Fresh & local eats!

As most of you know I'm a huge fan of eating local! If it was possible, I would make my little bakeshop 100 mile approved.......sadly artificial vanilla just isn't the same. But you should know for the most part our cupcakes are truly Canadian. Eveything is grown, processed and packaged in Canada.....except the vanilla!

Anywhoooo back to eating local. The best place to get your local eats is at the Red Deer Public Market. You can virtually find anything there! It runs May long weekend to Thanksgiving long weekend. I wish it was year round....but it would be a little chilly. I think my favourite part about this market is that it IS outdoors. Sometimes mother nature doesn't co-operate and I come home with dozens of cupcakes, but I won't hold that against her. Its a massive market, like I said you can get anything there. So I thought I'd share some of my favourite booths to stop at!

I always start my market morning off with Yolanda Infante's Concession for my bfast samich! I used to get bacon(cause bacons amazing), but have recently switched to tomato...when its available ;0) Yolanda's sammies are super yummy and not greasy! AND the sweetest people work there, always wearing a smile!

Pik-n-Pak is based out of Lacombe and they supply to local grocers as well as set up at markets around Central AB. They are the best place to pick up your produce. They have the best long english cucumbers I have ever had, and a huge variety of tomatoes among other things. I personally race to their stand and grab all I can out of the $5 bin, you can get a huge bag of peppers for five smackers! Steal of a DEAL!

Innisfail Growers is made up of 5 family farms that sell their home grown produce throughout Central AB markets. They have a huge selection to choose from every Saturday, Becks carrots(most delicious carrots you'll ever eat) herbs, root veggies, tomatoes, onions, preserves, flowers......

And my personal favourite berries from the Jungle Farm! Strawberry season is just about over but the raspberries are in. Which means there will be some local raspberries in our Raspberry Lemonade cupcakes!

This lady was too cute not to take a picture of....and the only one willing.

If you love bread like I do, then you need to check out The Black Forest Bakery, based out of Olds, AB. They have artisan breads, pretzels, baked goods, etc. They also have a cute little eatery in Olds that serves lunch. Check out their Facebook page for the weekly menu!

Ps. these two lovely people are so sweet, they gave me some business tips last year and I have never forgot it!

Last on grocery list in Humble Hummus.....although you might not want to go there last. As you can see this hummus is kind of a big deal. It's local & fresh with eco-friendly packaging and sure to tickle your taste buds. Creator Jason offers up weekly features like Black Bean & Cilantro among others.......some of the best hummus I've ever had!

Central Music Festival! Runs August 12-14th and is jam packed with Canadian musicians. Usually they have a musician performing at their booth, unfortunately this past Saturday they didn't. Charlee and I happen to be set up right beside them so we sang for the crowds.......very quietly.... so nobody would get jealous of our amazing voices. That's believable right?

When I'm not buying up all the local eats I usually swing buy the BuyGones Antiques & Collectables set up. They have quite a selection, I've purchased a number of things from them over the years. Although I'm not much of a "Canadian Picker", I have to say they have the biggest selection of Fire King products that I have found in

Red Deer!

LAST but certainly not LEAST....Cuppitycakes Bakeshop! The weather made me a little nervous this Saturday but it turned out to be gorgeous. I even have the sunburn to prove it! This past week I brought along some new treats from the bakeshop, Blueberry Scones and Dutch Almond Cake. In the future I'll be bringing various sweet treats along with our infamous cupcakes! Check out the Facebook page for more updates. We'll be back at the market August 20th, be sure to swing by!

xxoo ST

Love is in the air.....

This summer has been packed with weddings!! Who doesn't love a wedding?! Gorgeous flowers, elegant gowns, buffets of food and insanely uncomfortable shoes that make your calve scream ever time you pass by them in your closet. I personally enjoy the reception the most, I know the ceremony really is supposed to be the best part, but lets be serious if you had moves like I do you'd feel the same way ;0) Now if I'm not a guest at the wedding and get to create some super cute/pretty/unique cupcakes, my favourite part would have to be the set up of the display! I get a little misty when my clients say; "We'll pick them up! That way you don't have to drive all this way." I can just feel the smile beaming through the phone, so proud that they saved me 30 min trip to the next town. I appreciate it pals&gals I really do, but putting up the display is the BEST part of the design!

Also this year, some of my past designs were used for a few weddings.......so I won't show those pictures. But here are some pics for your viewing pleasure!

Oh and a special congrats to Amy&Cody on their marriage! AND a big thanks to all the brides and grooms for letting Cuppitycakes be a part of your special day!

I'll leave you with this video of the A&C flash mob

entrance......please keep in mind that cocktails

started an hour before this. Enjoy!

The biebs!

I'm going to try and post more often......even if it's only a picture or two. But first I want you all to know that our new menu is on the horizon! As well as our new look, which I'm really excited about! Braden from make marks design has turned my crazy ramblings into something real! Which means our website will be changing as well as the blog.....a little anyways.

