cupcakes

Wedding | Jamie & Eugene in Saratoga

| Featured, Weddings

Yesterday was Jamie & Eugene’s 1-year anniversary! I didn’t get around to blogging about their wedding last year, as we were preparing for our baby to arrive. But they brought out their cutting cake from the freezer this weekend to celebrate their anniversary, and just polished off the last of it tonight. It’s about time I commemorated this special wedding!

I’ve known Jamie since elementary school and have been lucky to call her a friend ever since. I remember her first date with Eugene, and the many double dates that came afterward. At one point in time, I was housemates with Eugene, and then housemates with both. Add in a couple dogs, and it was a full, but joyous house with lots of dessert eating. It was an honor to be in their wedding, and to also make the desserts as well.

These beautiful photos are from Julianne Brasher (http://www.juliannebrasher.com/).

For the wedding guests, there were salted caramel chocolate cupcakes and vanilla lemon curd cupcakes, each topped with buttercream.

I had been a little worried about the cupcakes being out in the sun for a long time since I had to set up the cupcake tower earlier than usual in order to prepare for the ceremony procession. However, the chilly afternoon and evening had a convenient refrigeration effect! For the cutting cake, I made a strawberry jam and strawberry buttercream semi-naked cake, with wafer paper flowers. I love the following photo for capturing the magic of the night (with cupcakes to fuel the dancing).

A belated congratulations Jamie & Eugene, and cheers to many more anniversary celebrations ahead!

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Thanksgiving | (Part 1) Pumpkin Brown Butter Cupcakes

| Holidays, Recipe

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Martha Stewart’s pumpkin sage brown butter cupcakes are a seasonal favorite of mine, especially when paired with brown butter icing. This year, I made a batch of mini cupcakes for the workplace, saving of course a healthy tupperware full of them to snack on at home! Here is the recipe, with a few tips:

Pumpkin (Sage) Brown Butter Cupcakes
Makes 12 regular cupcakes, or about 30-32 mini cupcakes.

  • 170g (¾ cup or 1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter
  • 210g (1 ⅔ cups) all-purpose flour
  • ¼ cup fresh sage (chiffonade)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 220g (1 cup) packed light brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • Brown Butter Icing (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line muffin tins with paper liners, or brush with butter and dust with flour.

2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the sage, if desired, and continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until butter turns golden brown. Skim foam from top, and remove from heat. Pour into a bowl to stop the cooking, leaving any burned sediment behind; let cool.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, both sugars, eggs, and brown-butter mixture. Add flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 20 minutes for standard cupcakes and 10-12 minutes for mini cupcakes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

5. To finish, dip top of each cupcake in icing, then turn over quickly and let set. I prefer to use a smaller bowl with a deeper pool of icing. If icing separates or does not smoothly coat the cupcake (e.g. icing has trouble sticking to cake), add a little more milk to the icing and mix well. Decorate as desired — I added some white chocolate curls this time. Cupcakes are best eaten the day they are glazed, keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

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Brown Butter Icing
Makes 1 cup

  • 113.5g (½ cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 250g (2 cups) sifted confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons whole milk, plus more if needed

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, swirling pan occasionally, until nut-brown in color, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and pour butter into bowl, leaving behind any burned sediment.

2. Add confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons milk to brown butter, stir until smooth. If necessary, add more milk (up to 2 tablespoons) a little at a time, until the icing is the right consistency. Use immediately.

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Wedding | Kyte & Sherry in Downtown LA

| Featured, Weddings

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Congratulations to Kyte and Sherry! These newlyweds found Milo’s Bonbons through Mike and Sandy, and I had a blast working with them to design and create their wedding dessert table at the 1920s inspired Cicada Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. For their wedding, we decided on mini cupcakes, macarons and panna cotta desserts, with a 3-tiered cake for cutting and display. The cupcakes came in 4 interesting flavors — purple yam (with purple yam custard filling and mango buttercream), matcha (with matcha custard filling and vanilla buttercream), Calpico (white cupcake with Calpico pudding filling and vanilla buttercream), and strawberry lemon (yellow cupcake with lemon curd filling and strawberry buttercream).

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Each cupcake was frosted with a floral pattern in a different color for variety.

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The cake itself was a fun flavor combination — white cake with lime curd and guava mousse filling. IMG_2922IMG_2924

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After the cake was frosted with buttercream, it was covered in white fondant and then decorated. The bottom layer was covered with gumpaste rose petals, the middle hexagon layer was airbrushed in gold, and the top layer was kept simple in order to contrast with the white gumpaste roses and gold leaves. For the middle layer, I also added a wafer paper ribbon for design and contrast. It took a little while to make all of the florals, but it was a lot of fun to see the cake come together!

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The panna cottas were mango jelly and coconut panna cotta.

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And while I don’t have a close-up photo of the macarons, we had three varieties: lavendar with blackberry jam, plain shells with lychee jam, and rose with rose-raspberry white chocolate ganache. A floral theme throughout the dessert table!

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