Our friend Eric over at Geekadephia interviewed Billy Boyd last week and happened to ask about his favorite cupcakes! Billy mentioned he'd love some Beecake cupcakes to match his band. Of course we obliged.

We made some banana large cupcakes with honey frosting and some walnuts on top. We grabbed the banana cake recipe from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures and the honey frosting from Bake Space. The honey frosting we added an extra 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar and a little vanilla extract.

We had a great time baking, and watching Beecake play! You can see the entire Flickr set here.

Posted by Dana

One way is by showing your love for berries and cupcakes with some awesome swag from the folks over at Zazzle

They have several adorable cupcake items, such as tees, tote bags, shoes and even stamps!

Posted by Jessica

As Dana mentioned in Monday?s post, July is National Berry Month. Like most of America, we had a picnic on the Fourth of July. I made some mini funfetti cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting adorned with berries and fashioned into the American Flag to celebrate!

Ingredients:

Cake:

3 cups flour sifted

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ¾ cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups milk

Red and Blue sprinkles

Frosting:

One stick of unsalted butter, softened

One 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened

One box (approximately 4 to 5 cups) of confectioner?s sugar

One tablespoon vanilla extract

One tablespoon lemon zest

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350, and line your mini cupcake tin with cupcake papers.

Sift dry ingredients (just flour, baking powder, salt- sugar is used in the next step) in a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add your flour mixture SLOWLY, alternating with milk (half a cup of flour, quarter cup of milk, etc), beating well after each addition, until all is mixed smoothly. Fold in sprinkles using a spoon.

Fill mini cupcake liners almost to the top. (This will make puffy topped minis, great for decorating!)

Bake for about 11-12 minutes, and using a toothpick, check to see their consistency. If they are no longer runny inside, and just starting to turn a smidge golden, they?re done!

Let cupcakes cool completely before icing them.

For your frosting, beat together butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. Add vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix. Beat in confectioner?s sugar one cup at a time until you reach the consistency you prefer.

Using a pastry bag and a fun frosting tip*, frost each mini cupcake with icing, and put some blueberries or strawberries on top. Enjoy berry month with this fruity fun dessert!

*If you don?t have any baker?s frosting tips, you can use a zippered sandwich bag. Fill it with your frosting, zip it shut, and cut a small piece of the bottom corner to create your own pastry bag!

Posted by Katie

July is National Berry Month! Berries are a great addition to summer cupcakes. Using fresh fruit as a garnish is great, or filling the center of your cupcakes with jam or preserves, makes for delightful surprise. Here are your summer berry tips:

What Kind of Cake Should I Use?

The cake depends a little on the berry.

-White cake is simple and works the best when making berry jam filled cupcakes.You can use any type of jam or preserves. Strawberry, blueberry, raspberry and blackberry are generally easy to find in your local grocery store.

-Chocolate is a great pair when using a berry compote in the frosting. Raspberries and blueberries have a stronger flavor that carries well with the heavy chocolate cake.

-Sponge cake is good for strawberries. Especially if you stick half a strawberry in the center or on top before baking.

How Do I Get the Jam in the Middle?

There are a couple different ways to fill your cupcakes with jam/preserves.

My favorite way that never fails is to put the jam in before baking.

To do this, prepare your cake batter normally. When you go to fill up the cupcake cups, fill it only half way, then dollop half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of jam in the middle. Cover the jam with batter until the cup is 2/3 full.

You can also put the jam in after the cupcakes are baked.

Wait until the cupcakes have cooled. Cut a hole in the top of each cupcake and remove the piece. Put a teaspoon of jam in the hole, and cover it back up with the cake you removed.

What Kind of Frosting Goes Best with Berries?

The best frosting to pair with berries are ones that aren't too sweet. The berries are sweet enough! A basic whipped cream or cream cheese frosting is usually the best.

Hope these tips help in kicking off your summer with some berrylicious cupcakin' fun.

Posted by Dana

We all are well aware that cupcakes are delicious, but we thought it would be interesting to delve into the history of cupcakes and see where exactly these delicious treats came from!

Cupcakes have long been popular due to their bite sized nature and ease of transportation. FoodTimeLine tells us that there are two popular theories on where the actual name 'cupcake' originated: The name comes from the amount of ingredients used to make the cake (a cupful of flour, a cupful of butter, cupful of sugar etc.) or, these cakes were originally baked in earthenware teacups or other small clay baking pans.

Additionally the tradition of naming cakes for their measurements dates to the 18th century. In the days when many people couldn't read, this simple convention made it easy to remember recipes. Modern day cupcakes are most likely to have evolved from "1,2,3,4 cakes" which had the ingredients of: 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, and 4 eggs.

It took a significant amount of time for cupcakes to become what we know them as today. Suite101 explains that, one of the earliest records comes from the Fanny Merritt Farmer?s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. In this book the cook is instructed to bake individual cakes in tin cups. Paper liners were not used until just after World War I when the James River Corporation manufactured cupcake liners on machines that a few years before were making artillery shells. Commercial cupcakes reached the market some time before World War II.

