To Infinity and BEYOND!

I know it has been quite awhile since the last update but things are getting busy for us around here. Just a couple weeks ago Angela and I flew out to Denver,CO for a friend's wedding and we provided cupcakes for the reception. It was a great hit, unfortunately we forgot to take photos. We did get one from someone else tho while we were setting up:

We are also preparing for our website launch party. We spent Saturday afternoon painting and distressing some chairs.

We will also start preparing our custom cupcake towers this week.  We can't wait for the party!
We also have a couple large orders in the works so we are moving forward! Hopefully the party will have a great turn out and generate some more orders.
We will be sure to have a bunch of great photos from the party so stay posted for all those goodies. If you want more info on the party pls visit our facebook page: fb.com/epicupcakes

Great Success!

This weekend we had a 4 dozen order to work on, so we were pretty busy. We also had the opportunity to stop in at a great local cake shop which really got us amped. We saw so many awesome things and we can't wait to go back! For the order we made Chai Latte, Bananas Foster, Mexican Hot Chocolate, and Twilight Delight. They turned out very well and the process went pretty smoothly. (I forgot to mention that everything went smoothly BECAAAUUUUSE 80% of the time we listened to the theme song from Mortal Kombat, totally not strange at all.)

First we started with the Chai. Angela had some great loose leaf Masala Chai that we steeped in milk. We did use two extra Tazo chai bags for additional flavor. We had a great big tea strainer basket that worked perfectly, as if it were made to fit in my cute little Japanese soup bowls.

 The finished product turned out perfectly. They were so cute packaged up all nice in the little pink boxes we got at the cake shop.

After we finished working on the chai cakes we began the bananas foster. Unfortunately the rum we used for the flambe didn't have a high enough alcohol content so we didn't get the flame going like we had hoped for this time. No big, there is always next time. These banana cupcakes are probably my new favorite (I say that every time) so I am sure we will try them again very soon.

During our visit to Cost Plus World Market last week we found actual Vanilla beans that were a lot cheaper than buying them at Safeway. So this time we decided to add them to the frosting for the Bananas Fosters.

They bean itself had a great fragrance and it was really interesting to work with. We sliced it open and scraped out all of its delicious guts :) Which didn't look like much but once we added it to the batter it was plenty and added great flavor.

Our next step was creating our dark chocolate cake batter which we would then divide in half. One part for the twilights and the other for the mexicans. I always like doing the dark chocolate cake because it just looks so amazing! So dark and rich.

Yummy! My favorite part is when we mix in the sour cream and it starts to swirl in an it just looks so magical!

 

After that was completed we added the cayenne to the mexican batter. And as requested by the customer we added peanut butter chips to the twilight batter instead of white chocolate chips. 

Once we baked those up we put the cinnamon chocolate ganache on the mexicans. Oh boy did they look good. We topped them with whipped cream right before we left so they wouldn't start to melt. The whipped cream held up fine for the delivery journey.

After frosting the twilights, much like the mexicans, we drizzled them with chocolate topping. Since it is fitting with the name, we drizzle these bad boys with Ghiradelli Twilight Delight chocolate. Both Angela and I whipped out our mad crosshatching skills and they turned out great!

The finished products turned out great. And from what I heard, the customer really enjoyed them. :)

The finished line up

Mardi Gras Madness!

In preparation for Fat Tuesday, I took inspiration from a couple of Nawlin's favorites. First up was the good old King's Cake you might see around this time of year. Baked inside this cake is a little plastic baby (meant to represent the baby Jesus) and if your slice of the cake has the baby inside it is said you get good luck and are King for the day!

I remember the first time I heard about this. I was about 8 or 9 years old. My  mother's boyfriend at the time, Damien, who was born and raised in New Orleans had one shipped over for us to try and it was awesome!

So the cupcakes aren't entirely true to actual cake, but I took my own little spin on it.

For the cake I started with my favorite vanilla recipe and added a little cinnamon and dark rum! After that I topped them with a rum sugar glaze and used purple and green vanilla buttercream for the frosting. I placed the little babies on top just for visual effect. Of course I did bake a baby inside one lucky cupcake. (I'll take a photo of the "king" when it's found)

After that cupcake was finished, I couldn't pass up the chance to do a bananas foster cupcake. Bananas foster is my favorite (non chocolate) dessert! I was also introduced to this by Damien on a different occasion. First things first I had to start with an actual bananas foster recipe. I sauteed those bananas in butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, banana liquor, a dark rum.

