Valentine Cupcakes & Cookie Banner

Sweet & crafty treat for you & your family to celebrate Valentine's Day!

What you need~

3 or more Cupcakes
Conversation Candy Hearts for your cake plate
Crushed Candy Hearts to top the cupcakes ( place them in a bag and use the bag of a spoon to crush)
2 straws ~ in the pictures these are paper straws from Fort and Field
Baker's twine ~ I order mine from The Twinery 
Skewer o make holes in the cookies before baking
3 heart sugar cookies

First bake your favorite cupcakes, let them cool & top with your favorite icing flavor.  I used chocolate to pair with my cinnamon buttercream ( the recipe for the buttercream is below).  Set them aside.

For the cookie banner~
You can do 1 of 2 things, make your favorite cutout cookie recipe or buy the ready to bake sugar cookies from your store.  Roll out the dough, and cut-out 3 small hearts.  Place them on the cookie sheet that you have lines with parchment paper.  Take the skewer or something similar to make small holes to lace the twine in the cookie cutouts like shown in the picture.

 When finished making the holes before baking the cookies, put the sheet & the cookies into the freezer for 5 minutes.  This will help your cookies hold there shape while baking.

When your cookies are baked and cooled you are ready to assemble the banner.  Line your cookies up and on both ends tie a piece of twine so you can tie the cookie banner to the straws.  Next take another piece of twine and lace the other cookies, start in the back so you will end in the back like shown in the picture.

After assembling the cookies tie each end securely to the straws.

Top your cupcakes with the crushed candy heart topping that you have prepared and line them on the plate.  Insert the straws into the cupcakes, you may have to move around just a bit to make it go across evenly. Place the candy hearts around on the plate.

Peace, Love & Cupcakes & Cookie Banners~

Enjoy!

Stacy ~ Scrumptious Swirls  Join & follow along for many recipes & craft ideas!

Cinnamon Buttercream Recipe~

1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (more if you would like)

2 sticks of unsalted butter

1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening ( if you want to sub the shortening add ¼ stick of butter)

Cream butter and shortening or just the butter very well

Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract & a pinch of salt (I use Kosher)

Mix together

Adding the Sugar:

Total of 4 cups or 1 pound

Some recipes call for you to sift the sugar, I don’t find that necessary. What I do is~ pour the sugar into a mixing bowl 1^st to loosen it up. 

Add the sugar to the butter 1 cup at a time on Medium Speed

After you are done it should be crumbly a bit and big chucks of sugar and butter~

Next the cream~

Add 2-3 tablespoons to start.  Again this is where buttercream becomes personal to me with the texture of it.  Mix again on medium until you get the desire of flavor and texture you want.  Only add 1 tablespoon additional at time to reach it. 

{TIP: if you add to much cream, just add more powder sugar.  But again a little at a time}

Valentine's Salty & Sweet Crunch DIY Treat Bags

Valentine's Day will soon be here!  I always enjoy putting together sweet treats for my girls to take to their classmates!  Here is a sweet treat bag idea for you!

First you need to download the FREE adorable favor tags that my friend Rebecca from The Fresh Chick Studio designed for all of us!  

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47439452/Just-Because-I-love-you-Valentine-s-Cards

Get your favorite caramel popcorn & a supply of RED M&M's.  My grocery store has a whole bar of many different colored M&M's,you can also buy containers of them at the party store or even Walmart has them.

Get your treat bags, your favorite baker's twine, mine is from my friends at The Twinery or ribbon scissors, ruler and your Martha Stewart Crafts scorer~

Fill your bags with your desired amount of caramel corn and then add your M&M's.  Cut out your adorable tags, use your heart punch in the corner so you can attach it to the treat bag with your twine.  Shake up the bag a bit to mix the two together.

There you go sweet & salty DIY treat bags!  Make it extra special and maybe your little one's can help take part in making their treats for their friends!  

Peace, Love & Valentine's Sweet Crunch~


Stacy

The Twinery Giveaway Winner!

{Winner} Announcement

for 

The Twinery Giveaway

that was apart of our 1st Reality Star interview with Corina Elgart

from the Cake Boss TLC show Next Great Baker!
click here if you missed Corina's interview on the blog~ 

Post #23 Kirsten you are our winner!
( Kirsten said...

Loving up all three pages and LOVING up Scrumptious Swirls blog!!! I would use The Twinery for many craft like, knitting, hand sewing... and of course baking packaging!)

