Eleanor's Snowman Cupcakes

Eleanor with her latest kitchen creation.

Eleanor used chocolate chips placed upside down for the eyes and orange and brown sprinkles for the noses and mouths.

I feel so lucky that my parents gave me free rein of the kitchen as I was growing up. They were so easy going about letting me experiment and have fun as long as I cleaned up my messes and looking back, I know that's why I love cooking and baking today. The kitchen is a comfortable place for me and it's where I get to be creative.

Trying to mimic what my parent's did for me, I try to remember to step aside when my daughters feel the urge to exert some independence in the kitchen. And when I do, I'm always amazed at what they create like these cute Snowman Cupcakes created by my daughter Eleanor this week.

She made vanilla cupcakes and buttercream from scratch and then used chocolate chips and orange and brown sprinkles to make a snowman face on the top of each. "The hardest part was sorting out the orange and brown from the jar of rainbow sprinkles," she said.

Here's how Eleanor made them:

Vanilla Cupcakes
(makes 20)
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs plus 2 egg yolks, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pans with cupcake papers.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy, about 6 minutes.

Beat in the eggs plus egg yolks, one at a time, until combined. Beat in vanilla.

In another large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. With mixer on low, add a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating to combine. Beat in 3/4 cup buttermilk, another third of the flour mixture, another 3/4 cup buttermilk, and remaining flour mixture until just combined. Scrape down the bowl as needed.

Fill the cupcake papers 2/3 full.  Bake for 18 to 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.


Vanilla Buttercream
3 large egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
 2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of fine sea salt


Place the whites in a clean mixing bowl. Whisk in sugar and cream of tartar.

Place bowl over a double boiler on medium heat, stir frequently until the mixture is very hot (120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit).

Move to mixer and whip whites on high for 2 to 3 minutes; turn down to medium low until cool (use the bowl as your guide).

In a separate bowl with a wooden spoon, stir butter to soften.

With mixer on medium/high speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time, adding the next tablespoon just as the previous one is blended in. Once all the butter incorporated, add in vanilla and salt and whip on high speed until fluffy.

To Assemble:
Chocolate Chips
Orange and Brown Sprinkles

Using a table knife, add an even layer of buttercream to the top of each cupcake.
Place two upside down chocolate chips on each cupcake for eyes. Then add one orange sprinkle for the nose and five brown sprinkles for the mouth.  

Jack's Cake

I baked the cake for Jack's 90th birthday celebration yesterday and today I decorated it. Jack served in WWII as a navigator on a B-29 so his wife Mary asked me to decorate a cake with his plane "Goin' Jessie."

I knew I wanted to decorate the cake completely with vanilla buttercream since nothing beats it for taste. Using another medium like fondant, sugar paste or modeling chocolate would have been easier but in my opinion not so tasty and a 90th birthday celebration deserves a great tasting cake.

Mary loaned me a book with a photo of "Goin' Jessie," and I found lots of helpful information on the Internet as well.

When it came time to draw the plane design for the cake, I admit I cheated a bit by recruiting the help of my husband Joe who is great at drawing. So with my husband's help, this is how I decorated Jack's cake.

I researched Jack's plane. In the photo, he's in the top row, second from right.

My artistic husband helped me by drawing this plane made to fit on my 12 x 18 - inch sheet cake.

I baked three recipes of "The Greatest and Easiest Chocolate Cake" and spread dark chocolate ganache between the layers.

I iced the cake with two batches of vanilla buttercream and made an additional batch for decoration. My sweet niece Maya was a wonderful support. Look how big that cake is!

I got all my icing colors mixed and ready to go. My kind sister loaned me her kitchen for the big baking project since mine is still undergoing a remodel.

I cut out the B-29 my husband drew.

I set the cutout on top of the cake and used a skewer to draw around it.

Here's what the outline looked like.

Then, I just followed the lines.

And, I filled in the lines. I piped icing on the inside and used an offset spatula to spread it to the edges.

Then, I started adding details.

And, more details.

Finally, I added "Happy Birthday Jack" and used my favorite trick of using a skewer to draw the letters onto the cake before adding the icing. If you make a mistake, just smooth out the icing and start again until you get it right. I hope Jack likes it.

Cake, Cake And More Cake

Icing the three layer cake for the base of the tiered wedding cake.

Cakes ready to be iced. Every layer was soaked with a Grand Marnier simple syrup. In between the layers is fresh strawberry puree and strawberry buttercream.

Yesterday was cake day. I made and baked 15 cakes from scratch for the wedding cake I'm making for my friend Nathan's wedding reception tomorrow.

The first cake came out of the oven at 7 a.m. and the last at 10 p.m. and along the way I learned I need more cake pans.

I have only one pan for the largest sized cake and I needed to make nine of them since the base of the tiered cake is three layers and I'm making three additional two layer cakes to help feed the large crowd that is expected. Each cake took 45 minutes to bake and 15 minutes to cool in the pan before I could get another in the oven.

Half of the cakes I made yesterday.

I also made eight batches of buttercream. Luckily I have an easy vanilla cream buttercream recipe that is great when you need to make a lot of batches because you can make the base for the buttercream in advance.


Here's the recipe:

Vanilla Cream Buttercream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature


In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the milk and half of the sugar until simmering.
In the meantime, in a small bowl combine the cream, the other half of the sugar and cornstarch. Mix well with a whisk.

When the milk is simmering,  pour about half of it into the cream mixture and whisk well. Add it back to the milk in the saucepan and heat, stirring constantly until the mixture becomes very thick.

Remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla. Put the mixture into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the mixture cool completely.

This buttercream base can be made in advance. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it cool completely before adding the butter.

When the buttercream base is cool, transfer it to a mixer and whip until smooth, add the butter a tablespoon at a time and whip until light and fluffy.