Today cupcakes are happily enjoy by people all over the globe with each culture adding its own unique nuance and culinary twist to the popular dessert.

Posted by Jessica

The absolutely perfect summer treat! And the best part, it?s a cheat recipe! Using a boxed cake as your base makes this one super easy. Pair them up with some real daiquiris and some good friends, and you?ve got yourself a party.

My cupcakes were ?virgin? cupcakes, but you can certainly add a little rum to the batter/icing to spice it up a bit.

Ingredients:

One box of white cake mix

¾ can of Bacardi Strawberry Margarita/Daiquiri frozen mix

vegetable oil and egg whites, as they call for on the box

1 (8oz) container frozen whipped topping, such as Cool Whip

Strawberries for garnish

Strawberry syrup/liqueur

Coarse sugar crystals (white or pink)

Umbrellas/Straws

Line your cupcake tin with papers and preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, add cake mix, the strawberry daiquiri mix, oil & eggs.

Beat together for a few minutes, and pour into your cupcake wrappers.

Bake approximately 15-17 minutes. Cupcakes will be extremely moist and sticky because of the daiquiri mix. This is normal- don?t mistake it for undercooked and over bake them!

While cupcakes cool, using a low setting on your mixer, beat together the Cool Whip and a shot of strawberry syrup/liqueur. (Tip- I was out of Strawberry syrup when I was making these, so I subbed in Raspberry. It tasted great and no one knew the difference.)

Frost cupcakes generously, making sure to cover entire cupcake.

Roll cupcake?s rim in sugar to mimic the sugar on a cocktail glass. Cut a straw in half or use an umbrella to make cupcake more cocktail-like. Slice a strawberry for garnish.

Keep refrigerated, loosely covered until ready to eat. If they are in the humidity or covered too tightly in the fridge, the cake will pull away from the paper because of the moisture.

Grab a cocktail and a cupcake, and enjoy your summer day!

Posted by Katie

Just what is buttermilk anyway?

Buttermilk is milk, with a higher concentration of lactic acid. This is why buttermilk has a tart flavor. Not always fun to drink, but makes for great cupcakes. Contrary to its name, buttermilk does not contain butter, or has any higher fat content than your regular milk. There are two kinds of buttermilk, cultured and uncultured. Typically for baking the uncultured stuff is just fine. To find out more about active cultured buttermilk, you can click here.

How do I make buttermilk in a pinch?

There are a few ways of doing this. My personal favorite that works really well, I learned from Smitten Kitchen's Raspberry Buttermilk Cake.

Combine 1 cup of whole milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar (white vinegar or apple cider vinegar works best). Let the mixture set for about 10 -15 minutes and stir well. Voila! Instant buttermilk.

Mister Breakfast adds that you can add lemon juice or cream or tartar to milk to get the same buttermilk effect.

Self Rising Flour

On to self rising flour. The difference between self rising flour and all purpose flour is the addition of salt and baking soda. Recipes that call for self rising flour usually don't call for any additional leavening agents. The leavening is evenly distributed throughout the flour for a nice even rise during baking.

How do I make self rising flour in a pinch?

The correct ratio is as follows:

1 cup of all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

1/8 teaspoon of salt

Make sure you sift these ingredients together VERY evenly!

So there you have it! Never again will you have to let your extra buttermilk go to waste, or hunt down self rising flour.

Posted by Dana

The most adorable monster making Etsy shop, Cutesy But Not Cutesy, has made a monster cupcake! Her name is Sherry, and she comes with Sprinkles. The owner of the shop, Diane Koss is from Philadelphia, PA. Check out her shop and the cute monsters who need a home :)

Posted by Dana

Spring is here! Well, almost.

Friday March 20th marks the first day of Spring 2009. To celebrate, our friend Alexis Siemons over at Teaspoons & Petals has teamed up with Vintage Connection to throw a Spring Tea Party!

Drop by between 5:00 and 8:00PM and join us in enjoying some delicious loose teas, cupcakes by yours truly! (there will even be ones shaped like flowers in honor of the season!), and check out Alexis' adorable Haiku teacups! Really, they're fabulous. I already own two. :)

If you still aren't convinced, Vintage Connection will be giving a generous 20%-off-vintage-goodies discount to all guests attending! How can you go wrong?

See you there!

Vintage Connection

701 S. 9th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147

(267) 528-1625

Posted by Katie

The Smithsonian is finding new ways to reach the public. Using Ustream TV, they have been streaming live events. Today, a team is assembling a large portrait of Barack Obama and Abe Lincoln out of cupcakes! This is taking place in the American Art Museum in Washington DC. Until 6:30 you can check in on their progress here

Check out www.gosmithsonian.com for more information :)

Posted by Dana

Today we are guest blogging for Cupcakes Take the Cake! Check out their site for our post of the cutest cupcake t-shirts on the 'net.

