Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone had a Valentine's Day full of friends, family, and love!

Marbled Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting :)

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!


I know I am supposed to be posting something pink, red, and full of hearts, but isn't something a bit different a nice change? This orange-yellow ombre cake was for my cousin/roomie's birthday this past weekend and I think it is also the perfect pretty cake to celebrate a special day with your '+ 1'.  What can get better than a cake covered in roses for Valentine's Day?


After making three pink-themed cakes in the past two weeks or so, I couldn't bring myself to make yet another cake along the same lines.  Plus, variety is the spice of life, is it not? :)

Strawberry Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

It is no secret that Strawberry Cupcakes rock my life. I seem to use this recipe whenever I can, and people request it about as often as I get requests for the standard vanilla and chocolate cupcakes.


There is just something delicious about pairing a sweet and tasty cupcake with the amazing flavour of fresh strawberries. My mouth is totally watering right now.

Ruffled Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

Do you have any big exciting plans for Valentine's Day? Maybe a snazzy dinner out on the town? Or maybe you have decided to have a romantic and cozy night in with your someone special?  Regardless of how you wish to spend your Valentine's day this year, I think you need this cake to be a part of your plans.

This is a 3-layer 6" round cake. Perfect for two, or to completely demolish with your family on the 14th! It is made up of three layers of Devil's Food Cake (my husband's favourite) and filled with Strawberry Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache (just like chocolate covered strawberries! yum!).  

Oreo Truffles for Valentine's Day

Here is a quick and easy treat to give to someone special this Valentine's day :) I originally found these over on bakerella.com, but I think they originally came from the Kraft website.  These can actually be found all over the internet; they are so fun and easy to make!

All you need is a package of Oreos, a package of cream cheese, white chocolate candy melts (or white chocolate chips), and sprinkles!  I decorated mine with sprinkles, cinnamon hearts, and red candy melts.

If you don't have a food processor, you can throw the Oreos into a freezer bag and beat them with a rolling pin until they are fine crumbs.

If you need a quick and cute treat, make these soon! 

Oreo Truffles

• 1 package of Oreos
• 1 block cream cheese, room temperature (250 g)
• 1/2 to 1 cup white chocolate candy melts (or white chocolate bark or chips)
• sprinkles or decorations of your choice!

1. Throw about 3/4 of the Oreos (the whole cookie!) into a food processor and pulse until they are fine crumbs (or beat place them in a freezer bag and crush the life out of them)
2. Mix together the crushed Oreos and the cream cheese 
3. Roll the mixture into small balls (about 1" in diameter) and place them on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper
4. When all of the mixture is rolled, place the cookie sheet in the freezer for about 10 minutes
5. While the truffles are cooling, melt the white chocolate in a small microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring between each time to ensure it melts evenly
1. If the melted chocolate seems too thick to dip the truffles, you can mix some shortening into it to thin it out, about 1 tsp at a time
6. Remove the set truffles from the freezer and roll them one at a time in the white chocolate
7. Shake off the excess chocolate, and set the truffle back onto the parchment paper
8. Sprinkle or decorate as desired before the chocolate coating dries
9. Repeat until all truffles are done and let set before packing them up
10. Enjoy!

Mini Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Yesterday I decided to make some mini cupcakes. The primary reason? I felt my mini muffin pans were getting left out lately and as a result they needed some love.


Plus, who doesn't like mini cupcakes? You can eat 4 in a row, and not even feel guilty because they are 'mini'!

I used Martha's Mint Chocolate Cupcake recipe for these cupcakes, but made some changes based on what I had in my house.  I used vanilla extract instead of mint (also, I just wanted some tasty classic chocolate cupcakes sans mint), 1 cup of plain yogurt instead of buttermilk (I had an abundance of yogurt, and a lack of buttermilk in the fridge), and olive oil instead of vegetable oil (again, due to a lack of an ingredient in my pantry). 

Despite the changes, these were wonderful!  I actually think I will stick with the yogurt instead of the buttermilk because they had the perfect cupcake texture. The recipe makes about 18 regular cupcakes, and I made about 6 dozen mini cupcakes with it.

I topped these with a simple vanilla buttercream, and then decorated them with heart sprinkles, sanding sugar, and cinnamon hearts :)

2 dozen of this were sent home with my sister, 2 dozen were brought to work, and the remaining 2 dozen? Those are disappearing very quickly from my counter!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Valentine's Day on Monday!

