Fire Island Cupcakes

This summer we were lucky enough to spend two lazy weeks in Fair Harbor, Fire Island, off the coast of Long Island. The best thing about it is that there's nothing to do, and the worst thing about it is there's nothing to do - except play at the beach, swim in the bay, eat ice cream at least twice a day, and have a lemonade stand!

I knew in advance that our kids wanted to do the stand and I was volunteered to make cupcakes. Our rental house had little or no supplies so I bought everything with me - measured out the dry ingredients in ziplock bags, packed muffin tins, even brought a little baggie of vanilla bean paste (the best stuff ever, as far as I'm concerned).

They turned out great, even with using a basic handheld mixer, instead of my monster KitchenAid. The kids made $40 bucks which included lots of tips, and my friend Keri and I got to have a three course meal of leftover buttercream!

Cupcakes and lemonade in action

Willie's Cakes

Today, meaning yesterday, I had every intention of posting, but now it's 12:31am and I missed posting something on the 1 year anniversary of this blog. But seeing as I'm still awake and it's still Sept. 11 somewhere, I think it counts.

I've been making cakes for everyone in Willie's family for a while (see Lindsay's cake, Lindsay's dad's cake, there was also a Lindsay's grandma's cake, but I was lazy and didn't take a photo). It was about time that Willie had a birthday and wanted a cake. But she ended up with two! How's that for a birthday treat?

She called me to order a mint chocolate cake - chocolate cake with chocolate mint buttercream. Said to decorate it however I wanted. She usually is the cake pickerupper (?) in the family, but said since it was her birthday, she'd get someone else to do it.

Two days later her husband called and ordered another surprise cake, red velvet, for a dinner they were having with friends the same night (choc. cake was for the family celebration at home).

Decided to do similar colors for both cakes and wanted to play around a little with simple gumpaste flowers. The handwriting on the chocolate cake admittedly isn't my best work (actually looks like it was written by a 99 yr old with the shakes) but I love how all the colors work together.

red velvet

chocolate mint

Eliza's ladybug cupcakes

Eliza turned 5 last week and wanted ladybug (lady bug?) cupcakes. The whole time I made them this song was running through my head.

Started with chocolate cupcakes. NOTE TO SELF: Before attempting to make really red buttercream at 9:30pm at night, remember to check if you have enough food coloring so ladybugs are really RED, not pink! It managed to turn out ok, the color definitely intensified overnight, but I still forget how much red food coloring it takes to make buttercream red instead of dark pink!

Hard at work. Made the black by mixing both cocoa and melted chocolate into the buttercream, and then adding black food coloring.

Almost finished, but I thought something was missing.

They needed these - orange antennae (antennas?). Orange because I love orange. Made with melted white chocolate discs (that are absolutely gross, I think, but it doesn't need to be tempered, which makes life so much easier!)

Finished!

As the birthday girl, Eliza got a bigger cupcake, the mommy of the group.

Keri's mini cupcakes

My lovely wonderful brilliant friend Keri had a rad party last weekend and she asked me to bring some mini cupcakes. I made four different buttercreams: vanilla bean, chocolate, green tea and spice with matching cake flavors. I've had a teeny can of matcha powder for a long time and was happy to have a chance to use it. I think the buttercream color is awesome.

Doug took the pictures.

Brimfield!

For the "and then some" part of this blog:
I've been going to Brimfield, Mass at least once a year with Carol, my fantastic mother-in-law, for the last six or seven years. Three times a year Brimfield holds one of the largest open air flea/antiques markets in the country.

We went last Friday and it was a great day. We don't really go with anything particular in mind, but always end up with some interesting treasures at the end of the day. The things at Brimfield run the gamut from $10,000 credenzas to tents filled with stuff you couldn't pay me to take away!

My favorite tents are the ones where I can't afford anything - there are at least two or three places with the most fantastic collections of glassware from the 40s and 50s, stuff I'm obsessed with but have no more room for and to be honest, how many sets of primary colored Pyrex bowls can one girl have or use? I just like to look at everything all together.

There's always a lot of haggling there, but this year the buys seemed better than most. I left with an old glass creamer and sugar set, more vintage dish towels (trying to break my addiction to paper towels), an enamelware mixing bowl, another old apron (when/if I start a bakery, I'll have the best-dressed staff in town), and a cool piece of backyard folk art - a painted flower made out of horseshoes (should have taken a photo, because it's much cooler than it sounds!).

Posting some other photos to get a feel of the place. Get there if you can, and keep your fingers crossed for nice weather!

First purchase - $5!

Even at 20% off, it's still too expensive

Bodies in a trunk

Love these

My new dishtowels

More glass

Brimfield tents