Tag Archives: Cupcake Wars

Let Them Eat Little Cakes

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I’m still putting together my post about my food adventures during Record Store Day.  As a teaser, I thought I’d do a post about a place I went to a few weekends ago.  My son and I helped celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday up in Vista, which is north of where I live in San Diego.  We first had lunch at Famous Dave’s BBQ, then we decided to have dessert at a place called Little Cakes Cupcake Kitchen.  If the name sounds familiar to you, it’s because they appeared on the “Funny or Die” episode of Cupcake Wars, and won!

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It’s a quaint little bakery, and I’m not sure what they made of our large group because we basically took over the store.  I didn’t really linger at the specialty cupcakes because I heard that there were cupcakes made with bacon, so I made a beeline for those immediately.  I decided on three cupcakes:  the Vanilla Milkshake, Pancakes and Bacon, and Strawberry Champagne.  The Pancakes and Bacon was my runaway favorite because it had bacon bits all the way through the cupcake.  The maple flavor makes it taste more like syrup rather than pancakes, but that bacon just makes up for everything.  My second favorite was the Strawberry Champagne because it was like a very light version of a red velvet cake.  The Vanilla Milkshake cupcake was also good, but looking back at the pictures, I want to go back and try the specialty ones because these all have specialty fillngs, toppings and ingredients.  The Pearl is actually one that was on the episode of Cupcake Wars, and the Chocolate Cannoli looks and sounds absolutely delicious.

Although Vista is quite a way north, I know that I’ll have to make another trip back because they have a variety of seasonal and specialty cupcakes available (full flavor menu here).  Plus, their Facebook page lists the flavors that are on their daily menu.  What a fantastic find we stumbled upon.  This was my first specialty cupcake shop, and believe me, it won’t be my last!

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Foodie Fever: An Adventure Time Mini-Cupcake Party!

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If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some prototypes of my attempt to create a themed mini-cupcake display for my niece’s Adventure Time birthday party (Mei-Lin is pictured above, dressed as Fionna the Human, which is Finn’s gender swapped version).  After watching several episodes of Cupcake Wars and many trial mini-cupcakes later, I figured out how I wanted to set up the table and which characters I would feature.  To make the process go by more quickly, I did use all Pillsbury products: boxed cake flavors in strawberry, yellow and chocolate with a vanilla cream frosting.  I also used a mini-cupcake maker that was given to me by my mother-in-law.  I liked using it because each batch only took 8 minutes to bake.  The cupcakes cooled very quickly, and I was able to make 150 in a few hours.  The next day, I executed my final designs and display, just a few hours before the party.  I was very happy with the finished product, and received many compliments at Mei-Lin’s party.  Next project: cupcakes from scratch!

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These were the prototypes of the final product.  Originally, I only chose four different cupcakes, but Mei-Lin added one more later.

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Mei-Lin and Dominic, posing for pictures between batches of cupcakes.

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The center display featuring store-bought figurines of Adventure Time characters: Finn the Human, Jake the Dog, The Ice King and LSP (Lumpy Space Princess).

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There were five different characters represented in mini-cupcake form.  These represent Finn (blue sprinkles) and Jake (yellow sprinkles).

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Mei-Lin asked that these rainbow sprinkles be included to represent Lady Rainicorn.

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Princess Bubblegum

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Peppermint Butlers

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The whole display, which included a map of the Land of Ooo, where all of the characters live.  I adore the Adventure Time cartoon series and found all the information about the characters and the series itself on The Adventure Time Wiki.

(Photos 4 to 10 by Rholnna Jiao)