Cupcake BIRTHDAY!! 1920s style :)

Happy birthday Shavonne!!! In honor of #29, we celebrated 1929 style (before the Crash, of course) with a speakeasy, gambling and martinis--cupcake martinis that is! When asked by the birthday girl to provide the desserts, of COURSE I said yes and couldn't wait to begin my project. After getting approval for a few colors (green, purple and red, in case you couldn't tell), I then began planning the cupcake and frosting flavors. The red ended up being a recipe I concocted--Cherry Almond cupcakes (guest starring Amaretto!) with Cherry-Almond-Vanilla frosting. The green ones are Creme de Menthe, from 125 Favorite Cupcakes, and the purple ones are "Purple" Velvet cupcakes (using Martha Stewart's Red Velvet recipe). Creme de Menthe was topped with mint cream cheese and Purple Velvet just had plain ol' cream cheese.
Now to the assembly. Plastic martini glasses (big and little), red Jelly Bellys and purple and green M&Ms, and a TON of frosting--these are the tools needed. For the mini martini glasses, I began with a few jelly beans, added a mini cupcake, and topped it off with a swirl of frosting. DONE. For the larger glasses, I put a few M&Ms in the stem to prevent the frosting from dripping too far down and then "painted" the inside of the glass with frosting warmed up in the microwave to make it a little runny-er. Then into the fridge for it to harden. The big cupcakes were actually made in the LARGE cupcake tins, but filled halfway, so it was a flatter cupcake. Drop that baby into the glass and either swirl the frosting or pile it on top and smooth it out with a butter knife and garnish with some leftover candy. The "straws" are cocktail forks (with or without, they look great). You can see the mini cupcakes modeled in Hello Cupcake's newsletter, and the larger cupcake "martinis" on Jelly Belly's web site.
I had SO MUCH FUN making these cupcakes, but also lost a lot of sleep stressing about whether or not I could pull it off. But, since 1929 WAS in the midst of Prohibition, we couldn't break the law and have REAL martinis, now could we :)


Side note: Special thanks to Brian (college football writer for AOL Fanhouse, FYI) for the AWESOME cupcake plate in the background.

Persimmon Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting, 12/01

What is a persimmon? Well, it's a funny looking fruit. But I was challenged (ok not really challenged but asked) to make a persimmon cupcake from Art's donation of the ingredient, so I set out to find a recipe. I found one here (and A LOT of other cool recipes, which I will be trying out in the near future!!) that seemed to be pretty reputable. There was orange juice and pumpkin pie spice involved, and while I do have to admit this was not my favorite cupcake, those who KNEW persimmons and what they should taste like were satisfied with the flavor. One review was that it "tasted like winter" which I guess is good because persimmons seem to only be ripe at this time of year for a few weeks (?)--kind of like the Macinaw Peach (if you know Seinfeld, you get it)!!! So if you like persimmons, I suggest this recipe. It was fun, however, to try a new recipe with a new flavor since I feel like I am running out of new ideas and flavors (I know it's not true, but I'm in a cupcake rut, I guess!!). Next up--festive and FUN Christmas cupcakes:)