Wedding Cupcake Table

Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of working with a lovely bride, Laura Ogard, and her equally lovely parents. Her style and my style were so compatible, so it was a snap to pull off a cupcake buffet for her wedding that was exactly like she pictured. Caleb Chancey, a great photographer and all-around good guy, did a beautiful job of capturing this wedding and was so sweet to let me use some of his photos for my blog. (Thanks CC!) And thank you so much to the Ogards for letting me part of this big day!

I can’t get enough of the vintage plant stand that they borrowed from a family friend. It took all my restraint to not take it with me! And the beautiful horse stables the reception was held in couldn’t be beat.

I love a bride who appreciates balancing traditional wedding cake flavors with fun flavors. In addition to classic vanilla and chocolate-chocolate, Laura also chose mint chocolate, strawberry, red velvet, s’mores, and caramel.

New from {Atomic Cakery}: Brownie Cream Cheese Sammiches!

Gooey cream cheese frosting sandwiches between two dense, fudgy chocolate chunk brownie cookies. Say what? Yeah, it’s for real.

Get ’em while they’re room temp! Available this week from Spoonfed Grill, or order directly!

It’s Christmas…time to Bake It Pretty!

When I decided to make some cinnamon cupcakes (with always-delish 7-minute frosting) for Katie‘s Christmas party, I knew that my baking would have to take on an especially festive air. So I turned to Amanda over at Bake It Pretty for some help. What a treasure trove of adorableness that place is! It was a hard decision, but I settled on these adorable tiny aluminum Christmas trees and then some little reindeer friends to go with. Too cute, huh? I love kitsch.

Thanks SO much to John O’ for filling in for Kamin while she’s on vacay. You’re the man, and pretty good photographer to boot!

Say “Joyeux Noël!” with French Macarons

Is Christmas really this week? Wow. This year is really the first year I haven’t had much of a chance to enjoy the holidays, sad, huh? It’s just been so busy here at work and with everything else that I haven’t had much of a chance to catch my breath! But! I did get to do some fun macaron baking last week for all my friends and co-workers here at Hoffman. The Salted Caramels turned out a biiiiiiit crunchy but overall still pretty yummy, and I hear the cinnamon with eggnog filling were quite a hit.

I packaged them up in a glassine bag a tied them with packing twine and some cute labels that my husband made for me. The craft punch to make the scalloped circles is from the craft store.

Cinnamon Macarons with Eggnog Filling

3 egg whites that have either sat out for about 12 hours, or zapped in the microwave for 10 seconds, then 5 seconds
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup ground almonds*
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

*I start off with whole or slivered almonds and pulse 1/2 a cup at a time till they are as ground as I can get them, before too much of the moisture is released. Remember, moisture=bad for your macs. Then, I throw in half of the powdered sugar and continue to grind, because this will help soak up the moisture from the almonds and also get them ground up some more. It’s pretty genius, I have to admit.

Combine almonds, powdered sugar, and cinnamon in food processor and pulse till almonds are a powdered.

Whip the egg whites on high till they are foamy, then add in the granulated sugar one tablespoon at a time. Whip till glossy.

With a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe small circles onto a parchment-lined baking tray. Let them sit out for about 20 minutes till they achieve shells, and then pop them into a 375F oven for approximately 14 minutes. Check for doneness after 12. How do you know they’re done? They’ll look cute and the pieds (cute feet characteristic of a macaron) will look slightly underdone.

Allow to cool for a few minutes and transfer them to another baking sheet and fill with Eggnog buttercream.

Eggnog Buttercream:
3/4 cup (more or less to taste) eggnog
2 cups (more or less to desired consistency) of your favorite buttercream (I used Swiss Meringue)

Mix together!

Salted Caramel French Macarons

3 egg whites that have either sat out for about 12 hours, or zapped in the microwave for 10 seconds, then 5 seconds
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup ground almonds*
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

*I start off with whole or slivered almonds and pulse 1/2 a cup at a time till they are as ground as I can get them, before too much of the moisture is released. Remember, moisture=bad for your macs. Then, I throw in half of the powdered sugar and continue to grind, because this will help soak up the moisture from the almonds and also get them ground up some more. It’s pretty genius, I have to admit.

Combine almonds and powdered sugar in food processor and pulse till almonds are a powdered.

Whip the egg whites on high till they are foamy, then add in the granulated sugar one tablespoon at a time. Whip till glossy.

With a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe small circles onto a parchment-lined baking tray. Let them sit out for about 20 minutes till they achieve shells, and then pop them into a 375F oven for approximately 14 minutes. Check for doneness after 12. How do you know they’re done? They’ll look cute and the pieds (cute feet characteristic of a macaron) will look slightly underdone.

Allow to cool for a few minutes and transfer them to another baking sheet and fill with Eggnog buttercream.

Caramel Buttercream:
1/3 cup (more or less to taste) store-bought caramel ice cream topping
2 cups (more or less to desired consistency) of your favorite buttercream (I used Swiss Meringue)
2 tablespoons (more or less to taste) coarse Kosher salt or course sea salt (I prefer sea salt)

Mix caramel and buttercream together and pipe onto half of the macs. Sprinke with salt and then top with the other half of the macs. Remember that a little bit of salt goes a long way, so you’ll have to do some taste-testing 🙂

I also sprinkled some salt on top of the macarons and found that it actually stuck pretty good.

Empress Stationery + Atomic Cakery collab

Don’t you love how I abbreviated “collaboration” in the post title? It’s so trendy to abbrev these days. What can I say? I am trendy. Yeah.

