Good Ole Bakes Sales and Spice Cupcakes

The Bake Sale was a success! Its been a few days since the first DC Food Bloggers Bake Sale and I have already gotten several requests from people to do this again. We raised over $500 for Martha's Table and I'm just so happy with how everything turned out. The baked goods were delicious, everyone who promised to donate baked goods came through, and I got to meet a lot of really nice people! I got to see Modern Domestic again, I got to talk Culinary School talk with Mango & Tomato and Capital Spice. I got to meet State Dinner, French Twist DC, Gradually Greener, and Metrocurean for the first time. The couple from Pete Bakes! stopped by to check out our baked goods. So many others came and supported us such as Urban Bohemian, DC Brit from Endless Simmer, and thanks to Stopthepota for doing the heavy lifting. (Yes, I am shamelessly name dropping.)

A big thank you to Adventures in Shaw for coming up with the idea and organizing. Thank you to Arugula Files for helping recruit great Food Bloggers to participate and for having great energy at the booth. Another big thank to my friends Joy, Rachel, and Anna who donated delicious baked goods for the cause (these girls are some of the best bakers I know.) For more pictures and info about the event, please check out these write-ups:

Adventures in Shaw
Arugula Files
Modern Domestic
Gradually Greener

This is a picture of the table towards the end of the day when we had already sold most of the baked goods. The two tables were COVERED with delicious things such as Caramel Bars, Heath Candy Bar cookies, Congo Bars, Mint Chocolate Whoppie pies, Snickerdoodle Cookies, Peanut Butter Cupcakes, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and so much more.


Thank you ACKC for donating coffee. It was so nice to sip a hot cup of coffee while it was drizzling and we were shivering from the cold wind.


One of the items that I baked for the Bake Sale were Spice Cupcakes. This recipe was given to me by a good friend's mom. She would like to stay anonymous but I can tell you that this lady is one of the sweetest and coolest moms I know. I hope she comes to visit us often!


The recipe calls for one box of Pillbury Plus Yellow Cake Mix. I have been told that this is the best boxed cake mix that you can buy because it produces the most moist cake. Lucky for me, they were on sale for $1 per box at Giant last week. The secret to using boxed cake mixes is to add a little bit of flavor to each batch. I added a teaspoon of vanilla that my cousin Stephanie got for me from Mexico. Its a very strong vanilla. Also added to these cupcakes are a variety of spices: nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, allspice and cloves. I ended up using pumpkin spice because I didn't have any allspice or cloves in the house.


Did you know that you are suppose to remove the paper wrappers from the foil wrappers? I always baked my cupcakes with the paper wrappers in the foil. I guess that just doubles the value of those foil wrappers because I will just use the paper ones the next time I make cupcakes.

They come out so pretty and so moist.



The topping is a Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting. Its pretty awesome. Here is the recipe:

Cake:

1 Pillsbury Plus Yellow Cake Mix
1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves
1-2 tsp vanilla, depending on taste

Mix cake as directed and add the spices and vanilla. Mix it all together. Pour into baking cups and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely. Frost with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
8oz cream cheese softened
1/2 stick butter, softened
1 lb powdered sugar
1tsp vanilla
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon, depending on taste

Mix all ingredients together at medium speed until light and fluffy.

All I can say is that Food Bloggers are probably the nicest people on earth because they eat well and have good Karma for sharing the food love.