Happy June!

*phew!*

Is May over already?  My calendar says June, so I guess it must be, although whoever is in charge of the weather here in Portland is apparently stuck in early March.  If anyone out there has his number, could you please give him a ring for me?  We're running kinda low on vitamin D here.

So.  I did an awful lot of baking in the last month.  I had two big cake projects, one big cupcake project, and a lot of little bits and pieces in between.  The wedding that I wrote about before has come and gone, and I lived to tell about it.  Yay, me!  Do you wanna see how the cake turned out?  I know you do.

Look at the butterflies!  Aren't they pretty??  I seriously loved them so much.  My bride friend had pretty much given me free rein over what her cake would look like; which was both great and sorta nerve-wracking at the same time.  

Pumpkin Peanut (Curry!) Cupcakes

Yes, you read that right.  I made curry cupcakes.  I had to do something to really shake it up because I've been lost in an ocean of banana cake lately.  A friend of mine is getting married in two weeks and has asked me to make her wedding cake.  I've never done this before, and in addition to being extremely flattered, I'm also starting to get a little obsessed.  (I've heard weddings do that to people, and you know, I just want to be like everyone else.)

I'm going to be making a small tiered cake for the bride and groom to cut, and cupcakes to serve to the guests.  My bride friend has requested banana cake, hence the banana overload.  I have my super duper, fail-safe, totally fantastic banana cake recipe ready to go, but I also sort of felt compelled to test out other ones.  Just to make sure that the one I have is REALLY the one I want to use.  And guess what?  It is!

 I'll be posting more about what I end up doing for wedding, but for now, let's get into this curry business.

Hummingbird Cupcakes with Pineapple "Flowers"

Hummingbird cake.  I'd never even heard of it until just recently.  I think it's one of those Southern things, sort of like Red Velvet, that somehow never got on my cake radar until it started showing up everywhere.  Not that Hummingbird cake is everywhere, because it isn't.  But it ought to be.  In fact, if one Southern cake should be in every cupcake shop on earth, it should not be Red Velvet, it should totally be Hummingbird cake.

It's a petticoats & parasols kind of cake, and it beats the seersucker pants off of Red Velvet.

Feeling a little sheepish

Have you ever had one of those weeks that sort of grabs you by the hair, swings you around a few times, and tosses you into a heap in the corner?  Yes?  Then you understand why it's been so long since my last post.  Things have been busy busy busy around here, and I've been short on baking time.  Between the desperate ending to my weight-loss competition (more on that in a minute), my birthday, a surprise visit from my sister, a whirlwind shopping trip that almost got us grounded (hi, mom!), a big family get-together, coordinating Easter morning for my girls and having brunch at our house......well, it's a miracle I could even get my shoes on the right feet, let alone get some decent cupcakes together.

Eventually, I did find time, even though I had to spread it over a couple of days.  I can't say the end product was worth the time or effort, though.  Here, take a look at what is supposed to be a sweet little lamb cupcake but actually looks kind of like a demented poodle. (Ack!  Did I break my "No Dogs On Cupcakes" rule?)

My Cupcake Hall of Fame

I'll be honest.  This past week I've struggled to get a post up.  It's not that I don't feel like baking, because I do!  I really, really do.  But there are extenuating circumstances here.  I'm in the final days of a 12 week Biggest Loser-style weight loss competition, and I'm *this* close to winning.  I sit in second place with a big fat cash prize dangling in front of me if I can somehow squeak my way into first place.  So as you can imagine, baking cupcakes is probably not in my very best interest right this moment.

(I know, I know, what was I thinking starting a blog about CUPCAKES in the middle of something like this?  What can I say?  I like to make things harder than they have to be.)

Fortunately for everyone, I took some pictures of one of my all-time favorite cupcakes when I made them for a friend's birthday a few weeks ago.  Aannnd....for the second post in a row we have tan frosting.   Don't judge a book by its monochromatic cover, people.  After the first bite you'll see that inside of these cupcakes, there are a couple of very nice surprises......

A St. Patrick's Day directive

So first of all, I said the other day on my facebook page that I would be giving you two St. Patrick's Day cupcakes.  I'm amending that right now; there will be only one.  Don't think I'm a slacker or anything, because I DID make two kinds of cupcakes that would be appropriate for the holiday, but when the two were put side by side, one of them was clearly better than the other.  Let's face it, with the number of cupcake possibilities out there, you've got to really bring it if you want to get noticed, and while good, Martha's Irish Coffee cupcakes from the March issue of MSL just didn't make the cut.

Also, I whipped the cream about three strokes too many, and instead of a billowy mound on top, it was more like blended cottage cheese.  Oops!

Now, I know next to nothing about Irish cultures and traditions.  Personally, I'm about as Irish as a box of Lucky Charms.  But if stereotypes can be trusted at all, the one thing I do know is that Irish people like their beer.

Enter the Stout Cupcakes.  Specifically, Guinness Stout Cupcakes.

Not Tiramisu.

Today is the birthday of one of my very first friends.  I've known Eleanor since before she was born, which is longer than I've known just about anybody, I guess, so that earns her pretty high Friend Status.  She asked me last month if I'd bake for her birthday, and of course I said I'd love to!  (Although, I say that to pretty much anyone who asks, so I suppose it's not really a testament to my friendship, but whatever.)  After much discussion, we decided on a very nice Tiramisu cupcake that is soaked in a coffee-marsala syrup and topped with mascarpone whipped cream.  They were going to be amazing, and I couldn't wait for her to come over to get them.

And then I took them out of the oven.