the lillypad line-up

It's time for the Lilypad and Friends Christmas Open House!  For those of you who are not familiar with this adorable house sale, this weekend you will have the chance to come and peruse handmade items from local artisans.  Everything from baby items to handmade body products, and of course our delicious cupcakes and cookies will be among those things that will be available for purchase.  Skip the mall and come shop at Corinna's house! One day only: Saturday, December 3 at 885 Renfrew Street, Winnipeg from 10am until 4pm. 

Here's a sneak peak of what we'll be offering at Saturday's sale!

Cupcakes...

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcake.   This is the first time we are offering this flavor!  It's light, moist and fluffy.  Super yummy, and topped with fresh whipped cream.  (sorry, we haven't got a picture of those lovely cupcakes)

Chocolate Cupcake with Peppermint Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  Our classic chocolate cupcake topped with Peppermint Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  The peppermint flavor is achieved by pulverizing candy canes and folding them into vanilla buttercream, which gives the frosting a much more authentic peppermint taste than just using extract.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake.  One of our best sellers!  We had to bring this back to the sale this year!  A moist, dense, chocolate cake with a peanut butter ball baked right inside!  Topped with Peanut Butter Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

There's the cupcake lineup!  The great things about this sale is that you'll be able to purchase a variety pack! As many of you know, when you order full size cupcakes, we have to take a minimum order of a dozen cupcakes in one flavor.  Well, here's the chance to switch it up!  Take a half or full dozen in any flavor combo you like!

We're also offering two different cookies this year.  A massive chocolate brownie cookies filled with chunks of peanut butter cup, reminiscent of our Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake, and another classic Christmas confection from our childhood.  Come on down and check them out!  They are worth it!

We hope you'll pay us a visit on Saturday!  Come enjoy a mug of hot apple cider and some stress free shopping!

our first wedding experience

We had the pleasure of being a part of a wedding this summer!  We worked with the Bride to come up with a beautiful cupcake display of around 300 cupcakes.  We whipped these cupcakes up the day before the wedding and iced them the day of, just before delivery.  The Bride had also provided us with fresh pansies from a relatives garden, which really give these cupcakes a finishing touch.  There were not enough flowers for each cupcake, so we evenly distributed them among the flavors.

The flavors they chose were, Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Swiss Meringue Buttercream, Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream, Vanilla Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  A delicious selection!

On the day of the wedding we found all the platters set up with a blue background with homemade fabric bunting.  A very beautiful effect.  We had to do a little re-arranging in order to fit as many cupcakes on the table as possible, but in the end I think it looked spectacular!

The Bride had also asked for a few more details, such as the "Sweet" signs to label each flavor, and a dozen gluten free cupcakes, which we purchased from Cake-ology, a wonderful local bakery.

A few weeks after the wedding we were sent a link to the Photographer's blog, Photography by Jodi, and absolutely loved the pictures!  She truly captured the beauty of this cupcake display and made our cupcakes look even yummier!  Make sure you check out Jodi's blog here!  Thanks, Jodi for allowing us to use your photos!

What a fun experience!  We really enjoyed pulling it all together!

dora birthday cupcakes

happy graduation

ladies event spring cupcakes

Even though the ground is white the spring ladies event must go on!

happy easter

indulgent easter cupcakes

We're always looking for a new way to make regular cupcakes more fun and more indulgent! We decided to experiment with chocolate eggs and our newly found vanilla cupcake recipe.

Vanilla cupcakes...or cake for that matter...is notoriously dry. We have tested and tasted numerous vanilla cupcake recipes and finally found one that meets our standards. This recipe is simple and produces moist results time and time again. We can now offer vanilla cupcakes as an option.

So. Take a yummy vanilla cupcake and bake it with a cadbury creme or caramilk egg inside and you have perfection! We decided to experiment with this concept and tried baking the cupcakes with a regular chocolate egg, a creme egg, and a caramilk egg. The result was so tasty that we have decided to offer this as our Easter cupcake. Contact us soon to place your order and wow all your friends and family this Easter with these indulgent tasty treats!

Fresh out of the oven

Cadbury creme egg centre

Caramilk egg centre

valentine's day

We completed a couple of orders for valentine's day. All of them topped with very tasty soft chocolate sugar cookies. The cookies were so much fun to decorate...especially since we discovered a new and easy technique that results in perfection every time!

We were also asked by a good friend to make a special valentine's delivery to her loved one!

This was such a fun delivery to make. On Valenine's Day I went to our friend's husband's workplace to surprise him and his classroom (he's a teacher) with these little cupcakes! One box of cupcakes had "Why do I love you so much?" written in fondant on the cookie topper and the second box had "Happy V-Day" written on them. 

It was so fun to walk into the school office knowing that our friend's husband had no idea these cutie cupcakes were coming his way! Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay until he came down to the office to see his reaction, but if the reaction of all the ladies in the office was any indication, they were a hit! 

superbowl cupcakes

I am not an avid sports fan but there are certain sports that I definitely enjoy over others. Football holds a soft spot in my heart. I remember spending many Sunday afternoons watching CFL football games with my dad...sometimes even a double header! Dad patiently explained the rules and I do admit that there was a time in my teenage years I was obsessed with a few of the players from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Since my son is American there are some US traditions that have become a part of our regular lives. This year was our first celebrating the Superbowl. And since we believe that all occasions call for tasty cupcake treats I whipped up some superbowl cupcakes! We spent the evening eating burgers and cupcakes while watching the game.

