Eat cake. Worship Satan. tshirts

I was so excited to design these tshirts based on my cross stitch design and even more excited when the ones I'd ordered for Chris and I finally arrived in the post.



I know there have been a few people out there who have not approved of the wording, but these are simply for fun and for cupcake lovers with a quirky sense of humour and by no means making fun of people with serious religious beliefs.

You can grab yours from my Cafe Press store!

homemade chocolate peanut butter cups (and guns!)

Some of you may already know of my love of Reeces Peanut Butter Cups. I've been meaning to try making homemade ones for a while now and finally got around to buying chocolate moulds in the perfect PB cup size.

here is my first attempt!



and here is Mr NZCQ having his first taste:



The recipe I used more than filled the 6 moulds I had so I was left with extra chocolate and PB filling, so I grabbed my gun chocolate moulds and made a few extras that turned out quite cool:

95% vegan chocolate cupcakes

I'm a vegetarian who hovers on the line between being vegetarian and vegan. I haven't officially made the step over but I do enjoy alot of vegan food. I've had the cookbook "The Everyday Vegan" by the wonderful Dreena Burton for a while now. I've had my eye on a yummy vegan triple layer chocolate cake recipe in the book and when I finally got around to trying it out, it was so easy to make!



For those of you who don't own this awesome book, she does feature the recipe on her blog which you can view here and has brilliant step by step instructions with photos. If you enjoy it though, I suggest you support this awesome author and go and purchase a copy asap :-)

I used the recipe to make cupcakes (of course!!) but unfortunately my recipe is only 95% vegan as I ran out of time to buy vegan chocolate, so the frosting has normal dairy based chocolate in it. This recipe works so well as cupcakes, and the silken tofu based frosting was delicious with a mousse like texture. I am disappointed that I didn't use vegan chocolate in the frosting, but next time I will take the time to source some and make these cupcakes 100% vegan :-) They were still 100% yum!!

here they are all naked:



and then frosted:

NEW - Eat cake. Worship Satan tshirts!!!!

My Eat cake. Worship Satan. cross stitch has been my most popular design on my NZ Cupcake Queen Etsy store.

So I thought I'd make up some tshirts based on this cheeky design. I think they've turned out great and I've ordered one each for Chris and I. I can't wait to wear mine.



They're available to purchase at my Cafe Press store in ladies, mens, plus size ladies and kids sizes. I also have a few fun things like tote bags and baby bibs.

Unfortunately they're a wee bit more expensive than the white tshirts Cafe Press has available, but this design just HAD to be on a black tshirt. Thats the price you pay for being cool I guess hehe

choc with peanut butter frosting cuppies

I had an order from a girl called Carmen who was after a batch of cupcakes to cure a major cupcake craving she'd been having while studying. I made her chocolate cupcakes with choc and caramel chunks, topped off with creamy peanut butter frosting, chocolate sprinkles and some peanut butter m&ms that I'd been sent from America!





She also asked that I packaged up some of the cupcakes in lots of 2 so she could share them with her friends.

cookies & cream baby shower cupcakes

I had an order for some baby shower cupcakes with a boy theme. Leigh wanted cookies & cream flavour which posed a challenge with colouring cookies & cream frosting blue!



I think they came out quite nicely with a bluish tinge, the blue could possibly have been stronger. I topped each of them with little baby feet and a couple of hands made from chocolate that I made the night before.

NZCQ hits Melbourne

Chris and I were lucky enough to get to go to Melbourne for a flying 4 day holiday. Its my favourite city in Aussie and this was trip number 5 for me, but it was Chris' first time (and first time out of the country!!)

He was pretty excited about getting to visit Rare Records in St Kilda and he and the owner Doug had a great time talking and sharing fanboy stories. Not to mention the fact that Chris and I both came back with some great music nerd goodies!

For me the highlight was getting to meet the lovely Jess from Sugadeaux Cupcakes! Its such a small world - shes also good friends with Doug from Rare Records.



We'd been Flickr buddies for awhile and she bought one of my Eat cake. Worship Satan cross stitches. Due to a rather blonde moment from me involving getting on the right tram in the wrong direction, we were 2 hours late to meet her, oops! I finally got to try a Sugadeaux cupcake and I was not disappointed! Its a shame we're in different countries because we got along so well. She is one of the most genuine and down to earth people I've met and I think her cupcake business is going to take off!



You can see just how excited I was to try a chocolate Sugadeaux cuppie in this photo!



We also got to visit Little Cupcakes on Degraves Street in the city and loved the cute little store they've set up! Their red velvet ones were very addictive and we went 2 days in a row to treat ourselves to a mini one each.





One of the unexpected highlights of the trip was a chance meeting with the oh so talented Gemma Jones. We popped into the Outré Gallery and got chatting with Gemma about all things crafty. She snapped this cute photo of my tattoo (with Chris lurking in the background).



And then sent us on our way to meet Pip at Meet Me At Mike's. It was awesome getting to meet these creative crafty people and discovering a bit of the craft community in Melbourne! I will definitely be keeping in touch with both Pip and Gemma. I'm also working on sewing a plushie for Meet Me At Mikes Softies for Mirabel charity.



