Birthday Picnic

Cupcake decorated by myself!

A few weeks back (May 16th) I had a birthday picnic with a few friends. Rachel, Kaitlin Rae, Emalie, Brian, Amanda and I joined together and ate, drank and were merry.

On the menu, there were frozen berry skewers (blueberries, strawberries, grapes, blackberries), frozen chocolate dipped bananas, chicken salad croissants, cucumber sandwiches, black and green teas as well as cherry lemonade. Everything was delicious and my lovely friends helped me make most of it! (Less work for me... yay!)

The highlight of the day (one of them) was cupcake decorating. I made cupcakes the previous night and everyone decorated one the day of. It was a lot of fun, and we had decorators icing as well as over 15 types of sprinkles to use!

After eating and decorating, we sat in the gazebo and played apples to apples for nearly an hour in the hot, summer sun. It was a lot of fun and I wish I could have days like this more often!

The Perfect Cupcake (and other delicious baked goods)

These "Lucky Charms Cupcakes" are courtesy of Betty Crocker's flickr page.

I've noticed recently that I'm nearly obsessed with baking, but the largest part of my heart is reserved for cupcakes. I've tried a few different recipes, including some from famous bakeries from Europe and the US. I have countless cookbooks (no such thing as too many) and have done a number of online searches. The point of all of this yammering is that I still haven't found the perfect cupcake recipe, and I'm dying to know what it is.

Someone may claim that there's no such thing as "perfect", but when it comes to food we should ALL know that's a lie! The perfect cupcake is firm but still soft, and moist but not wet on the inside. The recipes I've tried have either been too sweet, not sweet enough, too dry or not dry enough.

If you have a recipe you think is "perfect", feel free to post the recipe, a link to it or email it to me! It doesn't have to be for cupcakes, either. It can be for breads, pies, meats, side dishes or anything else cookable.

Courtesy of ilovemuffins's flickr page.