Chocolate Guinness cupcakes filled with red raspberry gel frosted with vanilla buttercream.
Posted by baketastic on June 28th, 2009
Vanilla cupcakes topped with vanilla cotton candy frosting.
Dark chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream decorated with hula girls, hula boys, palm trees and mini umbrellas. They didn’t just taste great, they looked hella-cute too! The birthday girl (my 9yr old niece) was very pleased, and so were her guests.
Vodka and Diet is a pretty traditional drink at a bar or club. And it is true to its namesake, a bit of vodka and a bit of diet soda, some ice cubes and a straw. Viola! Some people may add a cherry or even a lime but it is most often enjoyed without a garnish. I’ve seen men and women ordering them, I’ve even enjoyed some myself. This week my sister’s best friend is celebrating her 27th birthday. She isn’t a big fan of sweets or cakes so I was a little at a loss as to what to whip up for her. Then I thought to myself, “She goes out dancing at least once a week.. Hmmm..“, so I decided to surprise her with a vodka and diet concoction of my own making.
If you are an avid reader of my blog then you probably already know that I am a member of the IronCupcake:Earth group or ICE. This months challenge just so happens to be anything involving soda pop. Man, this is right up my alley. Funny enough, I decided on making her vodka and diet cupcakes a week or so before I noticed this months ICE challenge, talk about a fortuitous occasion! Coincidence? I think not, I prefer to look at the situation exactly as it happened, a challenge that I must complete, and sweetly.
Oooohhhhh yeaaaaaaaahhh. I made my Grandmother’s chicken and dumplings Monday night, oh Lord they are so yummy. Well, today I got permission from her to share the recipe. Here ya go!
Wow, Easter came, and went and I was a little surprised to see that not many people actually celebrated the religious side of it. No matter what store I visited, I heard, “But, MOOOOOOOOOM, I want the big Easter basket!“ and, “That candy is gross, I want the expensive kind.” It seems to me that these days, kids are only motivated to do things when rewarded and have come to know holidays as Days When I Get All Kinds of Free Stuff And it Doesn’t Matter if I Was Bad or Not.
P-L-E-A-S-E!
In my house growing up, we didn’t get squat unless we earned it. We played outside most days and drank out of a garden hose. Sure, we had a television, even a video game console but there was grass outside. Plus, you can’t put a sprinkler in the living room, ride your bike around the house or chase your friends playing Cartoon Freeze Tag.
Kids these days just don’t know. They’re too busy shoving Big Macs and Doritos in their mouths, guzzling Mountain Dew while sitting on the living room floor, zombies sworn to obey the Mighty Television God.
Thankfully, I have the same idea my parents did when it comes to holidays and keeping kiddos busy, not spending a lot of money, giving only when deserved and doing things together that do not involve a television and can be taken outside!
For Easter this year, I wanted to keep my two nieces busy, along with my infant nephew. So, I chose to make mini cupcakes topped with cotton candy buttercream and decorated with Robins’ nests. (recipe for cotton candy buttercream from www.cakespy.com)
I’ll admit, one of the girls absolutely refused to help, she was too busy with her Wii. But the eldest, only 10, couldn’t wait to get her apron on. We had LOADS of fun! We used edible grass (bought from Target) and a bag of Whoppers Robins’ Eggs for decor. I think we did a pretty good job, too!
After the cupcakes, we ran around outside, shooting Silly String at one another, cracking confetti eggs on each other, running figure 8’s around the sprinklers and having a grand old time. We even got the Wii addict to join us.
It was an incredibly terrific Easter.
I have a best friend, his name is Brody. Brody just happens to be a Chocolate Labrador Retriever. The coolest Lab I’ve ever known, and he’s my pal. I got him as a birthday gift from my Sister when he was 6 weeks old. He is going to be the big 4 this June 3rd.
We’ve had our ups and downs – destroying furniture, digging into sheetrock on walls, house training, spaz training, leash training but he’s finally doing pretty awesome. One of the funny things I trained him was, “Excuse me”. Really, if I say “Excuse me” around him, he moves out of the way and looks back at me to make sure he isn’t in the way. He will do this for everyone that says it around him. Also, when he gets in trouble, all I have to say is, “Time out, Mister!” and he runs to his corner, lays down and pouts at me until I tell him, “You can get up now.” I knew Labs were smart, but this is freakin great!
Brody has to spend a lot of time indoors because he’s allergic to pretty much everything; grass, fleas, ticks, dust, pollen, synthetic fibers, dairy, wheat, meat, the list keeps going on and on. Today he is having an extra bad day, sneezing and such, so I promised to write about him and that seems to have appeased him for the moment. Meet Brody Doggins!
I love this guy with all of my heart, even when he wraps the leash around my legs and knocks me down when he’s chasing squirrels.
I love to bake, but you guys already know that. What you don’t know is that I love potatoes. Forrest Gump’s shrimp love “ain’t got shit” on my potato love. Potato chips, potatoes au gratin, raw potatoes (yes, I’ll even take a few bites when I’m cutting or peeling them for cooking), french fries, tator tots, tator crowns, hash browns, mashed potatoes, potato salad, roasted potatoes, baked potatoes (twice and fully loaded). Trust me, I could keep going. Mashed are my absolute favorite, with a tiny bit of sweet cream butter and 2% milk. I only like homemade potatoes too, none of that instant flake crap. To me, that is like passing off a crayon drawing as the Mona Lisa. It just doesn’t cut it.
Here I go again rambling on about potatoes. Sadly, this is a common occurance.
The point of this blog is to share with you one of my favorite potato salad recipes. I got this one from my best friends (my sister from another mister) Mom. She’s been my Mom too since I was about 13, which is why I too have the recipe. 
Garlic Bacon Potato Salad
4 cups boiled potatoes*
1 bushel green onions
4 boiled eggs
5 dill pickles
2 cups shredded bacon
2 1/2 T garlic powder
2 1/2 T Italian seasoning
2 1/2 T onion powder
3 T salt ( I prefer Kosher)
2 cups of mayo
1/4 cup of mustard
*When boiling the potatoes, be sure to add 3 T salt, 2 T garlic powder, 2 T Italian seasoning and 2 T onion powder to the water before water starts to boil.
Mix potatoes, eggs, pickles, onions and bacon in a large bowl.
Whip mayo, mustard, 1/2 T onion powder, 1/2 T garlic powder and 1/2 T Italian seasoning together in a bowl. Pour whipped mixture on top of potato mixture and fold in with a large spatula or, what I use, your hands.
This is in my opinion, hands down, the best potato salad I have ever eaten. When Mom makes it, my sis, her sis-in-law and I fight over it. We’ll throw punches and wooden spoons – no holds barred.
The only shitty part about this particular potato salad is that I have 10 lbs of it sitting in my refrigerator right now, made this evening, waiting for me to bring to the birthday party tomorrow at noon, taunting me. Potato salad, you can be such an asshole sometimes!
