Cupcakes In Sin City!

Oh man are we glad to be back in San Diego!! We just came back from our trip to Las Vegas - where it was a suffocating 110 degrees!! Luckily all of the casinos on the strip are armed with state-of-the art air conditioning. While taking a cool stroll through the shops at the Monte Carlo, we stumbled upon this adorable little cuppy shop - The Cupcakery! http://www.thecupcakery.com/

If only this were real!All of their cupcakes looked delicious but this one really caught my eye! Look at all that sparkly chocolaty minty goodness! Behold the Grasshopper...

I immediately fell head over heels in love with the edible glitter The Cupcakery used on their cuppies. It looked so similar to craft glitter - I almost didn't eat it! I've seen other types of edible glitter before. They usually look like a cross between sanding sugar and fish food (Ew I know!). But this glitter was gorgeous! It had a really pretty iridescent sheen to it. So sparkly!
Anyways, enough about the glitter! The Grasshopper did not disappoint! The chocolate mint frosting was the perfect consistency. It was nice and creamy - not at all heavy! The cupcake itself was a little too rich. But I'm more of a fruity cupcake kind of gal so I guess I'm just not used to all that chocolaty goodness!
Anyways, that's my mini-review of The Cupcakery in Vegas.
If you're planning a trip to Sin City, definitely go check it out!

~Edible Glitter and Kisses
Deanna

Ode To Flan

With flan - I've never been a fan..

Until I met this handsome man...

Who took some milk out of a can
Mixed it with eggs in a pan...And made the world's most bestest flan!
He makes my heart do a hand stand....

The End

Here's the recipe he used...courtesy of the fabulous Ms. Paula Deen!

Coconut Flan

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Ingredients:

1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup shredded coconut flakes
Fresh whipped cream, for garnish
1/4 cup shredded coconut flakes, toasted, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the sugar until it caramelizes. Pour it into a flan dish, pie plate or round souffle baking dish with shallow sides, swirling it around to coat the bottom.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until foamy with a wire whisk. Beat in the condensed milk, coconut milk, vanilla extract and 1/4 cup coconut. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. It will need to bake in a water-bath in the oven. Set the dish into a large baking pan with sides and carefully pour water around the flan to come 2/3 the way up the sides. Carefully transfer to the preheated oven. Bake for about 1 hour, until the flan is set and the center only jiggles a little bit, like a cheesecake would. Remove from the oven and water-bath and allow to cool completely. Turn the flan out onto a flat serving platter. Cut into slices for serving. Garnish with whipped cream and toasted coconut.

Servings: 6 to 8 servings
Prep Time:
Cook Time: 1 hour 10 min
Difficulty: Easy

Show: Paula's Home Cooking

http://www.pauladeen.com/index.php/recipes/view2/coconut_flan/

Ellypant Cake Toppers

Just wanted to share a picture of the little elephant wedding cake toppers we made over the weekend. These little pachyderms are made out of polymer clay instead of fondant - at request of the awesome bride and groom.

Behind The Cupcakes: Thirty and Fabulous!

Ordered By: Hoa and AAJA San Diego
Occasion: Savy's 30th Birthday
Flavor(s): Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting
Chocolate Raspberry with Cream Cheese Frosting
Theme: A Few of Savy's Favorite ThingsThirty is an awesome number. Researchers say it's the number of seconds it takes for a person to fall in love. It's the number of minutes it takes Rachel Ray to make a meal. It's the age Teresa tells people she is - but isn't (Just making sure you're reading Treese!) Our gorgeous and incredibly talented friend Savy turned 30 last week. She's the Vice President of the San Diego Asian American Journalists Association and her friends at AAJA wanted to surprise her with cupcakes at their meeting. (p.s. If anyone ever wants to surprise me with cupcakes, I'm all for it!! Anyone? )
Savy's favorite cupcakes are Red Velvet, so we whipped up a batch of those. Teresa also made a batch of chocolate raspberry cupcakes for the first time. They were delicious! The tartness of the raspberry provided a great contrast to the sweetness of the chocolate. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see a little bit of the raspberry glaze peeking out from under the frosting.
A few years ago, Savy adopted a little dog named Toto. He is the cutest little thing! You can tell he really loves his mommy, he follows her around everywhere! So of course I knew I had to make a little Toto out of fondant. When I first started making him, he was completely nekkid. Fur is HARD to make! But then I realized - he just wouldn't look like Toto if he didn't have long white fur. So I rolled out a couple strands of fondant and added it to his ears...then a couple to his face. Before I knew it, the whole puppy was covered in fondant fur.
And he turned out pretty darn cute...
I also made a Toyota symbol, to represent the other love in Savy's life - her brand new Prius!
There was also a little Vietnamese sandwich (Umm...ok balogna sandwich, I couldn't figure out how to make pâté or cilantro!)
And a girl can't live without her iPhone and her purse!

~Special thanks to Hoa and AAJA-SD for ordering these cupcakes!!