Not exactly what it seems.

When I read “passion” I immediately though of passion fruit, and Z’s favorite dessert, passion fruit Pavlova. It was a pretty perfect match. But how to translate it into a cupcake?

Bakes up remarkably cake-ish looking.

I first considered doing some kind of angel food thing, since that’s fairly meringue-y. But then I thought about it…why not just bake meringues as cupcakes? Could it be done? Had it been done?

Soft & pillowy interior...my favorite part.

Turns out it could and had, by none other than The Martha. Hoping she wouldn’t let me down, I went ahead and made my own batch.

The top pops off.

I apparently didn’t read the instructions (that I even hand-copied) thoroughly enough to realize that I needed to spray the inside of the liners if I wanted to pull them off the cupcakes, but Z said he liked that he had to dig into the paper to get at the deliciousness inside.

The cupcakes, by the way, came out great. Their one “flaw” was that they all cracked along the top…which turned out to actually be just right since I could just pop off the tops and fill them.

Curd is wonderful. I love curd.

I don’t normally use curd in my Pavlovas, mainly because I prefer the intense contrast between sweet meringue, tart passion fruit and rich whipped cream, but these are cupcakes! And cupcakes like to be filled with rich, yummy curd. I know. They told me.

To get an especially passion fruit-y looking curd, I mixed cacao nibs in before letting it set up, giving the appearance of seeds in passion fruit pulp. This softens the nibs considerably but since I was adding more on top for crunch I figured it didn’t really matter. If you want to preserve the crunchiness add the nibs right before serving.

Replace the hat, add the whipped cream, fresh fruit & some nibs. Enjoy.

Passion Fruit Pavlova Cupcakes

First, Make the Curd:

1. 3 whole eggs
2. 3 egg yolks
3. 7 1/2 Tbsp (115g) passion fruit puree (seeds removed – I used Goya frozen puree)
4. 3 Tbsp (1.5 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
5. 6 Tbsp sugar (75g)
6. 2 Tbsp cacao nibs

Combine all ingredients but nibs in a medium bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk constantly until the mixture thickens and becomes custardy in appearance. Strain into a bowl, stir in nibs and chill with plastic wrap pressed onto the surface of the curd.

Then, Make the Cupcakes (adapted from Martha Stewart):

1. 3 egg whites, room temperature
2. 1/4 tsp salt
3. 1/2 tsp white vinegar
4. 3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp (175g) sugar

Preheat the oven to 225. Line every other cup of a 12-cup regular sized muffin with paper cupcake liners. Spray the interiors of the liners (optional). In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, whip the egg whites with the salt and vinegar until foamy, then gradually add the sugar. Whip to stiff, glossy peaks, then transfer to a piping bag with either no tip or a very large round one (I just used a plastic bag with a corner cut off since appearances at this stage don’t matter) and pipe the meringue into the liners. Bake for about 3 hours, rotating the pan once. The cupcakes will puff up much like real cupcakes and eventually crack along the top – this is good. Once a skewer/toothpick inserted down the side of a liner comes out with moist but cooked crumbs, remove from oven, peel liners off (if they were sprayed) and cool completely on a rack. Makes six.

To Assemble (Do This Right Before Serving):

1. 3-4 Tbsp cold heavy cream per cupcake
2. 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar per cupcake
3. Meringue cupcakes
4. Passion fruit curd
5. Pulp of 1 fresh passion fruit per cupcake
6. 1/4 tsp cacao nibs per cupcake

Pour the cream into a well-chilled mixing bowl. Add the vanilla sugar and use a balloon whisk to whip to medium peaks; set aside. Pull the cracked top(s) off of each cupcake you are serving and fill with 2-3 Tbsp of curd per cupcake. Replace the top and add a dollop of whipped cream, then carefully spoon on the passion fruit and sprinkle with the cacao nibs. Serve immediately (on a plate).

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

A very yummy cupcake.

This month’s theme is Winter Warm Up, requiring all participants to create a cupcake that embodies the way we like to keep warm.

Smarshmallows!

If you know me at all, you’re probably expecting a tea-flavored cupcake. Unfortunately for your expectations, I didn’t do that. Maybe if they have a “things you need to live” theme some month.

A lovely new spice to play with.

Nope, this year I have been all about eating spicy things to keep myself warm. There are still several cups of tea a day, but I’m also eating far too many steamed veggie dumplings with hot chili oil from the Chinese place a block up the street. And since my mom had sent a gorgeous and mysterious pepper in a box of Christmas goodies, I decided to put it to use.

VERY lovely.

