Cupcakes from Lithuania: Kepejai

I’m always a fan of writing posts on baking; an activity near and dear to my heart.  The location of this post may be a bit exotic to my North American readers but I love it as it demonstrates how universal the cupcake trend has truly become.  Kepejai, is a bakery in Vilnius, Lithuania.  How did I find out about Kepejai you ask?  I’ll tell you.  If you don’t mind a somewhat convoluted web search story that I am about to type…..  Here it goes:  I discovered their shop while reading through a cool, new, online Lithuanian (English) design magazine called “Llamas’ Valley” (page 122).  I came by Llamas’ Valley in a post written last week by one of my favourite blogs, Vosgesparis.  Complicated web-searching aside.  I fell in love with Kepejai’s contribution to a wedding photo shoot by Fotopastele (seen below) and decided to share it with my readers.  I hope I have the opportunity to visit Kepejai in Vilnius while I am living in Europe.  I was already planning on making a trip to Riga, Latvia sometime in the future to check out an old-world Jewish bakery in the city that I read about in this article.

 All photos via Fotopastele and cupcakes from Kepejai 

Halloween

Happy Halloween from Prague. Belive it or not, Halloween is celebrated here, however not to the North American standard and extreme with crazy decorations and trick or treating.    I had a great weekend visiting a local farmer’s market, shopping around several grocery stores in search of baking supplies and baking up a storm for a Halloween party.  As I was researching what to bake for the Halloween party, I stumbled a cross a couple great recipes that I would like to go back and try such as Chef Dennis Pumpkin Crunch Cake and Sweetapolita Autumn Delight Cake.  Both of these cakes look sumptuous.

I ended up baking two items from classic New York bakeries: Magnolia Bakery Vanilla cupcakes with a lemon butter cream (from cookbook: More from Magnolia) and decorated them with chocolate sprinkles and colourful gummy worms. I also made a batch of Fat Witch Bakery chocolate pumpkin brownies covered in a chocolate icing (from cookbook: Fat Witch Brownies) and my own scary mix of crushed vanilla wafers and fall coloured chocolate covered pumpkin seeds.

Halloween marked my first baking endeavour in Prague and boy did I learn something about the availability of baking ingredients fast.  Apparently, it is IMPOSSIBLE to find food colouring in Prague, hence why no orange frosting on my cupcakes.  It is also IMPOSSIBLE to find vanilla.  Instead I found some gross smelling vanilla extract in 15ml bottle (the size of your pinky finger) and vanilla sugar, which I am familiar with from European cooking shows but I was not about to attempt to introduce a new ingredient to my repertoire last-minute and risk having to throw out two batches of baked goods.  The other thing I found perplexing was the brown sugar situation.  Brown sugar comes in crystal form, not the rich, soft type you can buy in North America.  How am I supposed to make chocolate chip cookies with brown sugar crystals….  I hope someone who is reading this post will have some insight. Anyway, the baked goods turned out great.  The process was good fun and a good adventure. Happy Halloween.

Prairie Girl Bakery

There is a new cupcake shop in downtown Toronto called Prairie Girl bakery.  Located in the financial district, a rather unlikely place for a bakery, Prairie Girl brings much needed colour and sugar to the corner of King and Victoria.  I went in last week with a colleague from work for a visit and taste test.  We tested four mini cupcakes between the two of us, vanilla lemon, red velvet cream cheese, chocolate peppermint and carrot cream cheese.  We both concluded that the icing had good consistency, was soft and whipped tasting, not overly buttery, and packed with flavour (for the lemon icing on the vanilla cupcake).  The cakes themselves were spongy and overall, quite satisfying. 

The merchandising and presentation of the cupcakes in the store is great, however the cupcakes themselves are simple and home baked in their look.  The owner has rows of cupcakes all lined up in the front display cases and on the back shelves giving a visually pleasing effect.  The base of the counter looks like swirls of white cupcake icing that has been carved or molded into the facade. FYI, there is no coffee/beverage in the store, just cupcakes.  Jean, the owner of Prairie Girl Bakery, has created a solid product and is a contender for an overall good tasting cupcake in the city.  They are neither complicated or fussy.  Just simply baked and dressed with icing with a clear attention paid to ingredients and flavour combinations.  I wish her the best of luck on carving out her niche in the financial district.

Pounding Mill Press + Ming Makes Cupcakes

I am getting ready to go out tonight and waiting for my friend to finish dinner.  What better to do than blog?  I just found two cute sites by the same person that I thought I would share.

