1st Annual Cupcakes & Christmas Party

My good friend Raina had the great idea to have a party to decorate cupcakes, so I ran with it. Last Friday, Alex and I hosted the first annual Cupcakes & Christmas party. We had quite a nice turnout, and everyone had a great time decorating cupcakes. The guys didn't really seem to care though, they watched The Dark Knight instead of decorating cupcakes. :)

The cupcake menu included Bailey's Irish Creme Cupcakes, Chocolate cupcakes, Chocolate Buttercream and traditional buttercream frosting.

Here is Mom with her cupcakes


And a closeup...


Lori's cupcakes


Jordan's cupcakes


Oops...one of Lauren's cupcakes hit the floor!


More decorating goodness....








All the girls....


I think everyone had a great time, and we will definitely do it again next year!

Don't Forget to Eat Your Vegetables

This year was Alex and I's first Thanksgiving in our new home and our first Thanksgiving as newlyweds. I really wanted to have Thanksgiving at our house, mostly because I LOVE having people over and having a good time. On Thursday morning, the family arrived with tons of food and two turkeys! We deep fried one of them and baked the other. Since I am new to the realm of cooking a turkey, Alex's Mom Lori gave me some "turkey lessons." I learned a lot!

Me being the baking fool of the family, I wanted to make at least one dessert. Of course, it had to be cupcakes. I found the inspiration from this fabulous book called "Hello Cupcake".

Here are the "Corn on the Cob" cupcakes:


And here are the "Peas and Carrots" cupcakes:




This year's Thanksgiving was fabulous...the only thing missing was Jeff, Shannon, and Ryan! Everyone at our house ate a cupcake in their honor. :)

Workin' for the Weekend

The week that Alex and I got back from our honeymoon, things were very hectic at Wizetrade TV. We were transitioning into our new studios, and I put in 60 hours that week, mostly on the weekends. My co-workers and I were working long days to try to get ready for our launch on Monday. On that Saturday night, I got home around 8pm, and decided to bake for my hard working co-workers. This was the result:



Two pumpkin spice cakes. Mom and Lori surprised me with this bundt pan, and I love breaking in new pans! I brought the cakes in on Sunday morning, and they were a huge success.

Grandpa Stan's Birthday Cake

Alex's grandpa Stan's birthday was also back in September. In fact, we had Alison's celebration (see below) the night before we had Stan's birthday dinner. Stan is one of my biggest cake fans, and this year he wanted an orange cake with orange frosting. I had never tried either of these, so I was in for a challenge. I found what I deemed to be a suitable recipe, and went to work. Alex's Mom told me that Stan probably wanted a orange cake made with FRESH oranges, and not just orange flavoring. Not a problem....I used orange zest and some orange liquor (!) to make it tasty. The frosting was orange buttercream, and was so incredibly thick and sweet, also thanks to the orange zest.



The orange cake was a huge success, and a great birthday dinner was had by all. :)