"The Prairie Girl Cupcake Cookbook" by Jean Blacklock | Book Review

The Prairie Girl Cupcake Cookbook by Jean Blacklock

Publishing Date: January 12, 2016
Pages: 128
Publisher: Appetite by Random House
Links: Goodreads | Indigo | Kobo

Jean Blacklock, owner of Prairie Girl Bakery (now with multiple locations in downtown Toronto), grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan baking everything from bread to cookies to cupcakes, watching people's faces light up when they took a bite. Baking had always been a passion of hers, but she decided to pursue a career in law. About twenty five years later, she opened the first Prairie Girl Bakery.

I love making cupcakes and I pretty much take every opportunity to make them. Like Jean, I love seeing people's reactions to the little delectable treats. So when I found out that this cookbook was going to be released soon, I had to get it!

Most of the ingredients involved in these recipes are pretty simple household items you can get at the grocery store, although there are a few exceptions. Jean is very honest about the ingredients they use, including their (not-so) secret to delicious fruity icing - powdered freeze-dried fruits. Quite a few recipes involve these ingredients and as far as I know, they're not available in stores so you'll have to order them online at places like Nuts.com, where Prairie Girl Bakery gets theirs. I was a little disappointed to not be immediately able to make some of the delicious-sounding recipes like Blueberries 'n' Cream Cupcakes and Strawberry Daiquiri Cupcakes, but I'll probably be ordering the freeze-dried fruits at some point...or visiting the bakery. There are also vegan and gluten-free options for those of you with dietary restrictions!

Irish Cream Cupcakes...mmm!

And now, onto the recipes I made!

First up, I made Irish Cream Cupcakes...if you know me in real life, you know I love me some Irish Cream. Let me start off by saying, the chocolate cupcake is delicious. I tried making "Prairie Girl-size" cupcakes, which are essentially 1.5x the size of a regular cupcake, but they didn't rise properly in my pans, I'm not sure why. The icing recipe makes a whole lot of icing (I was able to ice them all, then ice them all a second time). Now, I'm not a huge icing person because they're generally too sweet for me, this one included, but it's all subjective and really depends on how much icing you like! Next time I make these (and there will be a next time!), I'll be using more Irish Cream because I couldn't really taste it. The technical things like chemistry were a little off for me on this one, but they were quite yummy so I'm still going to be making them again.

Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes - with a lemon curd surprise!

The other recipe I made was for Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes...these are SO good. With four recipes involved in making these, they're also a LOT of work. It sounds daunting and it is, but these are so freaking delicious that I think they were definitely worth all the effort. I found all of these recipes pretty easy to follow and they mostly involve household items, although you might need to go egg-shopping afterward as in total, the lemon cheesecake cupcakes require 11 eggs (mostly the yolks to make lemon curd). The only trouble I had with these is that the Classic Cream Cheese Icing (which is so delicious!) was a bit soft even after chilling it for about 30 minutes, so it was sliding off the cupcakes a little. These cupcakes are definitely my favourite of the two I made, because the lemon is so refreshing and heavenly - and I love the little lemon curd surprise in the middle!

All in all, I enjoyed making and eating these cupcakes and there are a ton of other recipes I want to try. When I'm able to order some freeze-dried fruit, I'll definitely be making a few more recipes! There are recipes for a variety of skill levels, so whether you're a beginner or an experienced baker, there's something in here for all cupcake-lovers alike.

*This book was sent to me by Penguin Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review.

"The Sweetapolita Bakebook" by Rosie Alyea | Book Review

The Sweetapolita Bakebook by Rosie Alyea

I absolutely love decorating cakes and desserts, so I was very excited to hear about this, The Sweetapolita Bakebook: 75 Fanciful Cakes, Cookies, and More to Decorate, written by Rosie Alyea.

Rosie has loved cakes for a long time, but she fell in love with designing them when she attended the acclaimed Bonnie Gordon School in Toronto. She started the Sweetapolita blog in 2010, and it has been gaining in popularity ever since.

Many of the recipes in this book are interactive, meaning if you make a cake or some cookies for a kids' party, they can decorate the desserts however they want to. This encourages creativity which I think is so important, valuable, and thrilling for children big and small (I'm included in that statement!).

I can't comment too much on the colour photography because I have an uncorrected proof that's mostly black and white, but the few colour photos at the front are stunning - there's so much colour involved in these recipes, it makes me happy just to look at them!

As you may know, I like to make a few recipes out of the cook/bakebooks I review, and this time was no different. I made three recipes in one day, with the help of my best friend Christine over at Padfoot's Library, and we were exhausted by the end of it. Making these pretty things gives you an appreciation for what professional bakers do!

No exaggeration, this is probably the best chocolate cake I've ever had. The icing involves a lot of steps, but it's absolutely worth it in my opinion. I like the nearly-naked look of the cake too! The cake itself is so moist (it's an icky word, but it's a great thing when you're talking about cake) and together with the icing, it's a rich and decadent cake.

