lights, camera, action...devil's food cupcakes go to the movies

i am so tired that i can hardly keep my eyes open to post this. i have had such a hectic weekend but still managed to squeeze in some cupcakes...how do i do it??? if this isn't love then i don't know what is.

my reason for being so tired is because i have spent the weekend with my younger brother and his college classmates on a movie shoot. my brothers movie was chosen as one of the films to get made out of his class as part of his final year in his degree and in his script were two boys. and so, well, being a speech and drama teacher he thought i would be an ideal candidate to be their chaperone as well as coach them on the set to help them perform. so saturday and sunday, i have been with these two boys non-stop and taken care of them. however, it was great fun. the boys were fun and pretty easy to look after and they performed really well on both days. the shoot on saturday was at one of his classmates house, but today it was here.

so when i got home last night (despite starting to feel tired) i took out my mixer and thought i'd make some themed cupcakes to give all the crew and cast for lunch (along with an excellent chicken curry made by my hubby!) the cupcakes went down a treat and were just what the doctor ordered for a cold, long day of filming outdoors with the unpredictable irish weather - we had sun, rain, hail and wind! chocolate is so good for keeping energy levels up! and of course, i couldn't help but make them a little movie-themed with some sugar fondant and those famous words that seemed to be so associated with movies. i even had a part as an extra in a funeral scene!

i really admire all of the crew. they worked so hard and i really had the opportunity to see what really goes into making a movie and this was just a short movie...so imagine what the big guys have to do! and so, they were certainly deserving of some movie cupcakes. next stop the oscars...

devilishly undecided on these devil's food cupcakes

so my mum asked me to have a look and see if i could find any cupcake recipes that used brandy as she had a bottle of brandy that someone had given her as a present and thought it would be good to use some of it up....hmmmm, ok! so i found a recipe for a devil's food cupcake. now, i have made devil's food before, and it was really good, so i thought that the addition of brandy might work well. followed the recipe as stated and the batter was seriously RUNNY! i had to pour it into the cases (as opposed to scoop, spoon, etc.) when it came out of the oven, it looked decidedly interesting...very dark and heavy looking in the cases...gulp!...was this a sign of an impending cupcake-tastrophe! anyway i let them cool and iced them with vanilla buttercream icing - hubby even got in on the act and requested to try and ice a few...funny! then hubby grabbed one to try and i tasted some of the cake. the taste seemed fine but there was a strong presence of the brandy (hell, it IS strong stuff, right!) and this did seem to make the cupcakes heavy, in that, you didn't feel like you could just gobble another 4 or 5 of them down. for me, that's what i like so much about cupcakes, that they are usually so light and airy(fairy) but these cupcakes were not. i would recommend this one as a serious adult dessert only and alcohol-lovers at that! on the upside though, i got really creative with my icing designs and had the opportunity to try out ideas for the chinese new year cupcakes i'll be making on saturday for the Singapore expat group get-together.

introducing the 'reuben special' and some devil's food cupcakes too!

the sunday club got together again and so i was busy in the kitchen....this time i had a special request to work with....reuben had seen a recipe in nigella's cookbook for peanut butter and snickers muffins and he really wanted some. so i decided to do a bit of editing as muffin batter is different to cupcakes. changed the batter, and chopped the snickers and added them in...the result...well see for yourself the photos of the 'naked' reuben and the iced one! the taste was really good...very peanut-y and the snickers had melted to form this lovely gooey chewy-ness in the middle. i made chocolate buttercream for the icing and it was soooooo good i could have just sat down on the floor and devoured the whole bowl without even putting it on the damn things! i made some 'devil's food' cupcakes to go along because not everyone digs peanuts and well, you can't go wrong with chocolate.... iced those guys with cream cheese frosting and the combo was pretty divine as the texture of the cake is truly soft and spongey....that should satisfy the sugar cravings for a few days....or few minutes as the case may be!