It has begun....

...nursing school that is.  I'm pretty sure everyone will get sick of me talking about it, but as it will probably be the only thing I do (outside of baking cupcakes) for a while.  Survived week two, and have a very rare chill week next week, so I thought I would be able to catch up on some of my random other projects.  I have some notes from some other cupcakeries that I have been to since my last post, so I shall gather together that information hopefully by the end of the weekend.  Other than that I already ordered my business cards and cardboard boxes to deliver my baked goods, so its been a productive day.  :)

Hell has frozen over...

Wow. I just ate my first red velvet anything since, well, probably within the last 2-3 years. For those who know my philosophy on the red velvet, you may be asking "Why then did you eat a red velvet cupcake?" Well, first off it was a free cupcake. It was a gift from my friend at work Helen, who knows me just enough to know I love cupcakes, but not enough to have discussed why red velvets are not on my favorites list. Second, the cupcake came from Sugar Daddy's Bake Shop, who I did a review on last week and loved. So, I ate it.
The cake was just as moist as the other one I had from them, which is great, an the cake had a true red velvet flavor a.k.a. a very mild chocolate flavor. The frosting was a typical cream cheese, so not too impressive but it got the job done. The overall quality of the cupcake was fine, but now my fingers, teeth, and tongue are stained red and I probably consumed a tsp of food coloring. That part is not fun, but I don't regret eating it. :)

Review: Sugar Daddy's Bake Shop

Okay so I am super excited to try this new bakery in SLO. These guys opened Thursday apparently, and make a whole variety of sweets. There were mini pies, fancy cakes decorated in fondant, cute cookies, and of course, cupcakes. They only had three flavors, and was kind of expensive ($5 for one cupcake). They were slightly bigger cupcakes, but the pricing was kind of high for someone who just opened.

I ended up getting the cookies and cream cupcake. So far this is my favorite cupcake I have tried on the central coast, outside of my own of course. The cake was moist, not overly sweet, and had a flavor that is appropriate to its name. When I asked the owner if the cake was vanilla or had cookies in it, he gave me a look which I would have made myself if someone else asked me that about my cupcakes, and responded "It is a cookies and cream cake" very seriously. So far I like this guy. :)

The frosting was like nothing I have ever had on a cupcake. It was a very light frosting, where I wasn't sure if it was whipped cream or marshmallow fluff based. Whatever it was it complimented the cupcake very well. Then there was a drizzle of chocolate syrup and a Oreo on top. You can never go wrong with a Oreo on top.

What I REALLY liked about this cupcake was the fact that the flavor of cookies and cream almost fully came from the cake. The cake was not saturated with cookies though. It was just enough to add the cookie element to this light, creamy cake.

Overall, I give these guys an A. I hope to go back and try a different cupcake, and maybe one of their mini lemon meringue pies. :)

Blogging from the iphone

I'm doing a text picture to see if I can do this via the iPhone. So far so good! This also means I can blog on the go, which I'm not sure that is a good thing or not yet.

The sample picture: Matt behind the lemon raspberry bundt cake mom got for her bday. Kk's does a good bundt cake, which makes me wonder how their cupcakes are.

Attempt #2: FAIL!

Sooooo, this isn't working right now.  More sunken cupcakes came out of the oven.  So sad.  The ones on top are from the first batch, the bottom ones are from the second batch.  The texture of the cupcakes are weird too, almost like they are under baked, but not.  I am now thinking I put WAY too much avo in the batter, but I will try again after I look up some more info on the internet.  Until then, I am heading to the beach to enjoy this awesome weather!  I love living on the Central Coast! :)

Avocado Cupcakes Attempt #1

...attempt #1.  That is never a good way to start off a blog.  But it is true, because as of right now I am in the middle of attempt #2.  Let me show you how this experiment is going so far.

 First off I was very happy with the avos! We were worried they might be over ripe, but they were perfect for this project.  They aren't Hass, but I think maybe a Zutano?  Either way the left over bits I ate were yummy.  I first scooped out the avo and mixed it in a bowl with some lime to help prevent any unfavorable color change. FYI- my second attempt I skipped the small bowl and just used the mixer to cream the avos.  After the avos were creamed, I added my ingredients, and was left with some amazing looking batter!

 Looked and tasted good, and when they first came out of the oven they looked good too...until the cooled down.

FAIL! Sunken cupcakes!  After a little research and tasting the resulting batch, I decided to make another batch with no additional oil, a little bit more flour, and no baking soda (all baking powder).  I am hoping for better results, but if it doesn't work then I will have to do more investigating on what I can do to prevent this.

Review: Two Little Birds Bakery

Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and get cupcakes from the lone cupcakery that sells cupcakes at Farmer's Market on Thursday night.  It was a good addition to the amazing pizza I had at the Creeky Tiki (hawaiian with bacon, tomatos, and green onion) for the Bike Blowout (brought to you by the SLO Bike Coalition).   I got a vanilla/vanilla, a chocolate/chocolate, and a salted caramel.  I don't know if I have said this before, but I really like getting vanilla cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream, as it is about as basic as you can get, so you can really taste the cupcake for what it is.  So, lets get started.

First off, lets start with something positive.  I was very happy to find that this cake was very moist, and that the chocolate cake was not super sweet.  With this review I did get to share these with my friends, who some were not a fan of the super fluffy texture of the cake (they are more the pound cake types).  I personally like it, but maybe could have been a bit denser.  If you have to be more one than the other, I choose fluffy.

The chocolate cake I think was well done.  Some friends felt it wasn't sweet enough, but I think it was the perfect level of sweetness for a chocolate cake.  Too much sugar I feel covers flavors and other good ingredients you might have in your cake.  I typically feel this way both about cakes and frostings.

Now for the not so positive.  The biggest problem I had with these cupcakes was the frosting to cake ratio.  There was cake over flowing from the wrappers, with very little frosting.  You can see it from the picture I think, but I am a fan of the 1:3 ratio of frosting to cake.  These were more like 1:5, which just isn't enough frosting.

Speaking of frosting, I was NOT impressed with the caramel or the vanilla frosting on these cupcakes.  The vanilla in particular I thought was the worst thing about these, as they were so sweet I thought I was eating straight sugar.  My friends described the vanilla cupcake as something you would get from the grocery store, and I would agree.  NOT a fan of the taste.  The caramel by itself I thought was yummy, however when eating the salted caramel cupcake as a whole, it was hard to taste the caramel (which I think is related to the poor frosting ratio).  Could have used more salt too.  If I was to revamp this, I would take the straight caramel and make it a filling rather than a topping, and then add the caramel into a more tradition buttercream to top it.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not the biggest fan of chocolate frosting.  Its not that I don't like it, I just don't prefer it to a lighter frosting.  This chocolate frosting was good.  Very traditional.  Once again, would have been a very good cake if the frosting ratio was better.

My last complaint, which I find with several bakeries, and at the same time understand.  I do not like it when bakeries only use two types of cakes (usually chocolate and vanilla) and get different "flavors" by using different types of frosting.  Now I know Two Little Birds doesn't completely do this (I was bitter a girl in front of me bought the last champagne cupcake), but the salted caramel cupcake needed more, and that could have been achieved by adding something to that particular chocolate cake.

Overall rating would be a B-.  The chocolate cake and frosting were better than Cassie's, and the caramel by itself was tasty, but the vanilla cake and frosting, and the ratio of frosting to cake made me sad.