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:23

Thank you everyone especially Corina & Nicole from The Twinery for such a generous giveaway of The Twine Lovers Pack!  

Don't forget that Corina shared her famous Pumpkin recipe here that saved her from being eliminated from getting into the final round!!

Kirsten please email stacyk17@comcast.net me so I can send your information to The Twinery!

Peace, Love & The Twinery & Team Corina~ 


Stacy

Details & Photos from the Martha Stewart's Dreamers into Doers Event

Hi everyone!  I wanted to share the photo's that I have from the Martha Stewart Dreamers into Doers event in NYC this week that I was fortunate enough to attend!

First I do need to take a moment and thank my husband Jude, my Mom & my friend Dawn for helping me with my 3 girls while I was away.  Without them my attendance would not have been possible!  A huge hug, kiss & a big THANK YOU!!!
Here we go~  The Dreamers into Doers is a fantastic on-line community with thousands of Doers who have a dream and follow their passion to do what they love and make a difference in their lives and others!  The community is made up of thousands and 80 of us were able to attend the event provided & coordinated by the fabulous Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia staff.  Which by the way was nothing short of anything you would expect from something Martha Stewart herself would put together!

Here are some of the photos & deets in no particular order~

The MSLO front office door

Lunch table from left to right bottom row, myself Courtney & Phronsie Dial of Pizzazzerie,  Charyn of Two Sugar Babies,  Tanya of Save The Date for Cupcakes
Standing Jasmine of Couture Cakery, Christa of Pizzazzerie, Jill of Modern Cupcake, Caryl of ROAR events

Group photo shot with Martha Stewart

The fabulous & creative Maureen & Adria of AndersRuff Custom Design 

The Sweet & inspirational Kim of The TomKat Studio

Kim & Courtney chatting with Martha

Kim from The Celebration Shoppe & Courtney of Pizzazzerie

The TomKat Studio Team Toni, Andrea, Kim  & Courtney

The amazing, funny & energetic Rebecca from Fresh Chick Designs a new friend I hope to have forever! 

The most beautiful and passionate Irish woman I have ever met~ Rachel of Rachel Gaffney's Real Ireland , one of the original DID's

These are a few of my photos! I am missing photo's some new friends like Nancy of A to Zebra Celebrations & Andrea of Dolce Drive !  I will have them all posted later with my details & video from our fun adventure to the Martha Stewart Show!

Have a fantastic Thursday everyone!!

Peace, Love & #DIDinNYC~


Stacy

Reality TV Star Interview & Fantastic Giveaway!

Reality TV Star Interview ~ 

Corina Elgart from TLC Next Great Baker

Fantastic Giveaway ~ The Twinery

I am so excited to share this post with you today!  Being this blog mostly about scrumptious baking, I think it is very appropriate to bring you my first one-on-one interview with Reality TV Star & Baker/Pastry Chef Corina Elgart owner of Cakes by Taste  from the TLC show Next Great Baker with the one and only Buddy Valestro The Cake Boss ! Along with a very gracious giveaway from The Twinery!

 The Twine Lover's Pack

The bakers twine from The Twinery is so fun & & colorful and can be used in so many ways, maybe you will win & you can use it to share what you bake with the scrumptious recipe that Corina shares with us here today!  This giveaway is for Twiner’s Love Pack!  You will receive 8 full spools in 8 different fun and bright colors worth $98 (more details at the end of the post)

image courtesy of The Purple Pug

If you have been watching the The Next Great Baker you know that Corina isn’t shy & is very passionate!  I have my favorites of the show one being Corina, I give her all the credit in the world for following a dream by doing this show and having the strength to leave her family to do what a girl needs to do……Bake with the boss the Cake Boss!

Let read what she has to say….

Filming has been over for some time what has been your main focus in the last few months?

Keeping my head above water, lol.  It’s been such a whirlwind.  As soon as I returned from filming I had cake orders to fill that were booked prior to me leaving…that was my priority, after all, I had just opened a month prior to filming.  I needed to focus on building my business.  Fortunately we were not able to speak to much about  the show when we returned so it made it easy for me to keep the priority on the business.

What was your biggest challenge personally in the weeks of taping? 

The biggest challenge was being away from my husband and children.   Keith (my husband) is such a support system and he’s an incredible sounding board.  I missed hearing his voice-he is usually the voice of reason for me.  My children are my little meatballs…I missed their voices and faces terribly.

