The things we do for love....A Mulan-themed Birthday Party!

So my little girl, who is actually my "biggest" girl now, is turning 7.  And what does she want for her birthday?  Mulan.  Mulan it is!  She wanted a Mulan-themed birthday party held at one of her favorite restaurants.  So, the first thing that I had to do in my game-planning for this sweet girl, is to bring in Mulan in every shape and form possible without doing a table set up which is something that I would normally do at home.  So, for starters, we went with: 

Mulan cupcake toppers...

Printed pictures of Mulan in frames.  (You'd never know it but kids go absolutely crazy by just seeing random pictures of their favorite character in frames at their birthday parties.  Not to worry, I won't charge you for that tip. ;-)

The girls also made little Mulan-themed fans, if you will.  (Really just simple 10-inch fans made from 12x12 scrapbooking paper that they got to embellish beforehand).

I had them put these nifty labels on them, too. 

 In addition to her cake pops, she wanted chocolate cupcakes, frosting with purple icing to match everything else Mulan.  Don't mind the Hello Kitty paper there.  It had to work, I mean, it just had to work.  (Hey, I needed something pink and was short on time, lol!)

All in all, I would say that the girls, especially the birthday girl, had one incredible time.  I hope that I have inspired you with some really simple ideas to love on your little one(s) for his/her next birthday!

xo- Bakie 

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

It's 9 am and this morning I get to make another one of my cupcakes..what a pleasure & what a joy! Unfortunately, my camera is reading, "Batteries Exhausted" and I don't have any other AA batteries so this (post with no pictures) will just have to do.  Hopefully by the time, I've got my cupcakes complete I will

at least have photos of the finished product!  Well so far, I've already got my raspberry coulis ready.  I just took:

one cup fresh raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tbsp of lemon juice

And brought them to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Based on a recipe that I found here.

I then added 1 tablespoon of that coulis to my chocolate ganache which is also done & the rest of the coulis went to the fridge.  For that amount of berries, it couldn't have made more then 1/2 cup of liquid after I drained the seeds out through the sieve.

The chocolate ganache was:

2 egg yolks

1 1/4 cup evaporated milk

10 oz. 60% cacao reserve chocolate

But I will get to how I made that later.   Now we're on the making the cupcakes.  I want to get them done so that I have time to work on my buttercream, chocolate swiss buttercream that is ;-)  Hope hat you're enjoying the journey! :-)


(Btw-my professional dark chocolate brown cupcake liners have come in, but since these cupcakes are for a men's meeting, I am going to use some of my store-bought powder blue liners first).

Here's the recipe that I am using for the cake part of this cupcake.

First, I started out with 4 heaping tablespoons of regular classic roast Harris Teeter-brand ground coffee.  Then I added that (a coffee filter obviously,) and 2 and 1/4 cups water to the coffee maker.  Now I am going to start on melting my chocolate.

Okay, I've just blended together all of my dry ingredients-the cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  And now I am going to get my paddle attachment and stand mixer ready to do my eggs and such...the wet ingredients.

(1 hour and 22 minutes later...)

We're ready to go.   I've got my eggs in my mixer & I am getting ready to add the rest of my wet ingredients.