I did my best flambe it, but I was kinda scared I would set my house on fire! HAHAHA. I did alright though. After that was done it was more rum and vanilla batter, then I mixed in my bananas. Since this actual dessert is usually served over vanilla ice cream, I topped the cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and adorned it with a brown sugar sprinkle and a banana chip. They were super delicious!

Another good weekend baking experiment!

<3 Ashley

The Luck of the Irish

With St. Patty's day quickly approaching we thought it might be a good idea to break out the alcohol. This week we were set on recreating the popular Irish Car Bomb drink in cupcake form. We had great success with these little morsels.

We started with a dark chocolate stout cake. We went with good ol' Guinness and it really complimented the dark chocolate and hint of cinnamon we added. To top it we did our signature chocolate ganash glaze with a couple teaspoons of Jamison Whiskey. It. was. awesome! And of course we had to top with a basic buttercream with added Baileys and we sprinkled them with a little cocoa powder. These are sure to be a year round favorite.
Once we finished these we had an idea to do a Lucky Charms cupcake. We thought we'd implant the little marshmallows inside the cupcake, unfortunately  it didn't work out. The mallows just made a big melted mess. We managed to get a few good minis out of our batch. Next time the marshmallows will only go on top to garnish.

This was just our velvet cake colored green for the holiday. We used vanilla buttercream frosting and then topped them with the famous marshmallows. Over all we had a really productive weekend turning out some more great flavors. We also released a discount coupon on our facebook page for all our great fans. If you haven't already, you should "like" us on facebook!
PS we are also really close to finishing out website so keep your eyes peeled for more updates.
PSS next week stay tuned for Mardi Gras cupcakes!!!!

<3 Ashley

Something Old and Something New

The London Fog

Last night we decided to bring back the London Fog for a well deserved photoshoot for our signature menu. The London Fog was actually the first cupcake we came up with and has sort of been the rock of epicupcakes. It sounds little strange but remains to be the favorite of many of our friends and family. It's all starts with Earl Grey Lavender Tea, steeped in milk and a little extra fine ground up loose tea for bolder flavor. We use :

This tea has such an awesome flavor that mixes beautifully with the honey and vanilla cream cheese frosting! It turned out magnificently. We are proud to add it our list of creations.

We also decided to try a new flavor we have been curious about trying for a long time now. It's definitely a perfect Spring/Summer party cupcake! Probably not one you would want to bring to a little kid's birthday party but definitely a must try. It was the Lemon Basil:

Lemon Basil

The cupcake was a simple light and airy lemon cake that was to die for! For the frosting we chose something equally as light and delicious, Basil whipped cream! Sounds funky right? Well let me tell you, I was a bit skeptical that it would work , but the combination was fabulous! It was soft and not over powering and just a hint of sweetness. It was the perfect balance with the lemon cupcake. It is now actually one of my very favorites!

<3 Ashley

Get a Glimpse

Last night Angela got some great work done on the website that has been in the works for sometime. We pretty much nailed down the concept months ago but have really been taking our time in building our photo collection of our cupcakes (which we are still working on). Now that we have a few good photos to work with, Angela has been toying with a couple different things. So far it's been going really well and I am really optimistic about getting it up and running in the next month or so. Here's a screenshot to give you a first look at what's to come:

Keep your eye out for more updates. I'll be posting fairly often in the coming weeks since this should start to move pretty fast. We are also planning on putting together a few new cupcakes soon so stay posted!
<3 Ashley

A Night of Mayhem

The Gentleman.

So last night Angela and I went to town putting together a few great cupcakes. Since I was able to find the missing ingredient for the Mexican hot chocolates we figured we would do it proper.

We used the Ibarra to do a chocolate ganache and it was everything I dreamed it could be. The cinnamon chocolate flavor was perfect and reminded us of our grandmas :)
For the cake we used a dark chocolate devils food with a hint of cayenne to give it a subtle spice.(not paprika, definitely not paprika) And of course to top it we made fresh whipped cream and drizzled more Mexican chocolate on top to give it that perfect look. The only thing better than how awesome it looked was how awesome it tasted!

After those were complete we created Cookies and Cream. We started off with a simple chocolate cupcake but buried inside we hide a whole Oreo!

The frosting was a vanilla buttercream with cookie crumbles. Yum! This was also a huge success!

After those were complete we photographed a couple different examples for Valentine's Day gift ideas. Everything we do is customizable but we thought we could showcase a few possibilities. Here they are:

If you are interested in ordering something special for that special someone shoot us an email at info@epicupcakes.com and tell us what you would like to do.

<3 Ashley