The first is Ming Makes Cupcakes, a website dedicated to cupcake, cookie and savoury recipes. The site is laid out in a minimalist style with nice photography of the desserts and a corresponding recipe on the right side of the page.  Ming Makes Cupcakes no longer is updating its content but the information on the site is terrific.

via ming makes cupcakes

The second site linked to Ming Makes Cupcakes is Pounding Mill Press, an Oakland, California based paper goods company.  Pounding Mill Press does ready-made and custom-made cards, invitations and several other cute gifts/paper accessories.

via pounding mill press

via pounding mill press

via pounding mill press

sprinkles chicago

Sprinkles cupcakes opened a shop in Chicago last fall (2010) and the facade of the retail store is unreal!  They replicated their signature cupcake style on the front of the building.  How cool is that?  I can’t wait to visit next time I am in Chicago.  Sprinkles, Toronto is calling

via chicago cupcake crawl

via chicagonista

icing dreams cupcakes

I would like to think of myself as a bit of a cupcake connoisseur.  By no means am I a professional baker.  Far from it actually.  I just have an appreciation for baked goods, design and art.  When someone can successfully put these three things together,  I get excited.  While reading multicultural wedding website, Wedding Nouveau, I came across Maryam from Icing Dreams.  Her company name gives you an indication of what to expect from her confections but when you see the real deal, be prepared to be blown away.  She is not producing dreams, she is creating fantasy.  Her attention to detail is like none other and what’s best about this post is that on her website she mentions she is relocated to T.Dot!  That’s right.  Toronto.  When she moves, I will get to try these cupcakes out first hand and not just salivate in front of my screen.   You can view more of Maryam’s outstanding cupcake, cake and cookie designs on her flickr page here as well as more of the Indian themed desserts that were created for her friend, that I’ve featured below here.

via aaisha shaikh

via violet cottage

via mad girl's love song

via flickr

via flickr

easter cupcake ideas

In the spirit of the long weekend and the Easter holiday, here are some cupcake ideas that your friends and family will surely love!  Enjoy.

via recipes$us

 

via flickr

via mccormick

via utahlovescupcakes

via lynelles cakes

I Love Cuppacakes

There is some serious cupcake designs and baking going on in Malaysia these days and I am happy to have stumbled across this company.

Since 2006, six graphic designers passionate about cupcakes banded their artistic talents and discerning tastes together to form Cuppacakes.  Over the past few years their home based business grew into the real deal in Petaling Jaya (PJ), a satellite city of Kuala Lumpur in Selangor state.  It shows in the website and product design that graphic designers are behind this operation.

Since I found Cuppacakes, I have been obsessed with how creative and talented this team of bakers/designers are and had a really tough time choosing which pictures to showcase to promote their work!

Here are my top six but really, one batch is prettier than the next.  I don’t know how people order and eat the cupcakes because seeing the entire order together is like looking at a work of art that you don’t want to destroy.  So if you are planning a wedding or event in Malaysia any time soon, cross your fingers that they deliver!

via I love Cuppacakes

via I Love Cuppacakes

via I Love Cuppacakes

via I Love Cuppacakes

via I Love Cuppacakes

via I Love Cuppacakes

Fashionable Green Cupcakes for Baby Shower

I made these cupcakes a couple weeks ago for a friend of a friend’s bridal shower.  I decided to go a bit fashion forward with the design and created a variety of green textures and topings on chocolate brownie and vanilla bases.

Instead of the traditional baby blue, I stepped out of the box with this one- a bit more grown up, if I can call it that.  I displayed the cupcakes on gold and silver serving pieces.  The gold trays are from the Party Supply Depot on Doncaster Road.  They are super cheap but present really well.  The silver “tear drop” cake stand is from William Ashley’s.

Green Baby Shower Cupcakes

Square Cupcakes!

I am not sure where I first found these cupcakes- I think I first stumbled upon them on event blog Elizabeth Anne Designs.  Of course these cool square cupcakes are only available in the US (sorry Canadian + international readers). 

The company responsible for innovation in the cupcake department is called Cupcakes Squared.  They are based out of San Diego, California and specialize in these geometric little cakes.  The best thing about Cupcakes Squared is that they offer a fairly sizeable flavour assortment. 

Please let me know if you have had the opportunity to taste these square cupcakes and what your favourite flavour is?

Chocolate Square Cupcake from Cupcakes Squared

 

Picture of the store