Urfa Biber is a Turkish pepper, with shiny red flakes and a yellowish residue that smells like raisins and has a lingering, zippy heat. The second I tasted it I knew I wanted to put it in a chocolate cake.

Big ol' black cardamom pod.

And what better to go with a warming, spicy chocolate cupcake than an exotic spiced frosting? I’d had an intriguingly delicious truffle at my internship a while back, which, along with copious amounts of high quality chocolate, included a little coffee and a touch of black cardamom. I decided to put those flavors into a marshmallow frosting.

Bruleeing action courtesy of Rocket Powered Stove.

A TOASTED marshmallow frosting, of course! I was going to finally fill my torch and toast them up proper, but I wasn’t sure if I was filling it or just getting butane everywhere so I pulled the trivet off of one of my burners, cranked the flame up to high and toasted those babies over an open flame.

The peak that would not stop burning.

Aside from one cupcake with an especially peak-y dollop of marshmallow that would not stop catching fire while I rotated the cake to get even browning (a spectacle that I found hilarious instead of terrifying, probably due to my time spent in a kitchen classroom where we sometimes catch things on fire ON PURPOSE), this procedure worked swimmingly. I could have just as easily popped them under the broiler but I don’t really like how little control you get with a broiler. However if you’re a little flame-shy, you could just do that.

For when you don't feel like getting out another muffin tin.

This recipe realistically makes about 15-16 cupcakes, but I overfilled some of the papers a touch and just didn’t feel like getting out my other muffin tin and using more papers so I dumped the rest of the batter in a ramekin and baked it off as a giant cupcake. I had plenty of extra marshmallowy goodness to top it off, too.

I love toasty marshmallow.

I’m very happy with these cupcakes – the cakes themselves are made from the same recipe I use for all my chocolate cupcakes (because it’s so darn GOOD), to which I gradually added the pepper until I was happy with it. The heat really does hit you after you eat a bite, and it’s an interesting sensation to take one bite right after the last and have the heat of the first bite roll in as you consume the second bite. Yeah, savor these.

The marshmallow frosting is a basic Swiss meringue with not even a whole pod’s worth of crushed seeds (this is some strong stuff, people). Originally I was going to use just the cardamom but upon discovering just how astringent the seeds are once out of the pod (the pod itself smells like woodsmoke but the seeds smell more like rubbing alcohol – don’t let that turn you off, it really is nice in small amounts) I added just a hint of cocoa powder and instant espresso to the meringue to round it out.

These cupcakes are soft, sweet, toasty, spicy and just the right thing to comfort you on a cold day.

Mmmm, warmmmmm.

Urfa Biber Chocolate Cupcakes

First, Bake the Cakes:

1. 1 cup boiling water
2. 1/2 cup (1.76 oz. or 50 g) cocoa powder
3. 1 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp (6.7 oz. or 190 g) AP flour
4. 1 tsp baking soda
5. 1/4 tsp baking powder
6. 1/4 tsp salt
7. 1/2 cup butter, soft
8. 1 cup + 2 Tbsp (8.54 oz. or 242 g) sugar
9. 2 eggs
10. 1 1/2 tsp Urfa Biber

Preheat the oven to 350F. Pour the water into the cocoa and whisk to dissolve. Let come to room temperature. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl down in between additions. Alternately add the wet and dry mixtures in thirds, scraping the bowl often. Mix in the pepper and pour into lined muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before frosting.

Then, Make the Frosting:

1. 4 egg whites
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
4. 2/3 seeds of black cardamom pod, crushed finely
5. Pinch cocoa powder
6. Pinch instant espresso powder

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water (don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water) and whisk constantly until the mixture is hot to the touch. Immediately move to the mixer and whip to stiff peaks. Mix in the cardamom, cocoa and espresso powder. Dollop onto cooled cupcakes and toast with a torch, under a broiler or over an open flame.

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

“In a prehistoric dried up lake

A million years after the last earthquake

There lived a little girl who loved to bake

The only thing she made was cake and all she used was salt

That’s all she had, it’s not her fault

Saline the Salt Lake Queen”

- Rasputina

This was the first idea I had upon learning what this month’s theme was. Saline the Salt Lake Queen is one of my absolute favorite songs to listen to while baking, for obvious reasons.

THAT looks rich.

I had just recently tasted the magnificence that is smoked sea salt, and how EXTRA magnificent it is with chocolate. Oh so good. It goes with a lot of things though, and is something I am thrilled to add to my arsenal of fall-friendly ingredients. I have SO MANY PLANS for it, guys.

