HAPPY HOUR!!!

Everyone loves happy hour right?  Well here's another reason to love it...


"HAPPY HOUR" the cupcake!


It's a cupcake made with fresh lime zest, lime juice and brushed with Tequila!
That's right, Tequila!  The frosting is a buttercream with Tequila also in it!  Woot Woot!


Okay this is still a bit of a work in progress, but it's pretty good so far.
I want to get MORE taste of the tequila in it!  I put a ton, but it was still pretty subtle.
So I will play with the recipe and have more taste tests on this one! 

Still working on the presentation too! :)
-Cat

LIKE GIDDY LITTLE GIRLS!!!

Like giddy little girls!!!  Master P and I had an eventful week!  Especially Monday!  That's both of our day off from the salon, so that's when we meet to get all 'The Cupcake!'  stuff done.  Well this Monday was Crazy!  In a good way.  Here's what we got accomplished,,,the design of our logo, our shirt design, business cards ordered,buttons ordered, box samples ordered, liner samples ordered, our aprons ordered, went to get our business license and found a few more options for commercial kitchens, talked with a resturaunt willing to meet with us AND possibly carry our cupcakes!!! That was just the morning!  So much done and we were shaking in disbelief.  We arrived at my house and what did we find in the mail? Our aprons!  Which by the way are a part of out uniform. :)  We were seriously giddy!  My 11 yr. old and her friend were acting older than we were at the time, but who cares!!!  Yay! Here's to small steps!

-Cat

No, this is not deja vu...

Its funny how much Cat and I seem to be telepathically connected.


Let me explain. While she was dealing with a party poopers, I was dealing with dried up, old looking chocolate babies...weird, right?  Both of us were trying out new cakes, and I decided to be all ambitious n stuff and take on a mexican hot chocolate flavored cake with dark chocolate and chilli pepper frosting. My shout out to my heritage and all. Piece of cake, or so I thought. My recipe was made specifically for mini cupcakes...no problem, right?

Wrong! As you can see, they were dry as the Sahara. Too long in the oven. The recipe called for 14 minutes...so wrong! Luckily I had a double batch so I took cooking time down to 10 min and...



Voila! Success! I got great reviews on this hot little chocolate baby... whew!

-P

THIS PARTY WAS A FLOP!

 

We all learn from our mistakes, right?  Well here is a big mistake that I made!  So I was making a new cupcake "Party for 1".  Everything started well, or so I thought.  I was trying to make this a family affair and asked my kids if they wanted to help.  They were great, but in all my "multi-tasking" I missed a few things... "Party for 1" is a confetti cake with butter cream frosting.  After I put the first batch in oven and was talking with my kids I realized I forgot to put the key ingredient (sprinkles) in the batter!  Then sometime while turning off the timer I turned off the oven!  I was wondering why this batch was taking so long!!!  Needless to say "Party for 1" was a party pooper!!!

PARTY POOPER!!!

  Much better!

-Cat

Wake up call

New cupcake!  So I love coffee and coffee flavored food items so why not make an espresso cupcake!
Well I did!  There is espresso shots AND grounds in the cake and the frosting is a buttercream sprinkled with more espresso.  This is the first cupcake I made that I am proud of!  First all because I didn't follow a recipe for the espresso, I just did it by feeling, and second because when my hubby bit into the first one he exclaimed " OH MY GOSH!"  and he eyes were so wide!  I was scared at first thinking they were that bad, but he was like "NO this is amazing!"  So a few taste tests later and we've decided that this one is a winner!  I still have to perfect baking time with these little guys, but overall feedback has been good!  I have to give credit to the husband for naming this guy, so introducing....CUP 'O JOE!

Speaking of taste tests I need to give thanks to all the clients and staff at The Beauty Lounge in Brentwood and to the staff at Duarte Design Inc. in Mountain View Ca.  Thank you for ALL the feedback,  good or bad!  Stay tuned for cupcake parties that we will be hosting for more taste tests!!!


-Cat

Random thoughts...

