Sunflower Cupcake Bouquet

This past weekend I was in Torrance, CA in the end of the year event for Circle K - District Convention.

For a couple of weeks, the district board and I were deciding what to get the governor and I decided that I would take on the task to make a cupcake bouquet that I had seen online. I was inspired by these two different blogs that have made cupcake bouquets. I decided to take elements from both and create my own cupcake bouquet.

Wow, this is such a silly picture of me.

This was definitely fun to put together at 4am the night before [sarcasm] but I did enjoy working together with my friend to put it together.

The cupcake was kind of a chocolate green tea cupcake. They were amazingly good.

Green tea cupcakes
Ingredients:

1 cup of milk

6 green tea bags

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

a pink of salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1.) Put the milk and green tea bags in a cup and refrigerate overnight.

2.) Preheat the oven at 325 F.

3.) Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a mixer and beat on a slow speed until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined.

4.) Remove tea bags from the infused milk and combine with egg and vanilla extract.

5.) Slowly pour this mixture into the flour mixture, beating well until all the ingredients are well mixed.

6.) Spoon the mixture into cupcake liners until about 2/3 full and bake in a preheated over for 20-25 minutes.

I would have to thank all my supporters in any way. I know that people support me through this blog, but also my friends who support me in a different, by actually eating everything! I love you guys.

[ps pictures from my friends Andy Ng and Kathleen Wong!]

No SMS today!

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Pavlova Peach Melba, was chosen by Patty of Birding Blossoms and Baking.

Sorry to Patty. This week I had a District Convention for Circle K and I was busy with that most of the weekend. The rest of the week was basically spent relaxing.

I will attempt to make this sometime soon and I will definitely post about it!

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Double-Crusted Caramel Pear Pie [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Double-Crusted Caramel Apple Pie, was chosen by Susan of Baking with Susan.

I decided to use pears instead because somehow I still had a whole bunch in the fridge so I thought I would make use of it. But since I didn't have enough pears, I decided to add one apple in there. I also used two premade pie crusts. I knew that I would have no time between making last week's SMS and the MSC and this week's SMS. It just made sense to me.

I made these for an interfamily social at a friend's house on Pi Day. I just made sense to me that I would make a pie for Pi day! At the social, I finally had my first taste of poutine which is like a Canadian version of cheese fries with gravy and cheese on top of French fries. That and mole. I love my friends and the food we always end up having. We just ended up eating most of the night. FUN STUFF!

Sorry for no picture of the pie cut open. I forgot my camera and forgot to make someone take it for me! So it's not the most beautiful pie on the outside, but it was delicious.

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

PS. my spring break started 3 days ago, so I'll be baking lots this week to celebrate the end of the Circle K year and also a break from school! I'm looking for a good, easy cookie recipe. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section!

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes [msc]

These lemon meringue cupcakes were so adorable! Everything was pretty easy to make on a busy schedule, and these were just heavenly. Everyone at the Murder Mystery Dinner seemed to really enjoy them.

I had trouble getting the 7 Minute frosting to set, but I added a little bit of powdered sugar and it set up quite nicely. In addition, I tried to use the broiler. It scares me quite a bit. I've had a few bad experiences with them. As you can see, I didn't have any better ones this time either. I burned a couple of the cupcakes, but other than that, the rest of them were perfect!

Thank you Megan for this fun and wonderful choice!

The recipe for this month's Cupcake Club is found on pages 142 of Martha Stewart's Cupcake book or here. Thanks to Megan from My Baking Adventures for choosing this.

Carrot Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, was chosen by Julie of A Little Bit of Everything. I knew that I needed something amazing for a murder mystery dinner that I was going to, so I decided to make this cake into a bundt cake. It would be pretty easy to get everyone a piece at the reception along with the Lemon Meringue Cupcakes that I made.

This week was definitely really stressful. First, I had two midterms, one on Tuesday, the next on Wednesday. Then, I had somehow crashed my computer and I stayed up until about 5am to get Windows 7 from a friend. In addition, the next day I went over and stayed until about 2 - which isnt bad - to get Microsoft Office and all that. It's just been a hassle with my computer lately.

Everyone had told me that it was a wonderful and very nice carrot cake. I was unable to taste it since I had 2 ice cream sandwiches already by the time I had gotten to the cake. Everyone seemed to have really enjoyed it!

I made the original recipe for the cake, with this cream cheese glaze.

Recipe:

3oz of cream cheese, room temperature

3 T of milk

3 T of powdered sugar

Just mix all the ingredients together, until smooth. Add milk or powdered sugar to get to the consistency you want.

The Murder Mystery Dinner: at the Wedding Reception has been worked on by the Kiwanis Family committee of UC Berkeley Circle K for the past couple of weeks. We put together a plotline and characters. It was super fun to act and be someone different for a night. I was the angry drunk ex-girlfriend to the groom. We had gone out during our time at business school at Columbia. He was the only guy to ever dump me so I'm very bitter towards him. It was just fun to get dressed up and play something that I'm definitely not. I love my boyfriend, but it's fun to pretend! It was hilarious though, somehow throughout the night, everyone thought that I was pregnant which definitely was not a part of the plotline. I had a fun time Friday night, even though it is not the typical college Friday night.

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Roasted Walnut Cake with Guava Caramel FAIL [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Roasted Pecan Cake with Caramel Orange Marmalade and Burnt Orange Buttercream, was chosen by Leslie of Lethally Delicious.

This would have been a delicious recipe, if it was actually finished. I had made the cake with walnuts...and not crushed because I have no food processor, so whole chopped pieces of walnuts. The cake turned out fine. Also, I had made the caramel part of the orange marmalade and and splashed some guava juice in it instead.

The frosting is where it went all wrong. Somehow nothing went right. The guava juice wasn't becoming syrupy enough. The sugar was too soft. The butter was too cold. The frosting was just a huge failure, but not only that, the whole job searching thing is hard. I've sent out about 20 resumes, and no responses at all - not even a no thank you. It's getting to me, but I'm still looking for stuff. If anyone knows of something I can in the Bay area, or in the LA area, please let me know. I think that any job right now would be appreciated.

Also during this week, I have decided that I do want to start my own business - a cupcake business. Maybe mini tarts too! Name has yet to be decided, and it'll probably be order only for now. Maybe I'll do a storefront. I'll think about it all during this month! I'll decide before everything's done.

Sorry, Leslie, they just turned out so bad that I just didnt want to photograph them. Hopefully everyone else's faired a lot better than mine!

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.