Cupcake plans

I am being unoriginal and making pumpkin cupcakes again this weekend. They were just so good last time! I'm going to make bright orange cream cheese frosting, and stick a candy pumpkin or a candy corn on top of each one. This is granted I can hold off from stuffing them in my face long enough to get the candy on top.

Stitch & Pitch socks

I made these using the yarn I bought at the year's Stitch & Pitch. I love them, and I love this yarn. I bought a skein of different shades of pink last weekend too. Unfortunately, there aren't many colors that I like in the Duet yarns. I also am having a little shopping spree at the Blue Moon Fiber Arts website, for some Socks That Rock. I forgot how much I liked the yarn until I was looking through Ravelry's STR yarn sections and remembered just how awesome it was. So I went stash diving and found a skein of STR Lightweight in Space Dust, and cast on a toe-up two-at-once pair of sock in 3x1 ribbing.

Here are the Duet socks I finished:

Pumpkin cupcakes

Since it's just starting into Fall (my very favorite season), I've been getting the hankering for Fall food. So this weekend, I decided to make pumpkin cupcakes. The thing is, the recipe calls for canned pumpkin, but specifically states that canned pumpkin pie filling will not work. I knew I had seen a can of what I thought was canned pumpkin the the cupboards, so I just went about getting the rest of the batter ready. When the recipe called for the pumpkin, I pulled out the can to come to the unhappy realization that it was indeed pumpkin pie filling. This is what I get for not getting all my ingredients out before I start. But I decided to wing it anyway. They baked up just fine, and I set them aside to cool while I made the cream cheese frosting. I also pulled aside 1/4 cup of frosting that I would eventually use to make spiderwebs on the cupcakes. I frosted the cupcakes, and started to add cinnamon to the remaining frosting to make it a darker color. The recipe made it sound like you would only need a few teaspoons to get the frosting dark enough, but it took me at least two tablespoons. It was a wee bit strong, but since it was only going to be spider webs, it would just be a small amount on the cupcake. Even with the pumpkin booboo, these were AMAZING cupcakes. I will be making them again very soon.


The problem here is, I went too deep with my toothpick when I was dragging the webs out, so there are lines all the way down to the cupcake. Next time I will use a lot less pressure.

Clapotis

It's finally done and photographed! I started it at the end of July, and finished it the first week of September; I was also working on other projects at the time, so it wasn't a project I solely concentrated on. It's final length is 7'2", which is much longer than I expected, but I like the extra length.

Cherry Cheesecake Cupcakes

More cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor book! These ones were amazing, the whole family liked them. My only complaint is that, instead of the cheesecake filling sinking to the middle of the cupcake, it stayed on top and spread out. I think this might have been because I used a butter-recipe cupcake mix, and it was really thick. I had trouble getting it into the paper cups, usually batter is thin enough to pour, but this was like wet cement. Sure tasted good though!



Before the cherries were added.


Ready for a dusting of powdered sugar.


Mmmmmmmm.


A lone cupcake.


I will definitely make these again, they were wonderful!

Chocolate cupcake cones

These were the first cupcakes I made this weekend, the cupcake cones from Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor. They were made with a butter-recipe chocolate cake mix, and topped with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting (also from the Cake Doctor book). I made half a batch of cones, and half a batch of regular cupcakes, because I ran out of cones!

All nekkid and awaiting their frosting.

Oooh, ahhhh. There were more cones, but they didn't turn out as pretty. This was my first try at piping frosting, so some came out a little wonky.


Om nom nom. I love the little fall leaves sprinkles too.


Then I had the plain old cupcakes too:


Ooh, it looks like...dog poo. Great.


Overall, the cake part itself was great, and the frosting was fantastic! The cone parts were pretty ick though. Very stale and chewy.

Cupcakes!

So, besides knitting, one of the hobbies I have been sucked into is cupcake making. I fell in love with the Hello, Cupcake book after seeing all the irresistibly cute cupcakes inside. I have made a few so far, including these bad boys:
They were the first decorated cupcakes I ever made, so they are a little shaky, and I should have taken pictures of them on something other than my horrible cookie sheet (I will next time, promise!). I discovered that canned frosting is very hit-or-miss; I didn't like this chocolate frosting at all (however, I love rainbow chip canned frosting enough to eat it plain with a spoon). Next cupcakes I make will be using frosting made from scratch.

Today I went to Barnes and Noble and bought Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrne, as well as Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans and Crazy About Cupcakes by Krystina Castella. I've already found a ton of recipes I want to try, but this weekend I've picked out two. I am going to make chocolate cupcakes baked in ice cream cones with chocolate buttercream frosting, as well as cherry cheesecake cupcakes. I was just going to make the ice cream cone ones, until my dad saw the cherry ones, and wanted those. So it will be a cupcake weekend! I'll have pictures then, as well as pictures of my Clapotis, which is all blocked and ready to go.

CLAPOTIS IS DONE!!

Sorry, all-caps was required. I'm so excited I could just pee. I finished it today, and it's blocking right now. It's huge, giant even. I will have pictures soon. I don't think I've actually finished a project in ages.

I FINALLY FINISHED SOMETHING, WOOHOO!