I recently decided that this was a time in my life to do things outside of my comfort zone.

Let me put some perspective on this decision. Up until a short time ago, I lived my life "by the book". I lived by society's vision for my life path. I was a wife and mother by the age of 22, and a stay at home mom to boot. I went a wee bit coocoola in that time. There always seemed to be so much going on in my brain, so many things I wanted to do, and yet couldn't. Unfortunately for me, I didnt have a  partner who could see that vision and potential and be able to support me in my ideas.

So long story short, I have shed that life... I am now a single mom to my son, who is my biggest fan and supporter. I am taking guitar lessons, which he is so proud to tell anyone that will listen to him. I have persued my love of makeup, and am making a living at it. I will be traveling more this year than I ever have before. Im trying to live with as much humor, honesty, love, and joy as is possible. After all, life is much to short to live in negativity and sourness. Creating this new chapter in my life with Cat, and making this sweet cupcake dream happen gives me so much happiness for the both of us...

In this moment, I feel full of life and hope for our future. Thanks for reading...

-P

Best friends are the best for a reason...

I had a super busy day today...as I'm writing this, my mind and body are screaming for rest. But I had a deep and wonderful conversation with my all time Best Friend Stacy (I call her my soul twin) and just had to put pen to paper, so to speak. I shared my dream of The Cupcake! with her, and told her of all the plans and all the work being done to make it happen for Cat and I. She being the ultimate supporter and cheerleader started to give feedback and ideas, which I so appreciate. And so came the idea of The King.

Cupcake that is. So picture this: Banana flavored cupcake, with peanut butter flavored buttercream frosting, and crumbled applewood bacon on top. This was afterall Elvis's favorite sandwich. Genious!

So this will be my next cupcake experiment, in honor of my soul twin. Thanks Stacy, for all the support, ideas, logical thinking, leadership, mentoring, love, understanding, all accepting, encouraging, and again LOVE that you have ever given me in all the years and lifetimes I've known you.

Love you always,
Priscilla

The Red Balloon

A little insight into to all things me...well one thing me.  While taking an art appreciation class at a junior college, YEARS ago, I became enamored with the movie "The Red Balloon".  Just the image of that red with all the grey.  LOVED it.  Stuck in my head for always.  I even tried to recreate it in a dance I choreographed for a competition dance team.  The girls wore all grey school uniforms and the red balloon moved around the stage from girl to girl.  After the season I was determined to have that red balloon in my home.  I remade the balloon, this time out of paper mache, and it stood in the corner of my stairwell for a year or two.  The paper mache was too heavy and it constantly fell over till it finally broke.  Now we are in a new house and I am still haunted by the red balloon, so.... I remade it!  This time completely out of crochet thread.  Previously I had the balloon on the end of copper wire so it can "float" from the ground up, but the thread was so delicate that I couldn't do that this time.  My hubby surprised me when I got home and this is what my red balloon looks like now.  (oh he added the note)

The note reads, "we absolutely have no money. But it's fine because we have each other."

-Cat.

Inspiration....

I know, its not my turn to blog but I couldn't help it. Cat will fill you all in later, but for now let me just take my hat off to the girl, because she made the most bestest chocolate espresso cupcakes on the planet. I will let her reveal the name...

In other news, I've been inspired today by the weather. Its rather gloomy here in D-town, so I wanted to make something warm and comforting. Looking in my kitchen I had chicken and the basics: onions, garlic, celery. At the farmers market on Saturday I found some delicious looking figs I thought I would eat with some brie cheese on crackers. I decided to use them in a chicken curry dish, kind of a moroccan inspired creation. 


I will be serving the curry with organic quinoa, a delicious alternative to rice. Bon apetit!

-Priscilla

Hooray!

Both Cat and I have been so super busy lately, we actually had to have a meeting today to synchronize our crazy schedules! This meeting took place after a very successful hair and makeup trial appointment with a bride to be. We had to reward ourselves and so took to the highway and ended up at a very nice shopping place. So of course we share a love of all things fashion and ended up at none other than the Betsey Johnson Store. This is what I ended up with:

HOT, right???

