Lemon Lavender Lemon Curd-Filled Cupcakes

Oh, the things about which I obsess. My office recently held a bake-off and I stressed over my entry way too much -- just ask my family! I was torn between known crowd-pleasers (like these Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes) and something new. In the end, I decided to follow my husband's advice and "go bold" with these lemon lavender cupcakes.

This recipe, inspired by Sweetapolita, features amazingly moist lemon buttermilk cake, lemon curd filling, and lavender-infused buttercream frosting. I then topped them with lemon lavender shortbread cookies for some extra oomph.

Lavender is definitely not for everyone, but I've found that most people really like the subtle flavor it adds to baked goods, and when coupled with lemon, it's amazingly refreshing. I won't lie -- these cupcakes take longer than most simply because there are so many elements to them (cake, lemon curd, butter cream, lavender-infusion, shortbread cookies), but I promise they are so worth it (they did earn me first place in the bake-off!).

Get the full recipe here: LEMON LAVENDER CUPCAKES

Other notes:

The lace-looking cupcake wrappers are from Michael's.
You need culinary lavender for this recipe. I found a great option on Amazon.
To achieve the perfect shade of lavender, I combined two drops of pink with one drop of blue gel from Wilton's Color Right Performance Color System. Americolor also has great shades of purple -- just add slowly so you don't oversaturate the lavender color.

You Are My Sunshine Cookies

The song, "You Are My Sunshine" holds a special place in my heart, as it's one I started singing to my daughter when she was in the NICU. Today, five years later, she's singing it to her baby dolls (and to me every now and then). So when my coworker asked if I'd be interested in making some sunshine-inspired treats for his daughter's second birthday, I had to say yes.

These are made using my tried and true FAVORITE SUGAR COOKIE and ROYAL ICING recipes. But let's be honest -- these cookies are all about the styling.

And by styling, I mean pretty pink, orange, and clear course sugar crystals with matching heart-shaped sprinkle bows and royal icing "cheeks". Because black icing and little kids never mixes well, I decided to draw the sunshine faces on using an Americolor edible marker.

I also played around with the photo "styling" a bit. I am not a professional photographer and even if I were, I think trying to capture fun, high-quality images of flat cookies would be difficult. There are only so many ways one can stack cookies to make them look interesting and still highlight the decorating. Let's just call this a continual work in progress...

Other notes:

I got the Sun Cookie Cutter from Copper Gifts. If I could buy all my cookie cutters from this amazing company, I would. All of their cookie cutters are handmade and are incredibly durable.
The course sanding sugar crystals are from a Cake Boss three-pack I found at Michael's
I always try to apply sanding sugar or sugar crystals (let's just call these sprinkles for the sake of simplicity) after the royal icing has dried overnight. Yes, it means you need to devote more time to decorating the cookies, so it doesn't always work out in terms of timing, but the results are so worth it. If you've never tried the dry application method, do it! All you need is 1/4 teaspoon meringue powder mixed with 1/4 teaspoon warm water and a small paint brush. Just "paint" the mixture onto the cookie where you want the sprinkles to stick, apply the sprinkles (I like to pour some in my hand for a little extra control), and tip the cookie over to remove the excess. Voila! Perfectly applied sprinkles without denting your royal icing or worrying about rogue sprinkles.

Construction-themed Party Treats

When a former coworker of mine asked if I'd be interested in making some treats for her grandson's first birthday, I jumped at the chance to work on a project that didn't entail pastel colors and flowers (not because I don't love them, but because it's just what I usually gravitate toward).

Construction-themed smash cake & sugar cookies

Everyone's inspired by Pinterest, right? But the problem with a lot of "pinned" cakes, especially themed-cakes, is that they're made of fondant -- not exactly great for a little boy's smash cake. So instead we focused on making the cake as editable as possible for a toddler while still encompassing the road construction-based party theme.

What one-year old can resist a triple chocolate smash cake?

I found a great, simple cake on Pinterest (courtesy of The Celebration Shoppe) and recreated it with dark chocolate buttercream frosting and crumbled chocolate pie crust "dirt". I found the CAT mini machines and construction cone candles on Amazon (links below).

Close-up on the chocolate pie crust "dirt"

For the cookies, I wanted to have a few different varieties to make the platter interesting, but stick to simple colors and designs. I decided to play up the yellow and orange from the cake decorations and made hard hats, dump trucks, and construction cones. I also wanted to make it clear that this was a first birthday celebration, so I made a bunch of number one cookies (some with polka dots to keep it fun).

