Have a happy Justin Bieber birthday!

I made this cake for a special 6th birthday party for a Bieber fan. Everything on the cake is edible and made by myself, except for the musical themed ribbon and the stickers I used as Bieber pictures. I thought stickers would be a nice touch so the birthday girl could have them after the fact :) Hope you like it!

Have a yummy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Facebook Birthday!

A last minute birthday cake request for a Facebook fan :)

New cupcake frosting flavor!

MMM! Lately I have been IN LOVE with Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC). It is just so satiny smooth in texture and has such a nice not-too-sweet flavor that lends itself to so many flavor combinations. Perfect!
The first time I made SMBC I immediately thought of peanut butter. Something about that silky texture made me think of it and I couldn't get it out of my had until I attempted a peanut butter SMBC. Oh! SO GOOD! I, myself, am not a hardcore peanut butter fan but love a good dollop now and then so I needed to cut back on the peanut butter taste-bud "explosion". I decided to whip up a batch of chocolate SMBC and pipe both in a twist on my chocolate cupcakes to bring it down a bit. I'm sure my husband would have been happy eating peanut butter out of the jar having the straight PBSMBC but raved about the combination, as did all my other samplers and a certain Uncle. ya, you Uncle Tom!
Verdict?
We have a new addition to the menu!

For future batches though, I'm thinking either a chocolate or peanut butter filling and either toasted peanuts for a topper or the super adorable mini PB cups from Trader Joe's! LOVE Trader Joe's!

What I've been up to.

Here's a sampling of the many things that have been coming from Call Me Sugar's kitchen recently!

Can't wait for all the great things April has in store!

You win some, You lose some.

Ever have those days (or those weeks!) where every recipe you try just doesn't work out? It can be a real confidence buster, leaving one to run for a tried and true recipe just to regain some ground- "I CAN bake, can't I?!".
Ugh, I had one of those weeks at the beginning of the month. I baked quite a few recipes and most of them, yea, not keeping in the repertoire. One in particular was what I had the highest hopes for, an Avocado chocolate cupcake with an avocado buttercream frosting. Now right out of the gate, many were a little skeptic but that only added to it's appeal to me. I found the recipe here at Joy the Baker. Although it is in cake form, I adapted it to be a cupcake. The lure of the spring like coloured avocado frosting spoke to me, I had to have it! Unfortunately, being a vegan recipe, it posed a few problems:


No butter makes the frosting unable to keep it's form

Nothing to decrease the incredible sweetness of the confectioners sugar and "whip" the frosting to be lighter.

Now the cake itself wasn't too bad. In fact most of the taste testers liked the cake portion. Being a vegan recipe it had the tell-tale "doughy" texture and this recipe, a heavy avocado aftertaste (personal preference will tell you if that is good or bad.

I was also very concerned with the cupcakes sticking to their liners after DH brought up the no butter/oil issue. I always find my cupcakes and muffins made with apple sauce instead of oil completely stick to their liners, making them impossible to peel off. Well! Did I find something fantastic to counteract this! I'm so pleased, can't you tell? Let me share!


Drum roll please...

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These worked AMAZING! They were a little pricier than the standard Reynold's white cups but definitely worth it. Although parchment cups are apparently not a new idea, as I saw when I went to Google the photo and found lots more, they're new to me. And maybe to you too? If so, try them out! You'll love them!

So even though I lost with the cupcakes, I won in the liners :) A good day after all.

Trying New Things

Good morning World!

A little about how I ended up here, trying my hand at a blog.

Recently (I'd say about 5 months ago now) I stumbled upon a craft blog, http://www.oneprettything.com/ and it changed my entire life! Well maybe not my ENTIRE life, but it sure had a huge impact on me. Until then, I had been quite limited in my online reading, using it to search for specific topics and DYI renovations. From One Pretty Thing I found a multitude of gorgeous crafts and projects from some truly amazing and inspiring men and women. I would check back throughout the day hoping for a new "round up" of ideas and found myself bookmarking a lot of the inspirators'  (I know- not a word) blogs and websites. From there it was the proverbial snowball and I ended up going Blog crazy! Good thing I had just finished the series of novels I was reading because aside from instructional and recipe books, I haven't picked up a paper book since- too much online reading to do! In this time frame I have begun the process of starting my own home-based baking business and thought I could try my hand at blogging and sharing my findings, hopefully offering something to a soul or two who may happen upon this.
This is really just a little personal experiment and I don't know how long it will last - I never ever finished  a journal as I always hated reading back on my entries...- but this year is all about trying new things and going outside of my comfort zone.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope something I add in a future post will either help, inspire, or make you feel related to.

 Mary-Anne

Next post: Avocado cupcakes