The candy has nothing to do with the cupcake, they just looked nice next to it.

I thought that a gooey, smoky, salty chocolate cupcake would be a perfect tribute to the song, with the smokiness playing well into the desolate, crater-riddled landscape that the Salt Lake Queen inhabits.

Same goes for the licorice...though I guess licorice is commonly salted.

I originally was going to use a very bitter 86% cacao chocolate for the ganache but since I made the ganache a bit early and had to refrigerate it overnight, it broke when I was trying to reheat it. Oil leaking everywhere does not a tasty frosting make. I didn’t know what to do so I started over a couple days later with some less intense chocolate I happened to have on hand, but I’m not sure what percentage it is (just received a giant block in a goodie bag from a school event I volunteered to help with). It made a very silky, delicious ganache though. You can go as dark as you’d like but I wouldn’t go too light – I have recently grown very fond of quality milk chocolate but it’s not appropriate here.

Where did the other half go? In my tummy, of course!

Since the color wasn’t as dark with the second batch of ganache I did add a little black food coloring. I originally though I might dye it darker but I like how it turned out anyway. Make sure you use good quality cocoa powder and chocolate, however dark you decide to go – I used Scharffen Berger cocoa powder and, uh, I have no idea what brand the chocolate in the ganache was. Cacao Barry maybe? We use that at school mostly and the squares had cacao beans on them so that’s a safe guess.

...This half went in my tummy, too, only I waited until after I ate lunch.

Along with putting the smoked salt directly into the batter (I kept increasing the amount of salt in the recipe every time I checked it), I sprinkled some on top of the piped ganache, and decorated with a few large crystals of gray Brittany salt, which has a delicate, pure salt taste to it.

These cupcakes are soft, chocolatey, mysterious from the smokiness and just salty enough. They’re also quite a bit tastier than what I imagine Saline was cooking up in her kitchen among the brutal ruins.

Mmm, salt.

Saline’s Salty Chocolate Cupcakes

First, Bake the Cakes:

1. 1 cup boiling water
2. 1/2 cup good quality cocoa powder
3. 1 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp AP flour
4. 1 tsp baking soda
5. 1/4 tsp baking powder
6. 1 1/2 tsp smoked sea salt
7. 1/2 cup butter, soft (make sure it’s unsalted)
8. 1 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
9. 2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350. Pour the water into the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth, then let cool to room temperature. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, incorporating them fully into the butter mixture. Alternately add the wet and dry mixtures in thirds, beating them in fully before adding more. Once the batter is completely combined and smooth, pour into lined muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting. Makes 15-16 full sized cupcakes.

Then, Make the Ganache Frosting:

1. 12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (the darker the better), chopped small
2. 12 oz. heavy cream
3. Few drops black food coloring (if your chocolate is less than 80% cacao)

Place the chopped chocolate in a medium heatproof mixing bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan until it just boils, then pour evenly over the chocolate. Let the mixture sit for up to 30 seconds to allow the chocolate to melt, then, using a whisk, begin slowly stirring from the middle out until all the chocolate is fully melted and emulsified into the cream. If there are any chocolate “chips” left over, you can gently heat the mixture over a double boiler of simmering water, stirring constantly, until everything is melted. If you do that, don’t let it get too hot or your emulsion may break (causing fats to separate and general ickiness). Stir in the food coloring until it’s the right shade of dark, grayish brown. Let the ganache cool to set up a bit, then stir a little to whip up and place in a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes. Sprinkle the cupcakes with a little smoked salt (and a few crystals of gray salt if you have it, or any large, crunchy, delicately flavored salt).

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne

“But you are, my love, the astronaut

Flying in the face of science

I would gladly stay an afterthought

Just bring back some nice reminders”

I wonder if he's cold out there?

This cupcake is based on one of my favorite songs ever – “Astronaut” by Amanda Palmer. It’s a song that grabs your attention and I think it’s the best song she’s written. Heck, I think it’s one of the best SONGS, period.

Hey, at least you have ice cream!

But how was I going to convey the idea of an astronaut in a cupcake? Simple – astronaut ice cream.

Vanilla chunk.

Yes, that dehydrated Neapolitan stuff you get in the gift shops of children’s museums. I decided I’d get some, crush it up and use it to flavor the cupcakes, splitting the batter in half for chocolate and vanilla and saving strawberry for the frosting.

Mmm, chocolate.

It worked out exactly as I hoped and even though it took a bit of work (especially with the fact that I had scaled down the recipe a LOT since I don’t have so many people to share cupcakes with anymore), I think they are adorable, tasty and worth the effort.