I also wanted to Congratulate our Facebook fan who won some sweet limited edition swag and custom cupcakes of course! Thanks for all your input fans, the new menu is gonna be grrrrreat!

Now market season is fast approaching, weddings are consuming all my weekends and I can't wait to share new tasty treats with all of you! Make sure this summer you swing by and see what we're all about. I'll leave you with on of our recent creations.......Justin Bieber......please take no offence Biebs.....it's you in your younger days!

Cheers, ST!

And that's what happen on...

GLEE CUPCAKES!!

Being a huge fan of musical theatre was thrilled to pieces when the television Glee started up! And finally thanks to my lovely friend Julia for being born I got to whip some up for her 25th birthday! Here's what I came up with!

My favourite characters are Sue and Brit......mostly because of the one-liners....

I guess the writers are my favourite then.

That's all for now!

From cake to frosting: A year in review

2010 has by far been the best year for Cuppitycakes! I personally got to go places I would have never gone, and created things I never imagined I could do. I have so many people to thank for spreading the word. THANK YOU!!!

I thought it might be nice show some of my favourite things about this year. I'm told I'm not very good at blogging.......I have no idea what their talking about ;0) I'll try to do better! As I said before, this past year was filled with so many great opportunitues for me to really challenge myself. I had a chance to make up cupcakes for several music lovers. Making a 2inch guitar out of fondant isn't an easy task, trust me. Practice makes perfect!

Starting in April my evenings and weekends were full Pixar, Disney, Fairytales, Superheros, ....it was never ending! It was liking watching Saturday morning cartoons every waking moment, I was a kid again! These are just a few, WAY too many to put them all up. I have to thank momstown.ca for sending moms our way. Love you gal's!

In 2010 we had alot of charities and associations ask for donations. For the most part we were able to help anyone who asked, which gives me the warm and fuzzies! Love puting a smile of peoples faces! We donated cupcakes to some of our regular causes and some new ones too. We had some events too: the annual tennis tournament for the Red Deer Tennis Club, SPCA Grand Opening, Jungle Farm Fall Feastival and Pirates & Princess Party put on by momstown.ca.

Wedding season starts every January fielding phone calls for upcoming neptuals in the summer. Last summer was our biggest year so far (this year is looking good), it's always fun being part of the couples big day. I also headed off to Anchorage Alaska do an old friends wedding. I even made my first wedding cake! 18 hours of pure fondant, flour and delish cupcakes. Alaska is beautiful I highly recommend taking a trip there, its just amazing!

Well that's about all I can handle sitting in front of this computer. Thanks to our Facebook fans for spreading the word, the lovely market goers, family&freinds and lastly the Jungle Farm!

xxoo ST

A tribute to the arts.

Hello Ladies and gents, its been a loooooong time. But I needed to share some exciting news with you all. Drum roll please.....................Cuppitycakes Cupcakery now has T-SHIRTS!!! Okay, so maybe not that exciting for you guys as much as me but in any case you can show your love. Yeah!

Men's T's - indigo, white, black and green. Various sizes

Ladies T's - peach, sky blue, black, white and green. Various sizes

Thank you so much to Braden from make marks design for creating some really radical designs! I loved them all! It was very difficult to pick only a few to share with all you fans. Right now we are sporting the "spray" design on euro fitted T's and snazzy black aprons. Stay tuned for more designs.

And another big thanks to Mike at A Rare Brand for creating our logo.

Love you boys, your amazing and your work shows it!

Market Inspirations!

Living in Red Deer, there isn't always much to do on a weekday. Unless you're involved in other activities like soccer, baseball, dance...etc. So I tend to shop, mostly for food mind you at the local markets. Practically every town in Central Alberta has some sort of weekly market. The most recent market to start up in Red Deer is Down Town Market on Wednesdays running from 4pm-7pm right in the heart of down town! Its all local, fresh and deeeeelicious! All the fresh fruit, veggies, herbs, preserves, and baked goods can prove to be too tempting for some! Especially me. Stocking my fridge to the gills with local fresh goodies is all good but sometimes I find myself, scrambling to eat everything I bought for fear of it going bad! So I thought I should use some of those fruits and veg in some of my cupcakes this week I tried blueberry cupcakes with blueberry frosting! The cake was great the frosting needs a little work.

mmmmm blueberries.....I need to name this cupcake. Old blue? Booberry? I'll have to work on that.

I also tried out a peach cupcake, with a brown sugar frosting. Clearly the peaches weren't from the Red Deer area. I actually bought them at the Saturday Public Market. I only got through 4 of the six when they were getting a little too soft for my liking. I'm still trying to pull through a more intense peach flavour in the cupcake . Hopefully I'll have it figured out by next week and you all can try it!

The brown sugar frosting was sweet but surprisingly good.

I think I will name this one, "Peachy Keen"!

Toodles Pal's&Gal's!