We also met a rad chick called Lauren at a shop called Off Your Tree and she had THE most amazing candy and cupcake sleeve done!



So those were the highlights of the trip! If you want to check out more of the photos head to my
Flickr page where there are HEAPS of rad street art pics we snapped all about the Melbourne CBD.



love the NZCQ & Mr NZCQ
x

Ice Cream & Cupcake Swap goodies!

I joined Swap-Bot last year and I have had so much fun taking part in swaps, particularly the cupcake themed ones.

I dont have much time for swaps at the moment so I have to be very discerning in choosing the ones I join. The most recent one I took part in was the Ice Cream and Cupcakes swap. I had a great time putting together a parcel for my swap partner but the best thing was receiving MY parcel in the mail.



The talented lady behind all this was Niss who also has a great blog Creative Niss. She absolutely spoilt me with my swap package but the most amazing thing was the scrapbook she put together called "Felicity's book of decoration inspriation". It was FULL of cupcake pics and each page was so beautifully done, it was a work of art. So I had to share the pics here :-)

Sierra's strawberry shortcake 1st birthday party

Our friends Gareth and Melissa threw a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday party for their little girl Sierra's 1st birthday.





I made these yummy vanilla cupcakes with tinned whole strawberries mixed through them, topped with strawberry buttercream frosting and finished off with a cute little strawberry lolly!

They were a hit and very yummy!

Cherry 7Up cupcakes - an interesting experiment

I love Cherry 7Up and there are a few dairies here in Auckland where you can pick up a can. So I got to thinking "wow, Mountain Dew cupcakes are super rad, wouldn't it be great to make Cherry 7Up cupcakes"



These cupcakes were good in theory but didn't come out the way I expected, they were yummy but lacked the cherry bite I was after.

I thought I'd experiment with a can of Cherry 7Up much like I make Mountain Dew cupcakes. I mixed glace cherries through the cupcakes, which turned out yummy, but the frosting needed more cherry flavour. Next time I'll use some cherry essence IF i can find some. I topped them off with yummy sour cherry balls.





They looked pretty and tasted great, but not the way I WANTED them to taste. So if anyone can give me a heads up as to where I can pick up a bottle of cherry essence (if you know a place in NZ that would be even better!) I would be eternally grateful!

George the pug turns ONE!

Our adorable pug George had his 1st birthday in May. He is just as obsessed with cupcakes as I am (well he lives in hope of eating them!)

For his birthday I made him his own mini cupcake and let him have the whole thing, which was a big treat for him. It was gone in a flash, but I think he enjoyed it.

more Mountain Dew cuppies for Dave's bday

Dave and I go way back to highschool days and I made him a batch of Mountain Dew cupcakes for his birthday.

Hello Kitty Mountain Dew cupcakes for Samrulz

Sam Rulz (from Two Hands Tattoo) is the talented tattooist behind my pin up girl tattoo. We headed to her new place for a flatwarming get together and I took along these super cute cupcakes for her.

Mountain Dew cupcakes topped off with Mountain Dew frosting (that puts you on a major sugar high) and then some cute as a button Hello Kitty candies I found in a local shop.

(apologies for the crappy photos!)

baby shower cupcakes x 2

I was contacted by a lovely lady Ever who ordered 2 lots of baby shower cupcakes for her morning tea shouts at work. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the 24 mini Elmo cupcakes I made! They were hard work but turned out so cute!

But I did remember to take photos of the second order - 24 organic vanilla mini cupcakes with raspberry frosting and 24 jaffa mini cupcakes with raspberry frosting, all topped off with cute baby theme edible decorations.



here are the jaffa ones ready to go in their box:



I also made a few extra standard size cupcakes for our friends while I was busy baking the baby shower batches. These ones went to my good friend Paul:

Perky Nana cupcakes

I've been doing alot of experimenting with making cupcakes based on popular chocolate bar flavours. Perky Nana's seem to be a big hit with our friends.





This batch I topped off with banana flavoured frosting and some yellow and purple sprinkles and Pebbles candy. I just think yellow and purple on cupcakes is a lovely colour combo!

Mothers Day cupcakes with a twist

My lovely mother in law Barbara lives too far away for me to make her real cupcakes for Mothers Day. So I devised a cunning little plan. Mini cupcake shaped chocolates that I could easily post down to her.



To make these little cuties I used my cupcake shaped chocolate moulds and some milk chocolate, red Wilton melting chocolate for the cherry and white chocolate with sprinkles for the frosting part.

I made a second batch for my Mum and I think they were a hit with both Mum's for Mothers Day :-)

NZCQ goes A.W.O.L!

I can't believe how fast time flies. I haven't done a post since the end of April which is VERY slack of me, but at the same time, if any of you keep track of my Flickr photos you'll know I've been super busy with cupcake orders, new crafty ventures and a trip away. Apparently just too busy to squeeze in some time to blog!

Time to get typing and catch you all up on the news!

NZXQ xx