Vanilla Cupcakes and Gluten-free Red Velvet

Since Ella and I are on a cupcake kick, we decided to try a few more recipes. We made vanilla cupcakes for most of the family, and then decide to tackle a gluten-free red velvet cupcake for my dad (he has Celiac’s Disease). We topped both with a Nutella chocolate buttercream.

The vanilla cupcake was delicious; moist, fluffy and perfect.
The gluten-free red velvet cupcake was surprisingly good. Like my dad always says, you can’t expect it to taste exactly like it’s gluten filled counterpart. And if you expect it to taste the same, you will be disappointed. The texture was pretty amazing (something that can be difficult with gluten-free baking) and the cupcake was moist. It had a bit of a different flavor (less sweet), so Ella and I decided to fill it with Nutella! Yum! Evan actually preferred this cupcake and kept asking for another one of grandpa’s red cupcakes.

My mom tells me that the Nutella chocolate buttercream was delicious, I’m not a fan of buttercream. Never have been, never will be. It’s just too sweet for me. I prefer a whipped cream frosting or a meringue frosting.

Ultimate vanilla cupcakes: Cupcake Project (I did not have a vanilla bean)
Gluten-free red velvet cupcake: Cupcake Project (I didn’t have beet powder, so I used red food coloring)
Nutella buttercream frosting: My Baking Addiction

New Kitties

Last month we had to say good-bye to our sweet Muffin, aka Little. We adopted her in 2001, just after I suffered my first miscarriage. She was a good girl, but was having problems in the pooping department that could not be remedied. We will miss her.

A few days after she passed, a friend of mine told me that her cat had just given birth to kittens and she wondered if we might be interested. YES! We wanted to adopt two, sibling kitties because Ella didn’t like the idea of separating them. Our new kitties came home with us a few days ago and they are the cutest things EVER. We’re not sure if they are boys or girls, so we haven’t named them yet.


Hi kitty kitty!
Help me.
It has proven very difficult to get photos of them as this is typically what they are doing.
They love to play, play, PLAY, wrestle, and then take a nap.
It is so fun to watch them play, and the kids just love having them around. Lily isn’t convinced that this was the right move for our family, but I’m hopeful that she will come around.

Mudslide Cupcakes

There are no words to describe the deliciousness of these cupcakes. If those words exist, I can’t find them. They are that good. Baileys and Kahlua together are an outstanding combination (in my opinion, of course).

Ella and I watch A LOT of baking shows, but most recently we became hooked on Cupcake Wars. As such, we decided we needed to conduct some experiments. This cupcake was our first and it was largely a success. I say largely because I did bake them for probably 2-3 minutes too long. If I would have pulled them sooner, they would be perfect. Click here to view the recipe from one of my favorite cupcake websites. We also decided to fill the cupcakes with chocolate ganache, because, why not?

Easter Cookies

I was thrilled when we were invited to an Easter egg hunt/party this past weekend. Thrilled for a few reasons:
1. We had the weekend open, which rarely happens.
2. I knew the kids would love it.
3. And it was a fantastic excuse to make cookies!!

I love having a reason to play with royal icing. I sometimes can’t justify baking and decorating cookies without an event. There’s just so many other things that I “should” be doing, even though I love to bake.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with the resulting cookies.


And trust me, these cookies were easy to make. I don’t really tackle designs that are beyond my ability.
The best part? I overheard people talking about the “beautiful sugar cookies”. A few people I had never met even approached me to tell me how cute they thought the cookies were. This made my day!! Let’s spread joy and happiness through cookies!

Bud was present while I was photographing the cookies, so I thought I should take a photo of him since it has been a while. Of course this is the face he gave me. <sigh>
Cookie recipe: Glorious Treats
Royal icing recipe: Sweetopia
Chick inspiration: Glorious Treats
I used an Americolor food writer for the eyes.

Hair Accessories

Ella and I love to wear flowers, headbands, anything sparkly in our hair. And since we’re on our ‘we-think-we-are-crafty-due-to-Pinterest’ kick, we thought we’d make a few ourselves.

Found some fun ribbon at Joanne Fabrics a few weeks ago and added a small piece of elastic to join it together in the back.


She is always willing to model for me.
So pretty!
For this one I sewed a plain brown piece of ribbon onto the end of the fancy ribbon so that you can tie it behind your head and leave the access to hang. I recognize that my posts have been very Ella-centric lately, but Bud is Bud and right now his favorite thing to do is watch cartoons on the iPad. Makes for boring photos, ha.