Well. What really happened, was my friend and I watched and entertained the kids while the guys watched the game. Typical!

vday cupcakes

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. While neither of us typically subscribe to this hallmark holiday we do believe that every occasion calls for a tasty cupcake! 

Contact us soon to place your vday cupcake order with custom edible toppers!

frosting, frosting, and more frosting!

Frosting is very important to us.  Very!  Neither one of us enjoys a sickly sweet, overly buttery frosting.  I can remember a time when we would look at each other after eating a particularly good store-bought cupcake and talk about how on earth we could mimic that frosting! 

Last summer, Lavonne did one better than all those store-bought creations out there.  She discovered the beautiful, magical, stick-your-face-in-the-bowl, Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  Frosting of all frostings in our humble opinion!  Light, fluffy, not-too-sweet and oh, so delicious.  I have called this the "frosting that icing-haters will love" and proven that when a friend who professes to be an icing-scraper (a person who scrapes 90% of icing off a piece of cake or cupcake) ate an entire cupcake, frosting and all...and actually enjoyed it! The only downside (if there could be one) is that it takes a full half hour to make a batch of this frosting.  A lot of whisking, beating and butter-adding is involved.  The result is more than worth it, though!

We've done several variations on the Swiss Meringue, with our favorite being Peanut Butter.  Other amazing flavors that we've tried have been White Chocolate Peppermint, Chocolate Hazelnut (Nutella), and Milk Chocolate.  Yummy! 

Now that we've perfected the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, we're on the hunt for a fudgy chocolate frosting.  Rich and delicious.  But not too sweet!  For me that's the number one rule of frosting.  There has to be a balance of sweetness with the cake.  It makes for a heavenly cupcake experience!

stories from barely burnt cookies and more

During the week of Christmas we completed a rather large order. We split the order, each baking cookies and cupcakes. Julia dropped in for lunch and brought her part of the order around noon on the day of delivery which was to be in an hour or so. 

Interesting things tend to happen when we are together and any sort of baking occurs.

I had been baking all morning. The kitchen was a disaster, not a clear space on the counter. The dining room table was full of Christmas gifts that needed wrapping. There were now three small children in my home. I had just completed decorating two dozen mini chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate peppermint swiss meringue buttercream and needed a place to put them.

I couldn't use the floor or coffee table in case one of the children messed with the box. I couldn't use any kitchen or dining room table space. So the only other logical place to put the box with two dozen decorated cupcakes was the bed in our spare room. I placed them on the bed, ran into the kitchen to grab another box of cupcakes, and returned to discover a crushed box oozing with frosting.

The cat sat on it.

Not funny.

I gasped, Julia ran in, and we jumped into problem solving mode. We thought about salvaging some of the cupcakes but the frosting was drooping off the edges making a major mess of things. Thank goodness I had baked the entire chocolate cupcake recipe into mini's as my plan was to bring some to a family gathering. I screeched "how many cupcakes do we have left?" in a panic stricken voice to Julia who was busy counting. I could just imagine myself re-baking all two dozen cupcakes one hour before delivery. 

Julia breathed a sigh of relief. There were 24 mini cupcakes left and enough frosting to decorate.

Our next problem was the box which was full of oh-so-tasty white chocolate peppermint buttercream. That was our last box for mini cupcakes. So while I decorated another two dozen cupcakes, Julia painstakingly cleaned the box.  

In the end all the cupcakes and cookies looked lovely and were enjoyed by their recipients. Potential disaster averted!

We are fully aware that in all likelihood none of this would have happened if Julia had dropped off her baking and left immediately. Things just get crazy when we bake together...hence the name "barely burnt!" 

However, the craziness is fun and in the end we do get a good story!

the deep-fried mars bar experiement

We have a confession. Our chocolate obsession runs deep and wide.

This obsession mostly involves high quality European chocolate. Long ago did we lose interest in nondescript foil covered chocolates and easter bunnies and would rather save room for the good stuff. However, everybody has a weakness and our chocolate obsession weakness involves mars bars and the deep fryer.

The deep-fried mars bar first entered our awareness after participating in Chocolate Fest. (What self-proclaimed chocolate enthusiast wouldn't attend this annual festival of yumminess?!). We discovered a peculiar menu item at Fergies Fish 'n Chips...the deep-fried mars bar. One bite and we were both hooked.

In preparing our family Christmas fondue menu this year, we decided to add batter and mars bars to the table. The end result was delectable.

Crispy on the outside. Warm and gooey on the inside. It doesn't get much better than that!

our second love

The Oreo cookie.  It truly is our second love.  It may come from a box and been baked by the mysterious Mr. Christie, but wow!  They are good.  Both of us could easily polish off a box of these bad boys in one sitting (with a tall glass of milk, of course).  So it wasn't a stretch for us to test a Cookies and Cream Cupcake recipe.  Chock full of Oreo cookies.  We found a recipe that looked tasty and here is the result.  A real treat!

Unfortunately the frosting portion of the recipe was a bust.  Terrible.  Too sugary, and overpowered the real star of the show.  The Oreo!  So I went back to our old faithful of frostings, which is the light and airy Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  Much better.  Almost mimics the creamy Oreo center.

I took a plate minis of this cupcake to my son's preschool Christmas concert party, and they were devoured within minutes.  And I can't remember exactly how many I ate during the day.  All in all, I would say they were a success!

After all these accolades, the jury is still out on if we'll be adding these to the line-up of offerings.  We still have a little cost calculating to do before committing to baking them for the masses.