Ezra's BATMAN! Chocolate Cupcakes with Reese's Surprise!

Ezra recently had his 4th birthday party and with this came the usual choices like cake, cupcakes, or cookie cake. There's also deciding if I was going to make some spectacular creation like a previous Dinosaur Train Cake, Jake and the Neverland Pirate Cake, or this one I pulled off in Liberia West Africa Estevam Turns ONE! over 8 years ago. I thought the heat alone was going to melt the homemade marshmallow fondant off that cake!

We (wife and I) have had great cupcakes over the years and I thought it was time to go that route again. The theme was BATMAN! And we found some nice cupcake topper rings with the Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman logo. Even if the presentation is not going to be "spectacular" like previously mentioned cakes, we still want it to be special.

People always tell us, "You always bring great food to a party or dinner without being told what to bring! How do you do it?" Really its simple, we cook the food we want to eat! (And we trust our taste buds.)

I decided on a chocolate cupcake with a chocolate buttercream icing and a Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cup surprise in the center! For this recipe I was hunting down something different, or better, when I ran across the Brown Eyed Baker's recipe for Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes!

With cooking and recipes I don't try to "re-invent the wheel". I find the "wheel" I like. If I can't find one I like, THEN I invent the "wheel" I want!

I found the "wheel" I wanted with BEB's chocolate cupcake! If you are in this culinary world as a hobby, or a career, hopefully you get to the point where you can just look at a recipe or list of ingredients and KNOW that's what you want. I was looking over BEB's recipe thinking...

• "chocolate & coffee, Mmmm" (good baking flavor combo even if u don't like coffee)
• "I like the technique for...creaming, melting, mixing..."
• "Vinegar? Hmmm...this is looking like a modified Red Velvet Cake recipe (without the food coloring) and I like THAT"

For my son's birthday party I wanted to make the cupcake more my own. Or maybe OUR own. So I tucked a frozen Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cup in each cupcake before baking. Freezing it helps maintain its structure during the baking period.

I was very pleased with this cupcake. Chocolate flavor, moist, held together, baked properly, and it was a hit with both kids and adults. 

I made my own buttercream frosting and skipped the ganache in BEB's recipe. But I would encourage you to try her whole recipe. The only reason I changed other aspects of it was to get the "wheel" I wanted.

Here is the recipe again: Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes -- Brown Eyed Baker has a great site with more than just baking recipes. Go check it out.

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Tytus Birthday Cake!

 Last Sunday my oldest son Tytus turned four years old. The theme of his party was Jake and The Neverland Pirates. Pictured here is Bucky the pirate ship that sails around Jake, Izzy, Cubby, and Skully. Made of chocolate cake, various candies, a peanut butter cup crows nest, and a few unedible parts like poster board sails and a dowel rod mast. Yeah, he was super excited about it!

[no, I don't do this every year...next year will probably be store bought, or my wife will make it! LOL - then again, who knows? Kids can be very persuasive.] 

Below is the Dinosaur Train cake I made for Tytus 2nd Birthday. This one is unique in that I made my own fondant out of a marshmallow recipe.  This wasn't the first Train cake I made though, the first was on a ship in Liberia, West Africa for some Brazilian friends of mine at this link: Train Birthday Cake (Estevam turns ONE!)

VFCA SR Graduation Reception

Last Friday I helped Debbie put out a reception for the Valley Fellowship Christian Academy graduates. Debbie does food events and knows her way around the kitchen! One of her specialties is cake. And I am fully agreeable to let people work in their element and this is one of her's! Actually sometimes it's easiest to sit back and 'be' the help or sous chef...you can learn from seeing things from another angle (besides your own) when someone else does it. 

Plenty of people commented on her food and the cake BUT I can tell she will give you the recipe for the cheese-ball, NOT the cake!!! LOL

Train Birthday Cake (Estevam turns ONE!)

Recently I was talking with a friend about cakes and using fondant and it reminded me of a time in West Africa that I had to make my own...

Friends of mine, Tatyana & Rodrigo, had their sons’ first birthday while we were working with Mercy Ships aboard the Africa Mercy and Tatyana asked me to help with the cake.  Well I looked at some of the illustrations that she sent me by email from Internet pictures and I said, ‘Is this all you want?  You want me to do the whole cake?  I got a bigger idea…’

Of course Tatyana probably had so much more to worry about getting her child’s first party together so she freely gave up that project.