I particularly love the vintage button mold. That combined with the ever delicious Clasen candy melts she sells is a most decadent delight!

Image via Bake It Pretty blog. Hopefully it's okay to use :)

To help supply your initial cupcake goodness, Fantabulously Frugal is having a 31 day giveaway special. Day 7 is a starter cupcake set from Bake It Pretty!

Today’s giveaway (Day 8) is also great for us green bakers - reusable snack and sandwich bag from Etsy shop Green Street Bags - awesome! Check it out! Even if you don’t win, they’re still great!

Bookmark their site for more giveaways this month!

31 Days of Giveaways

The Wilton cupcake decorating class provided some of their stock White Decorator Icing (stiff consistency). We had to thin it out with 3-4 teaspoons of water to make it usable for the beginner’s designing on the cupcakes.

(Using the #18 star tip to create pull-out stars)

I dyed my frosting with black icing color, imagining that I would get an emo grey. Surprise! I got this awesome purple pictured in my cupcake shots. I’m really excited because this is my favorite shade of purple and I declare that I don’t think I have ever seen it grace a cupcake or cake before. I wonder why.

(Using the #4 round tip for the dots)

Also with the class came this cool little beginner’s cake/frosting decorating book by Wilton. They have some great techniques in there with excellent illustrations that far exceed the little guide that comes in the starter kit. I’m very visual so I require an extended illustrated guide.

(Using the #18 star tip to create rosettes)

It was a ton of fun to make these pretty and yummy cupcakes. I hope to make more cupcakes - and perhaps delve into the realm of cookie decorating soon. The cupcakes themselves were plain vanilla. I want to find a great frosting recipe so that I don’t have to use their frosting pack - it was quick and easy, but you don’t think “yum delicious amazing!” when eating it like some of the other frostings I have made.

I’ve also added a new Decorating set in my Flickr Food collection. Now I can share yummy goodness with friends here and pretty goodness with the world :o)

The #1 worst food is shocking to me:

Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake
2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

Wow! More than a day’s intake of all those items in a single drink! And, if you’re like me, those shakes go down pretty quickly.

Eat This, Not That is great because (by the very nature of the publication) it offers a healthful alternative at the same locale for every item it warns against:

Eat This Instead! (and ask for two spoons)
2-Scoop Hot fudge Sundae
Chocolate and Vanilla
530 calories
29 g fat (19 g saturated fat)
52 g sugars

Sounds equally yum but for a fraction of the fattening junk! I wish the site had a unique RSS feed, but it only has an email newsletter. To subscribe, or not to subscribe…

Some of my favorites?

• How Long Can You Keep Dry Spices? [Short answer: 1-3 years, depending on whole or ground, unless you bust out the fancy storing techniques]
• Why Do Onions Make You Cry? [Short answer: It's all about the chemical reactions]
• How Long Can Dried Pasta Be Stored? [Short answer: Years and years!]
• What Makes Cheddar Cheese Sharp? [Short answer: Bacteria from aging - gross, but so delicious!]
• Is Soy Lecithin Bad for You? [Short answer: Like anything, it's ok - in moderation. It's a natural derivative of the soybean]

via Wordhole

I stumbled upon a a few groups whose premise is that each photo must be accompanied by a recipe or a link to a recipe. It combines my love of looking at delicious food with real life reviews and reproduction ability! Recipes to Share, Cooking (recipe required), The (un)official Flickr cookbook, and Food with Blogged Recipes are all recipe based Flickr groups.

One delight that I found through The (un)official Flickr cookbook is this excellent idea of a Lemon-Ginger cookie:

You can find the recipe at the user’s blog, Coconut & Lime.

View my “food” tagged Flickr items to see more yums that yours truly has made or just plain eaten.

I highly recommend this option from the book. I shared it with about 15 people and the average rating was about an 8.5.

The cream cheese frosting really made the treat. Half of a brick of cream cheese, half of a stick of butter, and one teaspoon of vanilla mixed together. The recipe says then to add powdered sugar starting with 1 cup and then adding an additional 1 3/4 to 2 1/4 cups, but I found that about 2 1/2 cups total sufficed for me. Of course add more or stop adding to reach the consistency you like. I think the slight less firm consistency of the frosting is what added to this pastry’s draw.

My mouth is watering just looking at it. Seriously, this bar is amazing. So carrot-cake like, yet retaining the hints of pumpkinish goodness.

Along with the upgrade, I included the Sociable plugin, which inserts social website sharing links at the bottom of each post. It’s a nice feature if you want to e-mail, tweet, or bookmark something quickly.

I have an awesome pastry post in the works, so stay tuned!