What did you "take away" from the whole over-all experience of The Next Great Baker? 

What DIDN’T I take away from this….I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  I took away amazing friendships and colleagues; I took away priceless tricks of the trade, and most of all I took away the best experience I could have asked for.

Do you have any regrets from the show after watching it? 

It’s funny, initially I would say yes, my fight with joe, etc…but in reality, if I drive myself crazy with regret and shoulda-woulda-coulda’s I will lose sight of the experience I HAD.  I can’t change anything that happened, I cannot change the way the show was edited.  All I can do is move forward, continue to have people get to know me and what I do and enjoy my life and job.

How has Next Great Baker helped you personally or from a business standpoint? 

I helped me learn humility and acceptance.  After seeing what people say and post and seeing yourself on national television you need to pull back a little and take it all in, the good and the bad and just learn to accept it for what it is.  From a business standpoint I was able to use the platform to be featured in newspapers, Newsday, The New York Times (Sunday edition) and many local papers.  This was terrific because it brought attention to my shop.  Also, being on television I receive many calls for people who are booking cakes over the phone because of the show.  It’s truly been a blessing.

Would you do a reality TV show again? 

I’m sure I would!   However,  It would depend of course…would Joe be there?!   I’m KIDDING….had to throw that in there!

What is your favorite sweet that you create.....would you share the recipe with us? 

I have many favorites…it’s hard to choose….my pumpkin recipe is up there. If I could sell this all year round I would..it’s scrumptious and also makes great cupcakes with a cinnamon buttercream.

Corina's Pumpkin Cake Recipe

Preheat to 375

15 oz canned pure pumpkin

1C  oil

4 eggs

2t Baking soda

1 ½ salt

3 ½ c Flour

3c sugar

1t of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg

½ t mace

2/3 cold water

Add ingredients to mixer in order…bake @ 375 for 35 minutes then lower temp to 350 for 15 additional minutes

I love a good pumpkin recipe for sure....it is one of my favorite things to bake in the fall especially to give as gifts to people!  Thank you so much Corina for sharing more about you and your recipe!!  We are all pulling for you, especially Nicole from The Twinery!  She was so excited when I asked her to be apart of this because Corina is her fav to win the show!  Would you like to win the giveaway?!

Here is what you need to do~

1) Like our fan pages on Facebook ! Leave a comment on each of  their pages that you are visiting from Scrumptious Swirls!  Leave a comment on my page that you visited and liked our pages!

Facebook ~ Corina Elgart Fan Page

Facebook~ Scrumptious Swirls

Facebook~ The Twinery

2) Stop by The Twinery blog, come back let us know here on this post how you will use all of your new twine! 

Winner will be chosen on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 9pm EST. Any entries received after this time will not be considered. Open to US residents only. Winner will be chosen using random.org.

Good luck!  Good luck Corina in the upcoming weeks of Next Great Baker!!  

Hey you Cupcake! Convo Hearts & Cinnamon Buttercream Recipe

Starting to get the warm & cozy feeling of Valentine's around here so I wanted to start to share recipes & ideas to inspire & help you!

One of my favorite things to do is have conversation with the old time Valentine Candy favorites the Convo Hearts.  Here is a little convo & a cinnamon buttercream recipe to make with your favorite chocolate cupcake!

I.....

To Make this recipe!   

1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (more if you would like)

2 sticks of unsalted butter

1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening ( if you want to sub the shortening add ¼ stick of butter)

Cream butter and shortening or just the butter very well

Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract & a pinch of salt (I use Kosher)

Mix together

Adding the Sugar:

Total of 4 cups or 1 pound

Some recipes call for you to sift the sugar, I don’t find that necessary. What I do is~ pour the sugar into a mixing bowl 1^st to loosen it up. 

Add the sugar to the butter 1 cup at a time on Medium Speed

After you are done it should be crumbly a bit and big chucks of sugar and butter~

Next the cream~

Add 2-3 tablespoons to start.  Again this is where buttercream becomes personal to me with the texture of it.  Mix again on medium until you get the desire of flavor and texture you want.  Only add 1 tablespoon additional at time to reach it. 

{TIP: if you add to much cream, just add more powder sugar.  But again a little at a time}

I used Penzey's Spices Ceylon Cinnamon because it is less strong, its hint of citrusy flavor and lack of any bite.  I thought it would work best with a buttercream.  But for sure any cinnamon would work nicely.  

Peace, Love & Convo Candy Hearts, 

Stacy