Graduation Dinner

Tiramisu Cupcakes again. Somehow everytime I make it, something turns out differently. Oh well, it's all okay. I got them all finished which is what counted. Things just went wrong that way. I think the major thing was that my chocolate just would not set up and the frosting would not either. It was just too soupy. Oh well!

Picture time!

I could get some of the chocolate to say Grats! for the graduates
There were 9 of the chocolate things on each cupcake for the year 2009.
I thought I wasnt going to be able to bring all of them, so I stuffed them all together.
All of the beautiful tiramisu cupcakes together.

<3 Nina

Jello Shot Cupcakes

While browsing blogs, I came across this one recipe and told myself that I would make it for something. An occasion came up. My friend's surprise going away party. It was perfect.

So during this time, I was done with finals but it was still the busiest week that I've had in a while. Graduations take forever, but I really enjoyed going to them and seeing my friends walk across that stage and receive their degrees. I digress. So finding the time to go out and get unflavored gelatin was none actually. I had no idea where to go looking for it either. Oh well. I decided to just go with regular jello toppings instead of the broken jello. Maybe some other day. If I had a bit more time, I would have created shapes and yeah, been impressive, but no time =(.

Picture of some of them

The off colors in the jello are because I had cut all the jello up and put it in a pan all together.

With the extra jello, I put whipped cream on top and wrote have fun!

But it had kinda broke on me when I brought it to the party. Well I had a friend bring it and to none of their fault, the jello fell and the foil got stuck on the whipped cream and you couldnt read that it said have fun anymore =(.

Everyone thought it was good though, that's all that counted.

<3 Nina

Chocolate Cupcakes with Passionfruit/Chocolate Ice Cream

Wow, so pretty!
On the same day as buying chocolate ice cream for the Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup, I had bought some really yummy passionfruit ice cream. It wasnt that cheap, but oh my, it was really good. I thought - lets create something with that! Well, first off, I was looking up what went with passionfruit, and I didnt find anything really, but instead, I decided to look up what goes well with passionfruit. Chocolate!

So finding the chocolate cupcake recipe was also hard. It needed to be dense and rich to offset the light and fruity passionfruit. This recipe was amazing. Although I had made WAY too many cupcakes, and it was from a box mix, it was still really good.

This time, I learned, make the cupcake first, wait for them ALL to cool down and then put the ice cream on it. The ice cream had not melted on me as much. I had them in the freezer over night, and I had put the whipped cream on it. Chocolate whipped cream. It was really easy to make and it was really light and fluffy. I did not want to put the espresso one on the passionfruit ones because that might be competing flavors so I went with more chocolate. There's nothing wrong with going with more chocolate =).

Pictures by Dmitriy again, thank you for taking pictures of them when you were supposed to be studying for your final! <3

<3 Nina

Chocolate Pepperment Ice Cream Cupcakes

So it's a peppermint cupcake with chocolate ice cream and some espresso whipped cream.
YUM!

I know, personally I think that the flavor combo was weird at first, but my boyfriend told me that it would be the perfect flavor combination.

Well, it all started at the beginning of the month, when I found the Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup. I live for competition. It makes my life complete. Well, one Sunday, I went out with some friends (Alex and Macky) and I decided to get some ice cream for this competition. I bought the EXTREME! Moose tracks. It was pretty yummy and I decided to make a cupcake to go with it. A chocolate cupcake would have been TOO much while I didnt want to be too plain and go with a vanilla cupcake. Instead, I decided to ask around. I finally decided on the Sprinkle's Peppermint Cupcake. I had used the recipe as printed, but I added some extra peppermint and vanilla extract. I also subbed the regular milk with soy milk. It was light and really good.

Being OCD like I am. I tested it out with no cupcake liner = didnt work so well.
Then tested it with the cupcake liners. two at a time. That's how I baked the rest of them. I mean it was time consuming, but it was fun baking and watching Food Network at the same time.

I have finally finished the cupcakes and the ice cream part and end result of those parts had two different results. Part of them were really ice creamy like right out of the freezer, the rest of them were a soupy mess =(. But freezing them overnight in a friend's freezer since I have no room made all the difference. I decided to top these off with an espresso whipped cream from here. But I kind of ran out, and then I made some chocolate whipped cream (not pictured). Regardless, they were still pretty good.
These are my pictures...
YUM!
Thanks for Dmitriy for the pictures again even though it was during finals! <3
These came out really beautifully!


This is my entry into the Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup!

<3 Nina

Sugar Cookies with a Chocolate Chip Middle

So it's like a really cute bite sized cookie that I had made for my friend for the Circle K study-a-thon. It was the same sugar cookie recipe that I've used before, but this time, I made the cookies smaller and put one chocolate chip on top. They were so cute and yummy!

Before going into the oven!Straight out of the oven!

<3 Nina