Those are chunks of not-quite-crushed-enough ice cream in the frosting, not butter. My buttercreams are always perfect thankyouverymuch ;)

These would be really cute for a space-themed party…or for a bunch of NASA employees, I suppose.

Neapolitan layers!

I really like the last-minute touch of sprinkling extra crumbled ice cream on the frosting. They’re kind of craggy and look like moon rocks or asteroids and add a nice textural contrast and a little boost of ice cream flavor.

Have a scoop...

An extra special thank you to Natalie at Bake & Destroy for making the super spiffy astronaut toppers for me, and for throwing in the little earths to remind the astronauts of home!

Where will he go once the cake he's tethered to is gone?

Astronaut Cupcakes

First, Make the Cupcakes:

1. 1/4 cup butter, soft
2. 1/2 cup sugar
3. 1 cup cake flour
4. 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
5. 1/4 tsp fine salt
6. 1/2 cup milk, divided
7. 3 packages of astronaut ice cream (more if you want to decorate with crumbled ice cream)
8. 2 egg whites, divided
9. 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
10. 1 tsp cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, whisking until they are thoroughly mixed, then divide the mixture in half. Separate the three flavors of ice cream and crush each thoroughly (I used a mortar & pestle, which worked fine, you can use a small prep food processor if you like but crumble the ice cream a bit first and work light to dark – vanilla, strawberry, then chocolate – for the least amount of color contamination). Set the strawberry aside, and whisk the vanilla and chocolate into 1/4 cup milk each. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Remove half of the mixture and set aside. Add the vanilla milk and one half of the dry mixture into the butter-sugar mixture remaining in the mixer bowl. You’ll want to add them alternately, in three additions each, scraping the bowl down thoroughly after each addition. Once completely combined and homogenous, add one egg white and the vanilla extract and beat on medium-high for a few minutes, until the mixture has nearly tripled in volume. If you’re using a stand mixer and have only one bowl for it like I do, remove the batter to another bowl and set aside – no need to wash the paddle or bowl, just scrape thoroughly (if you have more than one bowl for your mixer or are using a hand mixer, just switch bowls). Return the reserved creamed butter mixture to the mixer and beat for a few seconds. Add the cocoa powder to the remaining dry mixture, then combine the chocolate milk, butter mixture and dry ingredients the same way you did for the vanilla, beating the egg in at the end. Spoon the chocolate batter into a lined muffin tin (white paper is important so you can see the different layers), filling them no more than one third full. Top with the vanilla batter. Bake for 15-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before frosting. Makes 10 full-sized cupcakes.

Then Make the Frosting:

1. 2 egg whites
2. 1/2 cup sugar
3. 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
4. 1 cup butter, soft & in small pieces
5. 3 strawberry sections of astronaut ice cream, finely crushed
6. Red food coloring

Place the whites, sugar and cream of tartar in a metal mixer bowl over simmering water and whisk constantly until the mixture comes to a temperature of 160. Immediately transfer to stand mixer (or just start using a hand mixer) and whip until it reaches stiff, glossy peaks and is a warmish room temperature. Switch to the paddle attachment and beat in the butter, adding a few chunks at a time (I learned in class that OMG you don’t actually have to stand around and wait for each piece to get incorporated before adding another…what gives, Joe?) and beating until the mixture is homogenous and fluffy. Sprinkle in the strawberry ice cream and a little red food coloring (just a tiny droplet if it’s liquid and a couple blobs if it’s gel) and beat until completely combined. Spread on cooled cupcakes, sprinkle with small chunks of ice cream and decorate with little astronauts (rocketships are also acceptable).

I was originally going to make a French buttercream (made with egg yolks) for this out of a need to use them up, but I decided to switch to a Swiss meringue moments before I started it. Why? Color, my dears. As incredibly wonderful as egg yolks, sugar syrup and butter are, such a lovely unnatural pink color cannot be achieved without a whiter base. And Swiss meringue is just so gosh darn sturdy! Plus, I have a little something in mind for the leftover egg yolks now…and no, it’s not ice cream.

What I’m Competing For:

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne

I know it's not the best photo, but the cherries really were that dark. Yum, cherries!

Anyway, you probably want to hear about THESE cupcakes. Well, they’re very VERY nice. Full of flavors I adore – cherry, sage, brown butter, vanilla bean. Yum!

OMG CHERRY.

I’ve wanted to try the combination of cherry and sage for a little while and am glad I got such a great opportunity to put them together. The sage compliments the cherry in a way that gives it an almost umami sensation. (And would rock in a pie. That may be coming soon.)

