new Choc Cherry cupcakes & new boxes!

I have been on a mission for a while now to find the perfect box to deliver my cupcake orders in. When I was first starting out I would deliver them in my own plastic containers, but now its getting harder to keep track of them and make sure they come back to me.

So I made a trip to Printbox to go on a cupcake box mission. The guys there were so awesome and helpful and I was stoked to come away with 20 boxes that fit my NZ Cupcake Queen cupcakes perfectly!

To make it easier to find the right box I whipped up a batch of cupcakes to take along and try out for size. I thought this would be a nice chance to try a new flavour so I made some chocolate cupcakes with glace cherries and white choc chips topped with chocolate buttercream frosting, a glace cherry and some red and chocolate sprinkles. They are my new favourite cupcake flavour. I'm a huge fan of the cherry/choc combination.





And as a thank you to the guys at Printbox for being so helpful and paitent, I left half the batch for them to enjoy for afternoon tea :-)

cupcake cross stitch takes over :-)

I've been selling my cupcake related cross stitches for a while now on my NZCQ Etsy store and at Craftwerk here in Auckland. Inspired by a quote I saw on my fellow cupcake baker Natalie's Flickr, I designed this cute little cross stitch.





My Eat cake. Worship Satan. piece has become the most popular cross stitch I sell on my Etsy. I won't be making too many more as this was never meant to be a huge run. So get in quick and snap one up.

If you're in Auckland, come visit me at my Craftwerk stall. I'll have some more Eat cake. Worship Satan. cross stitches plus you can buy some of my yummy cupcakes:

Craftwerk!
SATURDAY 3 MAY from 10am till 4pm.
@ Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts - 13 REEVES RD in PAKURANGA, Manukau City.
With special special musical guests, and is of course FREE!

Rocky Road cupcakes = super yum!

I have finally gotten off my butt and made some Rocky Road cupcakes. I've been meaning to for such a long time but I keep getting distracted by other recipes or cupcake orders coming in. I often make rocky road for my stepdad and he is a HUGE fan of it, so it seemed natural to give rocky road cupcakes a go next!

I went through some of my favourite cupcake books for some inspiration but couldn't couldn't choose just one recipe that I liked, so I borrowed bits from a few and came up with these babies!



Chocolate cupcakes with white AND milk choc chips topped with chocolate buttercream frosting, chopped up marshmallows and wine gums, topped off with melted milk chocolate drizzled on top! YUM!

cupcakes for the MARCO Trust

I had the awesome opportunity of working with a really lovely bunch of kids for one week of the MARCO Trust school holiday art programme. Carrie Skinner was kind enough to take me on as a volunteer for the week and helping out was such an amazing experience and confirmed that my dream of training as an Art Therapist is the right path for me.

On the last day the kids put on the show they'd been working on all week, making costumes and creating the set. As a special treat I made a batch of mini cupcakes for them - 24 vanilla with raspberry frosting and 24 vanilla with orange frosting. They were a hit (with the adults as well!)





The kids also created a bunch of new cupcake drawings for my art project The Cupcake Project so I'm busy scanning those and will have them on the site in the next day.

Mt Dew cupcakes topped with Nerds

I can't take credit for the awesome idea of making Mt Dew cupcakes! But I can tell you who inspired me with hers. Natalie from Bake & Destroy made some and posted the results on Flickr, complete with rad Garbage Pail Kids cupcake toppers!

Since I showed Chris the photos of Natallie's Mt Dew cupcakes, he's been asking me every now and then when I'd make some. I finally bought Mt Dew and Nerds yesterday.

I wanted to try out Natalie's recipe, but she hasn't finished tweaking her from scratch recipe and the original one she tried used cake mix. So I had a hunt around and found this awesome one from Quirky Cupcake.

These are so digustingly good, its almost impossible to describe eating one. Its an explosion of Mt Dew flavour and they're so sweet, almost too sweet, and yet you want another bite. The Nerds on top were just the best touch, maybe I'm biased because I LOVE Nerds. But we're hooked and so are all our friends who got to sample one!

Thanks to my willing victims - the hubby, Karla & Alex, Berry, the Redline boys & Val, Danz, Emz & Logan.



Heres some topped with some tropical fish sprinkles (thanks to Patti!!):

NZCQ hearts Cakespy

In our household we LOVE cupcakes



and we LOVE chucks



So how stoked was I when I saw her latest Cakespy artwork featured chuck taylors!



I'm a huge fan of Cakespy and already own one of Jessie's gorgeous cupcake paintings. I snapped the chucks one up quickly and it now sits in pride of place by my mac. Be sure to visit her Etsy store and buy your own piece of cupcake cuteness - http://www.jessieoleson.etsy.com

And of course visit Cakespy for some sweetness every day, not to mention great reviews on bakeries and batter chatter interviews with bakers and cupcake makers (even including yours truly http://www.cakespy.com/2007/12/batter-chatter-interview-with-city-down.html)

don't you love a GOOD mail day

I've felt very spoilt this week. I've had a couple of exciting parcels come in the mail. The first was a package from the lovely Patti who writes one of my new favourite blogs Candy Yum Yum. We got talking about Perky Nana bars and Patti mentioned she's always wanted to try one. So I did the only thing a fellow candy lover could do, I sent her a package of Perky Nana bars, Jaffas and Pineapple Lumps.

Patti sent me a package in return and I was so excited! Amazing cupcake sprinkles, like I've never seen before (there were shark sprinkles! Sharks!! So exciting), a Reeces Whipps bar (which I'm now addicted to) a Herseys Take 5 bar (which I'm also now addicted to - the perfect mix of salty and sweet with pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter and chocolate), Herseys Kissables, Pop Drops and little marshmallows filled with chocolate and grape (which Chris inhaled!!!)