Posted by Dana

This past Friday, the girls of Open Source Cupcakes feverishly baked cupcakes for the awesome event Shop, Rock ?n Roll! It took place Saturday afternoon, December 13th at the Old Pine Community Center.

The event was to benefit the talented ladies who partake each summer in Girls Rock Philly, an amazing organization which provides rock & roll camps to girls in Philadelphia.

We were very excited to be a part of this, and stayed up all night (and part of the morning) preparing. We teamed up with Alexis Siemons to head a table, selling our cupcakes while she sold her adorable crafty haiku teacups (still available for sale before Christmas!).

Our menu included:

? strawberry jam filled cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting decorated ever so adorably as Christmas ornaments

? lemon-almond cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting doused in toasted coconut (a new recipe- very delicious!)

? chocolate chip candy cane cupcakes! A spin on the ones we had at cupcake camp, perfected by our one and only Dana.

? mini Irish car bomb cupcakes (best seller, for obvious reasons)

? mini eggnog cupcakes with Captain Morgan?s in the frosting!

(All recipes will be listed soon, don?t worry!)

Our friends filtered in to support us and Girls Rock Philly throughout the event and took pictures of our cupcakes, which we in turn stole and posted on our Flickr! (Originals by the lovely Alexis Lerro!)

The center was packed of crafter's selling all sorts of fantastical handmade items, and he girls who sang were absolutely adorable, rocking out way harder than we imagined! Great job girls!

Good times, good cause, and of course, good cupcakes. ?

Posted by Katie

If you?ve ever been around me and small, adorable, fuzzy animals, you may or may not have heard me remark about shoving said cute thing in my mouth. No judgments.

The super fun website Threadless Tees, is selling an adorable cupcake themed shirt, wherein an angry face cupcake is threatening with the words, ?Ah Manna Eat Choo!" This amuses me greatly, as I say it aloud with an accent.

I just ordered one for myself, and one for my little cousin as a Christmas gift. There?s still time for you to order too! And only $5! How can you go wrong?

Posted by Katie

Posted by Dana

Also! Geeks Who Give announced our donation for their event on their blog today. On December 9th at National Mechanics, people from our community will be donating non perishable food items to help out the less fortunate for this holiday season. We will be donating some cupcakes for the raffle. If you're in the Philadelphia area, this will be a great event to attend. Good people and good causes. Hope to see you there!

Posted by Dana

Posted by Dana

So, we had a great launch a week and a half ago, but due to technical difficulties we had to shut things down and move to a new server.

It was a fun day, with links coming from Gwen Bell, Kirtsy, Cupcakes Take the Cake, uwishunu, geekadelphia, twitter, and facebook. Hopefully all the bugs are worked out.

Posted by Haveboard

On Sunday we had the great pleasure of hosting Cupcake Camp East. It was a huge success! We had about 70 people come out to Indy Hall bringing cupcakes! We had over 25 different kinds of cupcakes. Nichelle, from Cupcakes Take the Cake, stopped by. We were delighted that she came down to partake in the cupcake madness and that we were able to meet her. Amanda, the founder of Wish-Cake, came bringing lots of delicious cupcakes! Especially her chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. The most unusual cupcakes were brought by Lexie, she made Macaroni and Cheese Cornbread cupcakes! Carrie and Chris brought "cup-pies" instead of cupcakes.

To compliment the assortment of treats, Alex Siemons of My Teacups, brewed three different teas, and brought her tea haiku tea cups. She picked the perfect black and green teas to go with the sweetness of the desserts.

We also set up a table with yellow and chocolate cupcakes, key lime cream cheese frosting, raspberry cream cheese frosting, vanilla bean butter cream, chocolate buttercream and assortment of toppings for people to decorate their own cupcakes.

You can check out Eric's flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekadelphia/sets/72157609260217162/

and Nichelle's here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nichellenewsletter/sets/72157609196412056/

We would like to thank everyone who came out and made our first Cupcake Camp such a hit! Also thank you Ariel Waldman for being so supportive and helping us get started! Cupcake Camp 2, held in San Fransisco, is just around the corner! Check out cupcakecamp.org for more info.

I'll leave you with a few videos from our wonderful event :)

Cupcake Camp East Intro from Open Source Cupcakes on Vimeo.

Cupcake Camp East Create Your Own Cupcakes from Open Source Cupcakes on Vimeo.

Additional Cupcake Came East Footage from Open Source Cupcakes on Vimeo.

Posted by Dana

There is still quite a bit more that we have planned for the site, but this is phase 1. I'm still working out some bugs, but in the meantime, enjoy the recipes that our lovely ladies have shared with everyone. They're delicious!

The site is built with a custom CMS built using PHP. We are using Discus for the comments, Magpie Javascript from a Wordpress plugin to pull in the twitter feed, and PHPFlickr to pull in the Flickr Photos. Bare with us during the first few days of our initial launch to work out any of the glitches.

PS: Phase 2 will have a full feature recipe system with search and all that good stuff, but for now, the recipes will be in the posts.

Posted by Haveboard