Crumbling the fried sage into a sweet sage-y dust would also work here.

Brown butter is a natural pairing with both sage and vanilla…which also goes perfectly with cherry. The cake is a spongy, incredibly fragrant little morsel, holding a filling of chopped, sage-infused cherries. And the frosting has the perfect balance between fresh and candy cherry flavor, reminding me of Cherry Garcia ice cream (plus butter). I based the recipe off of this one I found at Baking Bites, swapping out the vanilla extract for a vanilla bean infused straight in the milk.

Though often I like cupcakes slightly refrigerated to firm them, this one is perfect at summer room temperature, frosting all gooey and cake squishy.

One-bite cupcakes are so adorable!

Cherry-Sage Cupcakes

First, Make the Vanilla-Brown Butter Cakes:

1. 3/4 cup + 1-2 Tbsp milk
2. 1 vanilla bean
3. 1/3 cup (2.67 oz.) butter, soft
4. 1 1/3 cup AP flour
5. 1 tsp baking powder
6. 1/4 tsp fine salt
7. 1 cup sugar
8. 2 eggs

Place the milk in a small saucepan. Split and scrape the vanilla bean. Add the seeds and pod to the saucepan and simmer over medium heat until it barely comes to a boil. Remove from heat, cover and steep at least 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low, occasionally swirling the saucepan gently, until the butter is amber and toasty but not burnt. Pour into a bowl to cool, gently scraping any browned but not blackened bits from the pan into the bowl with a spatula.

In a medium-large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside. In a smaller bowl, whisk the butter, eggs and milk. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir until just combined. Fill lined muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Let cool in tins for a couple minutes, then remove to rack to fully cool before filling and frosting.

Next, Deal with the Cherries:

1. About 50 cherries, washed, drained & pitted
2. 1 Tbsp sugar
3. 3 large sage leaves, washed & dried

Chop half the cherries into large chunks, about three or four pieces for each cherry. Place the chopped cherries into a small saucepan and add the sugar. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring gently, until the sugar dissolves, then add the ssge. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the cherries are soft, infused with the sage scent and there is a thin cherry syrup in the bottom of the pan. Set aside to cool.

Puree the other half of the cherries in a blender or food processor. Strain the puree – you should have about 1/4 cup. Set aside (if you refrigerate the puree it will gel so don’t be alarmed if you have to finish the cupcakes later – you can warm the puree slightly before adding it to the frosting to relax it).

Then, Fill the Cupcakes:

1. Cupcakes
2. Sage-infused cherries

Cut a cone out of the middle of each cupcake and fill the cavities with the cherries. Trim the cone so that you have a thin-ish lid and place on top of cherries. Set aside and discard of inner cake scraps however you please.

Might As Well Fry That Sage:

1. Fresh sage leaves, rinsed & gently patted dry (you’ll need as many leaves as you have cupcakes, in corresponding sizes, plus a few extra)
2. Canola or safflower oil, for frying
3. Sugar, for dusting

Coat the bottom of a small frying pan with oil and place over high heat. Once hot, drop in sage leaves. Once bright green and stiff (up to 30 seconds) remove with a heatproof slotted spoon to paper towels. Gently blot and toss with sugar. Allow to cool fully.

Finally, Make That Frosting!:

1. 3 egg yolks, room temperature
2. 3 Tbsp water
3. 1/2 cup sugar
4. 1 cup (1/2 lb.) butter, soft & cut in Tbsp
5. 1/4 cup cherry puree
6. 1/4 tsp natural almond extract
7. Red gel food coloring

Whip yolks in a stand mixer on high for 5 minutes, until light & foamy. Meanwhile, cook the water and sugar in a small saucepan until it reaches 248. Turn off the mixture and drizzle some of the syrup in, then turn on to quickly incorporate. Repeat until all the sugar is incorporated and whip the mixture until it reaches room temperature. Switch to the paddle attachment and beat the butter in one piece at a time, waiting for each piece to be fully incorporated before adding the next. If it curdles at any time, just wait it out and it will eventually become smooth and fluffy again. Beat in the cherry puree, then add the almond extract and gradually beat in the coloring a little at a time until you are happy with the color. Transfer the frosting to a pastry bag fitted with your favorite tip and swirl onto the cupcakes. Top each with a sage leaf.

Our June ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:

• A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5021935
• A delicious treat from CIRCLEMONKEY http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5335273
• a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Cupcakery,http://www.acupcakery.com/
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice – sweet!