I also got another very cool package from the lovely Jenn (who is another Baker & Destroyer and proud pug owner!) She kindly sent a tshirt I'd purchsed to me to save me the horrendous shipping (thats what you get living at the arse end of the world) but she also spoilt me and popped in some other goodies - a cute as a button cupcake shaped notebook, gorgeous cupcake stickers and Hello Kitty cupcake stickers and a package of amazing chocolate from Redstone Candy in her hometown.



and her 2 cute doggies Molly & Benny put a gift for George in too. A dog plush toy in the shape of an icecream cone. It was almost too cute to give to George, but look at him looking longingly at it - how could I not let him have his pressie :-)



and one last thing in the package, Jenn's friend Jilissa made her an awesome beaded bracelet for her birthday with a little Frankencupcake on it, complete with eyeball on top in place of a cherry. I fell in love with it and Jilissa was kind enough to let me order one from her and Jenn posted it with all my goodies :-)



And even though I didn't get to post this at the time, I have to show you the rad parcel Natalie from Bake & Destory sent me. I popped a couple of bags of Jaffas in the post for her to try (since I ALWAYS seem to be making Jaffa cupcakes) and she sent me back an amazing gift box from the Bleeding Heart Bakery! The "Love Kills - A tribute to Sid Vicious" box of chocolates, complete with a chocolate gun! I was in heaven and the choccies were so yummy!

mini baked cheesecake cupcakes

These are a huge favourite amongst my friends and family, and apparently I don't make them often enough! But I prefer to keep these gorgeous mini baked cheesecakes as an occasional treat, that way it keeps the fans wanting more.

But I did make a batch last weekend for a dessert for a dinner we went to, and I dished out the rest to a few friends and family who happened to pop by that weekend. The recipe is from the lovely little pink book "500 Cupcakes" by Fergal Connolly (page 128 - mine is permanently bookmarked!). I topped my ones off with passionfruit syrup but in the past I've done berries and that tastes just as yummy!

NZCQ gets a few mentions :-)

As many of you know, I'm a cupcake baker, freelance graphic designer and crafty person. I do alot of cross stitch and embroidery and attend Craftwerk here in Auckland selling my cupcakes and crafts.

I was stoked last night when I came across a post about my embroidery on the Craft website blog. The lovely Jenny (of Sew Darn Cute fame http://sewdarncute.typepad.com/) had put a nice little piece about me on the site:



http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/03/heavy_metal_hisnhers_pillowcas.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954

I also found a mention about my Star Wars quote cross stitch on the Dinosaurs and Robots blog:



http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/03/you-will-never-find-more-wretched-hive.html

and one last website, my perky nana cupcakes got a mention on The Ex-Expat blog. Its always nice to know that other people enjoy my "cupcake porn" as much as I do :-)

http://exexpat1.blogspot.com/2008/04/loved-links-8-with-theme.html

NZCQ is a Baker & Destroyer

I'm one of Bake & Destroy's many fans out there and I proudly wear my Bake & Destroy tshirt and hoodie (which always gets lots of comments from people!)

So I was stoked to see that Natalie had included me in her blog along with some of her other fans modeling her kick ass apparel :-)



http://nataliecakes.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/and-were-back/

Make sure you buy a Bake & Destory tshirt while you can. The last lot ran out in record time, and that was BEFORE wrestler CM Punk wore his on tv along with Michelle Garcia wearing one while competing in a Food Network Cake Challenge and Hannah Aitchison during the filming of LA Ink. New shirts are available on Natalies Etsy store, but be quick!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5150031

Elmo cupcakes for Aza

Our friends Melissa and Gareth little girl Aza was turning 2 and the theme of her party was Elmo!

A little while ago Natalie of Bake & Destroy whipped up a batch of Elmo cupcakes for a friends son's birthday. And it seemed it was now my turn to join the Elmo cupcake club.

So armed with Natalies awesome instructions and some super cute Elmo cupcake cases (supplied by Mummy Melissa) I whipped up a batch of Elmos for Aza.





I think they turned out pretty good for a rushed job, even though some of them have super crazy eyes!! While Natalie used marshmallows cut in half for Elmos eyes, I used large milk chocolate buttons instead (due to realising that all my white marshmallows had been eaten by hubby!). I used an orange pebble for the nose and the same Wilton 233 tip for the fur. I really need to invest in some better red food colouring as mine turned out a bit pink red, rather than a nice strong red that I was after.

new products at the NZCQ Etsy store

When I'm not being a baker or a graphic designer, I'm busy being crafty. You can check out my Etsy store for all my crafty goodies including cupcake cross stitches, Badass Baker aprons and my new lasercut wooden jewellery!

http://www.citydown.etsy.com/

One piece that will appeal to the all the cupcake queens out there is my wooden nameplate necklace with the word "Cupcake" laser engraved in a graffiti font.



you can purchase your own here www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10827206

here are a few of my other goodies:

The Cupcake Project hits 100

I'm a bit late in posting this, but my art project "The Cupcake Project" has hit the 100 cupcakes mark and gone beyond that!

The lucky person who submitted number 100 was Ashlie Johnson from Savannah, GA, USA.



http://thecupcakeproject.blogspot.com/2008/03/cupcake-100-ashlie-johnson.html

Ashlie submitted her cupcakes after making them for a class project in Illustrator! Being the lucky number 100, she won a prize of a whole bunch of cupcake goodies from the NZ Cupcake Queen. But thats only the first milestone for The Cupcake Project. I'm aiming for 200 cupcakes and then if we hit that, I'll see how much further we can go :-)

if you haven't submitted a cupcake, have some fun and do it today! http://thecupcakeproject.blogspot.com/