Year One

Year One Giveaway Contest

And the Winner is...

Congratulations to Mike! For his entry, he said that his favourite baked creation was the nursery rhyme cupcakes.

Thank you to Avanika [YumsiliciousBakes], vandana slathia, and The Scootabaker for the comments! Thank you to our readers for entering! Finally, we must thank Anna from Hachette Book Group for Confetti Cakes for Kids and Jessica from Random House of Canada for Martha Stewart's Wedding Cakes and The Whimsical Bakehouse. Our previous reviews can be found here.

Year One

Happy 1 year birthday lil blog!

Wow, time just flies.
^time^
See what we mean? Time is just soaring away in those tiny wings.

*cue montage music*
It started out as a fun weekend at our nearest Michael's store (which was not in the city we live in). We had a fantastic Wilton instructor, Antonella, who taught us all three levels of Cake Decorating. And we learned a lot about cakes, buttercream, royal icing, colour flow icing, gumpaste, and fondant. We would highly recommend taking these courses if you want to try your hand at cake decorating.

We're glad that we started this blog and we hope that you have enjoyed our baked creations! Thank you to our followers, everyone who became a fan on facebook, followed us on twitter, and added us as a contact on flickr. Most of all, thank you for all the comments and conversations! Finally, a huge thank you to all our families and friends for their support and inspirations.

Okay, we're getting the signal to end our speech... so let's move onto the fun stuff: Giveaway time! We hope you love cake/decorating cookbooks, because we're giving this awesome set away!

Bookish Treats:
Confetti Cakes for Kids
Martha Stewart's Wedding Cakes
The Whimsical Bakehouse

To enter the Year One Giveaway Contest:

1. Under this post's comments, please leave your: Name, E-mail (or some kind of reliable contact), and tell us your favourite creation from our blog or your favourite books! Easy stuff!
2. This contest is available to residents of Canada and the U.S.A. only - sorry International cupcake lovers! =(
3. The Year One Giveaway Contest contest is open on August 18th 2009 until August 28th 2009. Comments posted after 12 midnight EST on August 28th will not be considered.
4. The winner will be randomly chosen on August 30th 2009 and then announced on August 31st 2009 on our blog.
5. Don't forget, you are allowed 1 entry by commenting (any more than that and they will not be considered or deleted) and please leave your correct contact information! Best of luck!

Humming Scooters

Yayyy Civic long weekend! What did you do? We did a day trip to Buffalo, celebrated a couple's new house and engagement (congratulations again Kurt & Diana), and I made cupcakes.

Hummingbird cupcakes! I was missing pecans from this recipe, so I don't know if that makes it less of a Hummingbird? Hopefully not! Oh, and one more change to the recipe. I didn't have enough sugar. I know, me without a fully stocked bag of sugar? So, instead of 2 cups of sugar, I did brown sugar and granulated sugar. The result? A not so overly sweet cake that balanced with the sweet frosting pretty well.

Above left, going clockwise: Cream cheese frosting on Hummingbird Cupcakes; fresh from the oven; cupcake batter; batter up for the oven!

I did manage to crack myself up while cracking the eggs. I attempted to do it one-hand style like the chefs on television. I did it once before and thought I could do a repeat performance. Nope. I think I'll stick to two-hands egg cracking from now on.

Hummingbird Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from the amazing Chockylit
(Makes about 24 cupcakes)

3 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup of vegetable oil
1-1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 8oz can crushed pineapple, with liquid
2 mashed bananas

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and have all ingredients at room temperature. Also have your cupcake liners and pans ready.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, salt in a good sized bowl.
3. Beat the eggs.
4. Add oil and vanilla to the beaten eggs and mix until somewhat combined.
5. Add egg/oil/vanilla mixture to flour/sugar/baking soda/cinnamon/salt mixture.
6. Mix together the pineapples and bananas.
7. Add the pineapples/bananas with the previous mixture and mix well.
   
8. Bake for about 25 minutes or until golden and a cake tester comes out clean.
   

The cupcakes are in between a cupcake and a muffin. I can see this being very good for breakfast, especially if they're fresh from the oven. They smell very much like banana cakes to me, perhaps my 2 mashed bananas were larger in size? It also has a nice chewy texture from the bananas. Yumm.

Cream Cheese Frosting
(Makes enough for about 24 cupcakes)

3 cups of icing sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 package of cream cheese
1 stick of butter

1. Cream the butter until smooth.
2. Add in the icing sugar and mix. Include the vanilla extract.
3. Add in the cream cheese and mix until smooth.
   

I also made two small scooters out of fondant. Yes, two. I am insane sometimes. A yellow one and a red one. My mom randomly gave me the fruit to accessorize my photoshoot. Please note, the only fruits in this cupcake are bananas and pineapples!

I would like to dedicate the yellow one to the Scootabaker!

Her shout-out on twitter and her blog made it so worth it!

The red one goes to Jen and everyone else who loves scooters. <3