughing so hard). I have made this recipe before and love it. I think the cupcakes turn out perfectly: moist, fluffy, just the right amount of crumb. This time around it made 29 cupcakes and there was only enough frosting for about 20 cupcakes, so I am not sure what happened. We used crushed graham crackers as the "sand."

I used Martha's Vanilla Cupcake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipes for the shark cupcakes.

Nicole (painstakingly?) cut out all the fins from felt. 

The cupcakes were ok. They had a good vanilla flavor, but were a little dense. I did notice that they settled quite a bit during the cooling process. This recipe also made 29 cupcakes, but had I known there would be so much sinkage, I would have filled the cups a little fuller.

Now, let's discuss the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. If you read the recipe it says that it makes 9 (!) cups of frosting for 28 cupcakes. What? You have got to be kidding me. Who needs 9 cups of frosting? So I halved the recipe and had plenty for my 29 cupcakes. The recipe seems a little complicated, but once you get going, it really isn't. I followed it to a tee and it turned out perfectly. In the end, it was good frosting, but my mom and I agreed that it wasn't good enough to warrant all of the ingredients and time it uses. (If you care about your health, do not look at how much butter goes into this recipe.) I really expected it to be mind blowing, best I have ever had frosting. Sorry, Martha, better luck next time.