A couple weeks ago some of my coworkers joined together for an afternoon of creative craziness and had a holiday bazaar where we sold our wares to each other, other colleagues, and the lucky people in our office park. I’m really, really upset that I didn’t get pictures of everybody’s booths, because they all blew my mind. Everything from Lydia‘s oil paintings to Breanne‘s scarves to Tracy’s felted dolls and gingerbread man ornaments, it was a pretty incredible sight to behold!

Jessica, you know her, my friend and proprietress of Empress Stationery, joined forces with Atomic to create a pretty cute cupcake display. Aren’t these AMAZING?! Not sure what her prices are exactly, but send her a line and ask her, because you’ll definitely want some of these at your next get-together.

We’re planning another Crafternoon for the Summer, so stay posted!

I love rock ‘n’ roll, so pass me another cupcake baby!

So, a bit of background first: my dear friend and college roommate, Kristi Crow, is really into this fun band, Honor Society. They were the opening band for the Jonas Brothers on their last tour, and they’ve been hitting the road pretty hard with their own tour lately. The last stop is tonight in Birmingham, and coincidentally it’s the bass player’s birthday as well. So Kristi, being the sweetie that she is, ordered some rock-n-roll birthday cupcakes for the band. I think the fondant guitars and bass drum turned out pretty cute! I’m really happy with the how the starburst on the Les Paul turned out. And of course I had to give the birthday boy a sparkly (fondant) birthday candle next to his Fender J Bass. The most challenging part was probably those pesky guitar strings, made out of royal icing. But hey, those cupcakes sure do taste good, and that’s ultimately all the matters right? Right?

And thanks to Kamin for the beautiful picture!

Pirate Birthday Cake

Aye, matey! This pirate birthday cake is chocolate with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and decorated with a fondant Jolly Rogers and treasure map. Shiver me timbers! (Insert any further necessary pirate jargon here).

Decorated, 3-layer, 6″ birthday cake feeds approximately 5-8 people and pricing begins at $25.

{the atomic cakery} presents The Elvis

The most classic cupcake perhaps of all, in honor of the most classic rock star perhaps of all. A pompadour of sweet, buttery Swiss meringue buttercream frosting literally floats above a rich chocolate cake. Bonus, this bad boy is topped with sugar sprinkles for a little bit of sparkle, fit for a king, or should I say, The King. Sink your teeth into one of these this week at Spoonfed, or…order straight from me!

Ghost, Jack-o-Lantern, and Johnny Cupcake Oreo Truffles…Oh My!

I’ve been waiting months to make Oreo truffles for my party. My friends love them. My co-workers love them. And I get the ugly ones all to myself; I don’t even share with Zack. Amy Atlas had some really cute brownie pops in ghost and pumpkin form (right here), and I loved how she put the stick coming out of the top instead of trying to defy gravity and putting the stick on the bottom. Once again I used the Wilton Sparkle Gel, which I’m still feeling pretty mixed emotions towards. I’m so happy with how they turned out, and I can’t wait to keep nommin’ on them on Saturday!

I know you’re dying to know how to make these. I’d tell you, but since these are the brainchild of the amazing Bakerella, you gotta go here. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did!

Don’t worry, condensation happened on the surface because I pulled these out the freezer right before I shot them, which is where they’ll stay until the morning of the party, which is when they’ll go to the fridge, and then to room temp a couple hours before the guests arrive. You can wipe the condensation off easily with a paper towel.

One more just for kicks and giggles…I had just gotten in my Halloween Johnny Cupcakes shirt that morning, so…

And by the way, those amazing skull and crossbone doilies are straight from my all-time favorite pastry decor supply website, Bake It Pretty. Thanks for the awesomeness, Amanda!

And one more thing…Oreo truffles can be made to suit any occasion, so if you’d like for the Atomic Cakery to whip some up for your next occasion, just email malindakay@ymail.com!

Cocoa-Pumpkin French Macarons

Clearly, my French mac and pumpkin spice fever is as strong as ever. I firmly believe, and who can argue with me, that pumpkin and chocolate are culinary soulmates. And the color combination is gorgeous too!

Cocoa Macarons:
3 egg whites
3 tbs granulated sugar
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup almonds
3 tbs unsweetened cocoa

Filling:
1 1/2 cups of your favorite buttercream

3 1/2 tbs pumpkin puree

1 tbs (more or less to taste) pumpkin pie spice

Zap eggwhites in the microwave for about 20 seconds. (This mimics the aging process of the egg whites. You’re supposed to leave them out on your countertop for 48 hours, but personally I don’t have the forthought to do such a thing.) With the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites to a foam, then slowly add the granulated sugar until your meringue is nice and glossy. In the meantime, pulse the almonds in your food processor till they are finely ground. Add in the powdered sugar and cocoa and pulse until combined. Fold the powdered sugar/almond mixture into the meringue until just combined, which shouldn’t be more than 40 or 50 strokes.

Now the (kinda) tricky part: This batter is very thick, so don’t let it sit and stabilize in the mixing bowl. Go ahead and Fill a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized round tip. (I used a Wilton #12.) Pipe 1-inch circles onto parchment paper. Important: let them stand on the baking sheet for at least 30 minutes so they can set up. If you immediately put them in the oven, they won’t get that cute textured side we all love so much. Go ahead and preheat the oven to 280F. Bake for 20 minutes. Let them cool for a few minutes; if you have trouble getting them off the parchment, add a little bit of cold water under the parchment and they should pop right off.

Pumpkin Spice Filling:

Mix all ingredients together!