Cupcakes for Valentine's Day

I bought some delicious strawberries this past Tuesday, and knew they would be perfect for some Valentine's themed cupcakes! 

This Strawberry Cupcake recipe is amazing!  They are so tender and full of delicious fresh strawberry bits.

I used a Wilton 1M tip for the white icing, and a 2D tip for the swirled icing.  The cupcakes iced with pink buttercream (shown in the last picture) were also decorated with a 2D tip.

The chocolate hearts were made using candy melts and a mold that I picked up at Michael's this past summer. I think my husband ate most of them, only about 4 of the 12 hearts made it onto the cupcakes!

Classic cinnamon hearts also made perfect cupcake-sized decorations.

These were so fun to decorate, I love how cute they are!

These fancy heart sprinkles are so neat, I love how they are shiny and yet still edible!

Both the shiny hearts sprinkles and the multi-coloured heart sprinkles are from bakeitpretty.com. They have such amazing things on that site :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day this year!

I just realized that I didn't take any 'single' shots of the cupcakes with pink icing! I think I must be partial to white icing with beautiful sprinkles, oops!

Lemon Wreaths and Hearts

Here is a delicious alternative to all of the tasty chocolate treats that are everywhere this time of year.  While my first love for desserts is chocolate, I have some serious trouble turning down a lemony dessert.  There is something so appealing about a dessert that is flecked with fresh lemon zest!

The original recipe is from Martha Stewart's Cookie of the Day.  Once I saw this in my inbox, I knew I would be making them the next chance I got! 

The lemon glaze is an amazing touch as well, the more lemon the better!


To make the wreaths, roll out 1 tbsp of the cookie dough into about a 4 inch rope.  Then pinch together the ends and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  After my cookies had cooled and been glazed, I decorated the wreaths with yellow jimmies to highlight the presence of lemon. I think they look pretty cute.

To make the hearts, I rolled out 1 tbsp of the dough into a rope about 6 inches long, and then pinched it in the middle to form a 'V'.  I then brought together the ends to form a heart.  To decorate the hearts, I used these amazing new sprinkles that I got from bakeitpretty.com after dipping them in the glaze. They are perfect for Valentine's Day desserts!

I made about 2 dozen cookies from this recipe.

Lemon Wreaths and Hearts

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tbsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• zest of two lemons
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• For the lemon glaze
• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• juice of 2 lemons
• your choice of sprinkles

1. Preheat the oven to 350F, and line a couple cookie sheets with parchment paper
2. Place the lemon zest and sugar in a bowl, and whisk it together for a few minutes (I used the whisk attachment of my stand mixer and let it go for about 2 minutes)
3. In a second bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
4. Add the room temperature butter to the sugar/lemon zest and mix it until it is light and fluffy
5. Add the eggs to the butter/sugar, and mix well
6. Add the vanilla and the lemon juice to the wet ingredients and again mix well
7. Add the flour mixture in batches, mixing until the batter just starts to come together
8. Remove about 1 tbsp of cookie dough, and roll it into a rope (4" long for a wreath, or 6" long for a heart)
9. Pinch the two ends together to form a wreath (or form a 'V' and then pinch the ends together to form a heart)
10. Place on the prepared cookie sheets, and then repeat with remaining cookie dough
11. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the bottoms are just golden brown
12. Let the cookies cool on wire cookie racks
13. While the cookies are cooling, whisk together the lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth
14. When the cookies are cooled, dunk the top of each cookie into the glaze, and then set it back on the cookie rack
15. Decorate with your favourite sprinkles
16. Enjoy!

Valentine's Day Cake

I know it seems early, but Valentine's day is only a few weeks away!


I saw a really neat tutorial on I Am Baker that had some really cool (and fairly easy!) cake decorating techniques.  I was a big fan of the 'squiggly lines' technique, so I figured that I would give it a shot!

I started out by drawing all of the hearts, and then filling in the blank spaces with pink icing.  I used a #4 wilton tip for the hearts, and a #3 wilton tip for the pink 'squiggles'.


This was surprisingly easy! If you need to quickly jazz up a cake, give this method a try! I am so happy with how my first attempt turned out.


Have a great weekend!