Happy Easter!

For Easter this year, I wanted to get a bit more creative then last year, where I used pre-made cupcake toppers. I saw the idea for this year's cupcakes on Pinterest, but I can't find it anywhere now, and very uncharacteristic of me, I didn't pin it to my cupcake board.

The idea is for green buttercream frosting to look like grass, then toasted coconut nests, holding jellybean eggs. Cute right? This kind of arts & crafts moment makes me wish I had kids already! (Note the sneaky kitty in the background.)

I used a new vanilla cupcake recipe, from Glorious Treats and it came out very tasty, and the cake itself a bit spongy. I winged it with the buttercream; butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, coconut oil, confectioner's sugar.

Happy Father's Day!

For father's day, I knew I had to make my dad's favorite dessert - vanilla cupcakes. He loves the simple flavor and I only use the best vanilla extract:

So I decided to jazz up the traditional vanilla cupcake by adding Godiva white chocolate liquor. Then I made some pink vanilla buttercream frosting with milk and coconut oil, and topped with coconut for a tropical take on the traditional vanilla cupcake classic!

For breakfast, we kept it simple at home. Pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, omelets with hash browns, and some cute chocolate and apricot cookies from our local Italian bakery. Paired with a lovely latte and cupcake - it made for a wonderful Father's Day brunch!

Love you papi!

Bake-a-palooza!

Today is a big day - my last day at work (I start a new job next week) and it's also my boyfriend's mom's birthday. I want to go out with a bang, so I went over to Michael's and picked up some adorable colorful Chinese takeout-style boxes, and decided to bake cookies to give to my co-workers.

For my boyfriend's mom, I wanted to create a cake reminiscent of the famous Italian cookie, the rainbow cookie. To do this, I made three separate cake tiers, two vanilla layers and one almond-flavored layer, and colored one layer green and the other red. I sandwiched them with vanilla buttercream in between the layers, and then frosted the whole thing with more vanilla buttercream, and dusted the top with rainbow sprinkles. It's a departure from traditional rainbow cookies to use vanilla frosting (chocolate frosting is normally used) and the rainbow sprinkles were my addition as well (as a play on the name of the cookie).

Finally, the third baked good I made were gluten-free and HCG diet-friendly coconut macaroons. I had never made coconut macaroons before, and I wasn't really a fan of them to begin with, but this 3-ingredient recipe was surprisingly delicious! I will definitely be making them again - they are so easy to make.

Vanilla cake, batter recipe from Annie's Eats!

The dyed cake layers, stacked with vanilla buttercream, recipe also from Annie's Eats!

 

 Cake inspiration: Italian Rainbow Cookies!

Completely frosted and decorated!

Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips and walnuts, recipe from All Recipes!

Coconut macaroons, from HCG Diet Recipes!

The finished product!