Over the weekend, we had some serious business to attend to. I was most excited to learn some new cupcake decorating techniques! But first up was the redo of the apple cinnamon scones, this time adding a bit of sugar which was previously mistaken. [note - we are not the only ones to forget adding sugar - one of my friends (who will remain anonymous) is an amazing baker/cook and she phoned me this morning to tell me she forgot to add any sugar to her chocolate cake recipe - oops!!]. You see, even the best make mistakes; the key is to salvage the damage and move on!

My mom had brought over the dry ingredients so these were whipped up in no time. The recipe was adapted from Martha Stewarts recipe http://www.marthastewart.com/874312/apple-and-oat-scones-cinnamon-and-nutmeg but the sugar was reduced (3 tablespoons were used) and the butter was reduced (only 1/2 cup was used) but we used salted butter so reduced the salt to 1/4 teaspoon. In addition, Nutragrain flour was used instead of white flour to up the nutrition, and the amount of buttermilk was increased to 3/4 cup. Also, some blueberries were thrown in to add some antioxidants to the mix!

20 minutes later, and they were done! I didn’t try them but the sous chef was around to do some taste-testing, and gave his seal of approval!

And now on to the fun part… it was my sister’s birthday on Saturday so I wanted to make some cupcakes to take to her party and learn some decorating techniques from the master cupcake maker, my mom. I baked up a simple white cake recipe and got to use my awesome new mixer the sous chef gave me for my birthday!

I added some coloured sprinkles for a little festivity and made mini cupcakes.

While they cooled, the buttercream icing was made (note – the nutritional gatekeeper does not approve of mass consumption of these, but also thinks life is too short not to indulge every so often… that, and I didn’t want to be kicked out of the party for bringing sugar-free whole-wheat muffins with vegan icing). A really easy recipe for buttercream involves using 1/2 cup salted butter, 1/2 cup unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and then gradually adding in 4 cups of icing sugar and 4 tablespoons of whole milk.

I added some food colouring to make a nice lavender colour, and then set to work learning how to effectively use piping bags and tips. Some cupcakes were definitely better than others as I started to get the hang of it! One of the keys is to keep the icing cold, alternating between two bags so one can be kept in the fridge to firm up.

Next up was making little blue flowers on the top. We added blue colouring to the leftover icing, changed tips, and then piped right on top of the lavender icing. Finally, tiny candy pieces made the center of the flower.

And here’s the final product! I’m happy to say they wowed people at the party, and must have tasted great too, because they were all gobbled up in no time!

… we had a bit extra icing… so had some fun:

That’s it for now… coming tomorrow: an avocado pasta recipe that is actually nutritional gatekeeper approved!