Olympic mini cup cakes

At work we decided to celebrate the coming London Olympics by having our own mini Olympic games.  So what is more appropriate for a mini Olympics than mini cup cakes.

We organized 4 events, running relay, egg and spoon race, 3 legged race and shot put (with bean bags), there were six teams China, Romania, India, Philippines, Canada and of course Team Great Britain.

The event lasted about an hour and there was much hilarity as batons (bananas) were squashed, equipment failed (nylons tying legs together ripped) and sadly Canada and India failed to win even one medal. We put this down to Canada being really much better at the Winter Olympics and India's athletes were underfunded and lacked proper equipment (there nylons ripped). I am proud to say however that Team GB won the medal count, we can only hope the same is true at the larger games in London.

Lemon Canada Cup cakes

When Nancy and I went go buy cup cake papers to use for the graduation cup cakes I spied Canada Day Cup Cake papers which came with little Canada flags.  Having made Jubilee Cup cakes in England, I thought it only fair that I should make Canada Cup Cakes for Canada's Birthday.

I like lemon cupcakes as the lemon flavour helps to counter the sweetness of cup cakes, and I really do not have a sweet tooth.  I made these to share with my department at work and so I made 18 exactly the right amount to give one to everybody and exactly what this recipe made.


1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup milk

Graduation cup cakes

I have a group of friends that have been friends now for over 18 years and we call our selves "The Village".  This comes from the saying it takes a village to raise a child. When we first were connecting our children were very young, and as all parents, we were doing the best we could and appreciated any help we could get in maintaining our sanity.  Our children grew up in what was almost an extended family of cousins with second and third mothers.  I am proud to say that I am identified as a family member one these now grown children's face books.

This June the youngest of the "Village" children graduated from high school, it hardly seems possible that all those sometimes wild children have now grown.  Some have fledged, left home and are working full time making their own way, while many are still testing their wings going to college and University, trying to decide what it is they want to do with their lives.

With each June came new graduates and for each graduate or graduates we hold a Village party to celebrate their safe arrival to adulthood. This year was the last of such celebrations so a little nostalgic.

Nancy and I had offered to make graduation cupcakes for the party and so with the help of the Internet we came up with the design for the topping.  The base of the mortar board is a mini peanut butter cup and so I decided to make chocolate, chocolate chip cup cake with peanut butter icing. I found this recipe on food.com and changed it just a little, I made double the recipe which made about 50 cup cakes, but I have given ingredients for a single batch.


2 1/2 cups white flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons of cocoa
2/3 cup butter, at room temperature
1  cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Mix all the dry ingredients together

Royal wedding cup cakes

I decided to stay up and watch the Royal wedding on Thursday night (3:00 am Friday Morning on the West Coast) it could hardly have been a worse time. The question was whether to stay up all night or go to bed and get up early.  Well the answer was go to bed at 10:00 and wake up at 1:00 am, my internal clock decided I wanted to see everything including a whole lot of filler and inane chatter from commentator's with nothing much to say.

Having said that I am glad I watched it live, and it really was a beautiful ceremony, the music was wonderful and bride was beautiful she reminded my of Grace Kelly, a wonderful role model for Royal brides.  I felt we had to celebrate at work so decided to make some cupcakes and decorate appropriately for the royal wedding.

A cupcake sitting on my Mothers English Minton China

I have based this on a recipe by Ina Garten I changed it slightly based on what I had on hand and the recipe for the icing seemed to be far too much. I was correct even with the smaller amount I made there was quite a bit left. This made 24 cupcakes