My very first pair of designer shoes!!! They look amazing, and I love them. In other news, I need to get my booty in gear and bake up my next experimental batch of cupcakes... Im inspired at the the moment by these shoes...can we say chocolate cupcake with raspberry cheesecake filling???
-Priscilla

P.s.  So after a text conversation with my aforementioned partner in all things cupcake (Cat, who else?), it is mutually agreed upon that the name for this cupcake flavor shall be...wait for it....drumroll please....RAZZMATAZZ! Ta Da!

Taste tests!

I am blessed to work in a place that supports my ideas and allows us to bring our cupcakes in for "tastes tests"!  The clients are so willing to try our little bite size delights and give us great feedback in return.  By the way, the support of these clients has been amazing!  Here's what they tried today...

This is Hint O' Mint!  Now I actually made two versions on this cupcake.  The one pictured here,

the mint is in the batter with a cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with crushed peppermint.  In the other

version, the crushed peppermint is in the cream cheese frosting. In that version  the frosting is pink due to the peppermint. During the "taste tests"  it was actually pretty divided on which one people liked better. 

: /  

Hmm, what to do, what to do.  More tests?

-Cat

Today no cupcakes... :(

Okay so I haven't baked anything for a week now.  Boo!  A little background on me (Cat).

I hate cooking!  Okay so cupcakes can be called baking, but I hate cooking.  Hate is a strong word, so let me rephrase that... I dislike cooking.  I dislike it mainly because I am lazy.  I really just want to eat!  Now eating I LOVE!  I want to eat when i'm hungry, not cook when i'm hungry and I am so lazy that I would rather starve than cook!  So sad.  Luckily I married a man who loves to cook!  It's worked out so far, but...  He recently got a job kinda far away so he commutes and doesn't get home in time to cook.  BOO again! However, this week I did some cooking that I am a little proud of or I am proud that I actually attempted something out of my comfort zone.  I made chili cheese fries!  From scratch!  Kinda.  The fries were from scratch, I actually cut the potatoes and deep fried them.  The chili, on the other hand, was from a can.  But hey, everyone ate it and it actually tasted like it should!  Now don't get me wrong, I am not a horrible cook, I just don't like to!  I'm grumpy when I'm hungry so all I want to do is eat!!!  Look how happy I look!  It's cause i'm eating!  And what is that i'm eating?  A cupcake!  More about that particular cupcake in later posts so stay tuned.

-Cat

And the verdict is....

So for my first attempt at a new recipe I chose blueberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting. I must say that they turned out  pretty darn good! At least, thats what the folks that tried them at the salon said. Im inclined to believe them, since I haven't been able to stop eating them! I've had three, count them three mini cupcakes today! But when something looks this good, how can you not?

My victory would not have been possible had Cat not made a couple of successful batches herself. In fact, I think she was much more ambitious: she made a white cupcake with pink buttercream frosting, and a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Both quite tasty and delicious. Unfortunately, we figured out that they had been cooked a wee bit too long, and so I adjusted the cooking time for these blueberry babies by cutting it by about five minutes. Success!
-Priscilla

Intros...part deux

This is Cat. She is one of my bestest besties, my partner in inspiration and nuttyness. This lovely lady has been my hairstylist for years.  She is proud momma of four offspring: Asia, Gavin, Corbin, and Stella. She is supportive and enthusiastic of every scheme and idea that pops into my head!  We definitely speak the same language and even finish each others sentences on more occasions than I can count. Thank you for joining us on this next adventure...the cupcake dream!
-Priscilla

Intros.....

This is Priscilla!  My dear friend and partner in crime.  She is the 

momma to a handsome and friendly young man, Tristan.  She is talented, inspiring

and strong.  She "gets" me.  We will be alternating posts, so you will get the perspectives

of both of us.  We will be sharing our adventures in trying to create a cupcake business and/or

whatever floats our boat at the moment.  Stay tuned for victories or defeats! :( Thanks for

the support!

-Cat.