Called “Mr. Showmanship”, Liberace was well known for bringing a little glitz and glamor to the stage – complete with fancy chandeliers and candelabras atop his pianos. We put together a benefit concert in the style of Liberace in Whitewater, WI last weekend, so I took the opportunity to use this fun little candelabra cake topper from Fred and Friends. Mom helped me bake this two-layer, chocolate half sheet cake which we enjoyed after the show.
Last year’s Learn to Row group from Mount Baker Rowing invited our Team Crazypants crew to their annual Dark ‘N Stormy party. This potluck centers around a tasty drink I had not heard of before, but immediately got me thinking about how I could turn this cocktail recipe into sugary cupcakes. I improvised a batter from scratch based on a few I ideas I found online (see here and here), but the mixture included dark rum, lime juice, and some crystallized ginger (mmm). I then added a little lime juice and [too much] dark rum to my butter cream frosting recipe, along with a dash of black food coloring. I piped this out loosely to form clouds atop the cupcakes, and added a little lightning bolt of yellow molding chocolate I had piped out by hand. These looked AWFUL with gray frosting but tasted delicious – a good way to keep more cupcakes to yourself!
I started rowing this summer, and my group “Team Crazypants” had our very first race today! My sister designed some awesome shirts for us and we had a blast rowing around Lake Union in the Tail of the Lake. After re-rigging the boats back at the boathouse, we all celebrated over some cake. I used a biscotti and Teddy Grahams to represent our opponents who are being tipped over by our wake!
This 4th of July I made berry cupcakes based on Martha Stewart’s recipe.  I topped them off with fresh strawberry slices. These reminded me of simple blueberry muffins, but with a creamy marshmallow-like frosting.
I also wanted to capture the statue of liberty in cupcake form, which lead to making lemon meringue cupcakes from scratch to resemble the torch. I loosely based these on another Martha Stewart recipe, though I modified it slightly based on some other tasty looking recipes I found. The cupcakes were filled with lemon curd, topped with a swirl of delicious meringue, then toasted lightly with my new kitchen toy. I wrapped them in a paper crown decoration; although they looked a little cheesy, they tasted amazing!
Honestly, though, I just made these cupcakes to have an excuse to use another Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off coupon on a torch!
Today is Frank’s last day with the company… a bummer for all of us here in Seattle, but an excuse to do more baking!
We’ll all be getting together later today to celebrate and wish him farewell with a proper German themed send-off: German beers (for the German who hates beer), German Chocolate Cake (which actually isn’t of German origin), and pretzels (unfortunately, not the kind you’d get in Germany).
The cake took a while to make following a recipe online, but from the scraps I tasted it should be pretty good!