I really love the chocolate sprinkle "dirt" on the dump truck:

If only real dirt tasted like chocolate sprinkles...

Thank you for letting me be part of your day, Noah! Happy birthday!

Other notes:

I ordered the CAT Mini Machine 5-pack and Construction Cone Candles from Amazon, but I've also seen them at party supply stores.
I found the number one and construction-themed cookie cutters at CheapCookieCutters.com.
To tint the royal icing, I used AmeriColor gel paste colors Egg Yellow and Lemon Yellow (for the construction yellow) and a combination of Orange and Tulip Red for the vibrant orange shade.

Nutella Cupcakes

Nutella. It's pretty much my favorite thing in the world. Hazelnut and chocolate...um, yeah. Amazing. Fill some chocolate cupcakes with it and add some super creamy Nutella buttercream and it's pretty much game over.

These cupcakes require two full jars of Nutella, so be sure to stock up before making these. And use the name brand stuff -- trust me, you can taste the difference.

People always ask me about these baking cups -- they're Wilton's Black Wave Standard Baking Cups. I love using these because they add some visual interest to standard cupcakes and don't fade in the oven. They kind of "frame" the light chocolate buttercream draw attention to the simple hazelnut garnish.

Get the full recipe here: NUTELLA CUPCAKES

Throwback Thursday -- My First Time Decorating Cookies

In honor of #tbt, I thought I'd share my first experience making decorative cookies, since that's where this hobby all began.

Throwing back

For my daughter's first birthday, we did a storybook theme and hired a professional baker to create individual cupcakes inspired by nursery rhymes. They were adorable...and incredibly expensive. For her second birthday, I found this girly Elmo theme on some modern mother website (I can't remember which one); I loved the idea of taking Sesame Street and putting a really feminine spin on it (if you knew my daughter, you'd understand).

Ingrid's 2nd birthday, brought to you by the letter I and number 2

So I ordered the custom street sign, cut out gross amounts of paper products (cupcake wrappers, invitations, party favor tags, etc.), and got some matching balloons. And then I lost my mind and decided to, for the first time ever, make the dessert.

The cupcakes were fairly easy -- I just bought a cake mix and used some store bought pink frosting. I used my handy dandy idiot-proof Nordic Ware frosting contraption (which is what I called it back in my ignorant days) to make them look somewhat presentable. If you throw enough decorations on there, people won't even notice the lack of consistent frosting coverage.

The cookies, however, were a different story. First of all, I had to have the whole Sesame Street theme going, which meant I needed to find letter "I" and number "2" cookie cutters that were the same size (because I'm overly concerned with these things). You know. To mimic the Sesame Street episode thing: Sesame Street is brought to you today by the letter I and the number 2. Clever, right?

So, great idea. Horrible execution. I had no idea what I'd gotten myself into. All I knew is I had a little almost two-year-old girl who couldn't wait to have her birthday cookies and I had no backup plan. Let me break down how it went:

Find sugar cookie recipe
Attempt to make sugar cookie recipe
Realize sugar cookies are actually pretty hard to make
Contemplate how the bakers at Target make it look so easy
Blame the oven for the sugar cookies spreading into unrecognizable blobs (that's an "I"???)
Curse
Eat a cookie. Not bad...
Blame recipe for being stupid
Find new sugar cookie recipe
Repeat steps 2-9
Find new recipe. Bake. Cookies actually look how they should. Mostly
Attempt to make and use royal icing and piping bags for the very first time ever
Lament at what a horrible mother, woman, human I am
Why did I go to college? I can't even get a piping bag to work!
Go back online and try to find anyone who can make these for me instead
Curse
Go to bed. Try again next day
Use new royal icing recipe. This one is better...meaning I can actually pipe some semblance of a straight line and the icing is only a little lumpy
Delight daughter with my mad baking skills (that means she really like the colors I used)
Come to terms with that whole "It's the thought that counts..." thing
Share results

Funny...I was pretty proud of these back in the day...

The cookies tasted better than they looked, and they made my little girl happy, so I achieved that goal.

That was almost three years ago. In a few more weeks, Ingrid will turn 5 and, for the first time since this party, I won't be making cookies because I'll still be standing in line at Disney World, waiting to meet Elsa.

I will say, however, that it was this experience that sparked my interest in baking. I wanted to learn more, get better, be more confident because, for some reason, I got this notion in my head that my making treats for people was a way to show my love and appreciation. And really, how can you resist the smiles you get when you surprise people with dessert?

So, on this #tbt, I reminisce about that party, three years ago, that turned me into a hobby baker and made my daughter smile.