Sugar cookies are always complicated, but they're also delicious. The watercolour painting requires some artistic skill to achieve the loveliness pictured in the book, but I imagine it would be a great and fun thing to have kids do at a party - they'd love the opportunity to decorate their own cookies! And that's part of the draw of this book - the interactive nature.

In my opinion, the two baked goods recipes I made are geared toward people with some home baking experience, as opposed to novice bakers: the cake icing is complicated because it begins as a meringue, which is easy to mess up, so thankfully my mom (who bakes up a delicious storm) was around to answer my questions and help out; and sugar cookies always involve a lot of steps, so that's no fault of this recipe.

Rest assured, there are some simple recipes in this book, it's just that my eyes were immediately drawn to the more complicated ones because of how pretty they are.

If you don't have a pantry stocked with a lot of cake decorating things, it might be a little pricey for you at first because food colouring and cake decorating tools can be expensive - so stock up on coupons. For me, it pretty much always ends up being worth buying the tools because I love seeing people's reactions to nicely-decorated baked goodies - in fact, I'm planning on making another cake from Sweetapolita this weekend for a family friend's birthday!

If you love making unique desserts or are interested in learning, this is a great book for you. It'll give you an appreciation for the hard work that goes into these beautiful creations, and you'll end up with pretty, delicious treats you'll love!


The Sweetapolita Bakebook is now available in paperback (see Chapters/Indigo and Amazon) and eBook (see Kobo and Amazon Kindle) formats.

*This book was sent to me by Penguin Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review.

1 and 2. Photos by nikkitheknack. 3. Photo courtesy Penguin Random House Canada.

Pansy Cupcakes!

 I made these for my sister's birthday.

The cupcake itself is a vegan vanilla recipe I've had for a while - my whole family loves it, it's delicious.

The icing on top is cream cheese icing, which I dyed lavender to go with the decorative flowers.

To top it off, I added the pretty purple pansies (that just happened), which were pre-made from Wilton.

These were super simple to make, and I think they look really dainty and lovely!

What do you think of these cupcakes?

Easter Cookies!

One day when I was scrolling through tumblr, I found a tutorial on how to make these cookies. I love decorating, so I knew I'd have to try making the cookies soon.

I decided to make them for my family's Easter gathering. I was a little nervous about making these because I've never actually attempted to decorate cookies before - I've only done cupcakes and cakes.

So I prepared my cookies and read the instructions diligently, and wouldn't you know it - my first cookie sucked. It barely resembled a flower. I was a little put out, but I persevered - and my second one looked awesome!

I made and decorated a whole (very time-consuming) batch of these cookies, and then no one wanted to eat them because they're too pretty. Once convinced, everyone enjoyed them though.


These are butter cookies covered in coloured royal icing, then decorated with the help of my handy dandy paintbrush. I thought the taste of the royal icing would overpower the cookie, but I was pleasantly surprised when the two flavours complemented each other.

I stepped a little outside my comfort zone and learned something new with these cookies - I'm so happy they turned out well and everyone liked them!

Cupcakes!

Today is my brother's birthday, so as a special treat, I got him to pick a design for me to put on cupcakes.

I'm not gonna lie, when he showed me the pattern, it looked like a lot of detail and I was a little nervous about it at first.

Once I got going on the design, adding my own flair in some places, I realized it was fairly easy!

Personally, I think the colour scheme is quite elegant - the pale blue looks lovely over the dark brown of the icing.

Another great thing about these is that the cake mix is from a box, as is the chocolate icing (I made the pale blue icing). They're so simple and great if you're in a rush. The only time-consuming part of these is the decorating, but that's absolutely worth the time.



I really love how these cupcakes turned out.

Picture-a-Day #15

I love making cupcakes.

More specifically, I love decorating them in weird and wonderful ways. Today's my Dad's birthday, so I decided to make him a race car out of cupcakes!

I got the brilliant idea from the book I'm holding in yesterday's picture: "What's Up Cupcake?" by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson.

The book is great - it provides instructions for various awesome designs, and also sparks inspiration for original ideas.

Of the several designs I've recreated from "Cupcake?," I've never been able to find all of the suggested ingredients for one. I suspect this is because the book uses American products, and in Canada we don't carry all of the same things. The good thing is that with a little imagination, you can easily adapt!

In this case, the authors suggest using vanilla wafers for the driver's face. As far as I know, we don't get the type of round vanilla wafers they recommend. Instead, I got creative - I melted some white chocolate and piped it into a circle on some wax paper. I placed a toothpick on top, covered it in more white chocolate, and once it settled in the fridge for a few minutes, it was ready to be stuck into a cupcake.

I always enjoy decorating cupcakes in cool ways, and I take pretty much every opportunity I get to do so. It's really rewarding because people are generally really appreciative of the awesomeness and effort that goes into them.

When I'm making cupcakes for someone's birthday, I always do designs that make me think of them. My Dad loves cars, so I thought this was perfect. He loves his cupcake race car, so I'm happy!