Cupcakes!

Rachael and her friend Sofie have a party planning business.  They bake cupcakes, plan parties and basically make sure you have as little work as possible to do for your child's party.  They have put on several parties now and have been quite successful!  I am very hands off on their business.  I do proofread communication, help them plan and I do advertise their services to my friends.. but that's it. So if you every want some energetic girlies to plan your party, Rachael and Sofie are the ones!  Here's their website: smilesandcupcakes.com

Anyway.. this is only partially about their business.  Rachael has been practicing her cupcake skills and we've been baking so many cupcakes this summer that I am actually getting a little tired of cupcakes. And we have started having to give out extras to neighbors because we just can't eat them all!

These are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting.  They were omgomgomg so good.  nomnomnom

We made rainbow cupcakes together for her birthday.  This is the batter for the rainbow cupcakes.

We layer the batter into the cupcake tins.  I skipped liners so we could see the layers.  One, they didn't rise very well (I haven't researched why yet) and two, the colors were too pale for me.  But still, they look pretty good for a first time!

Then.. see this dog?  He doesn't look guilty does he?  No.  Because he's not feeling guilty.  He's feeling satisfied and full of cupcakes.  Because he ate them when I walked Cleo.  

So I made another batch on the fly.  I upped the amount of food color in each layer and they turned out much brighter!  They also rose a bit more evenly, though they were still a dense cupcake.  Very moist and vanilla-y, though!  Yum!

I piped these, though Rachael can pipe frosting, too.  I'm just faster and we were in a rush to leave for the polo match.  

Vanilla rainbow cupcakes with a marshmallow fluff buttercream.  omg, the buttercream was to die for.  

Rachael is baking cupcakes for a parenting meeting this week.  We're hoping the meeting will help promote the girls' business!