A Little Piece Of Heaven

I was in the mood for something sweet yesterday and since I had my left over cream cheese frosting from the red velvet cupcakes I made last week, I figured why not?

Whats better then Banana and chocolate chips?!?! NOTHING! One of my favorite fruits in the universe are bananas and paired with chocolate it cant be beat! My original thought was to make these full size cupcakes, but I figured how fun it would be to make mini cupcakes....so I did, and here they are...My Funky Monkey Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Cupcakes!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 eggs, at room temperature

2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup mashed overripe banana (1 large)

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips (make sure to throw some flour on them before adding them to batter. That prevents them from sinking to the bottom of the cupcake)

Oven at 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

 

In a small bowl, combine banana, buttermilk, and vanilla.

 

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, 1/4 c. at a time, beating on medium speed until light and fluffy and scraping down sides of bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl after each addition.

Add in flour and banana mixtures, beginning and ending with the flour, and mix on low speed until just combined.

 

Fold in mini chocolate chips.

 

Bake for 18-20 minutes if full size cupcake but only bake for about 13-15 minutes for mini cupcakes.

*Cream Cheese frosting can be found in my red velvet blog below.
Make sure to use pretty little cupcake wrappers on these, add some colorful sugar sprinkles or a banana chip right on top, and always add Love....Enjoy!

 

Blending Magic

When doing your eye makeup you always want the shadows to naturally flow into each other without there being a beginning or end to the shadow colors.  To achieve that look the trick is to use a blending color. The best kind of shadow to use depending on your skin color is a taupe, light brown or in my case I use almost a light burnt orange/brown color (no 70 from makeup forever). Always put the blending color over the crease color. Don't forget to use a lighter shadow for right under the brow (I use: next to nothing from Mac). This allows the rest of the colors on your eye to pop more.
On my eyes:
Lid color: Star violet, Mac
Crease color: Shadowy lady, Mac
Blending color: No 70, makeup forever
Highlight color: Next to nothing, Mac

Red Velvet

In honor of my best friend I decided to make a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting, because its her favorite.  I've never done one before so I did my research and found that Paula Deen's were the best!! Although I tweaked the recipe a little, they really came out great.

For the cupcake:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cocoa powder (I put about 1 1/2 teaspoon to taste the cocoa flavor more)

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil (I only used 1 cup vegetable oil)

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 eggs, room temperature

2 tablespoons red food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar (I used red wine vinegar bc that's all I had) 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Set oven to 350 degrees.

 In a bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a another bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Put the batter into the cupcake holders and bake for about 20-22 minutes. I only baked mine for about 18, but it depends on your oven.

For the Cream cheese frosting:

1 pound cream cheese, softened

2 sticks butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Using your mixer, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy

After icing the cupcakes I topped them with crushed walnuts!! Don't forget to put cupcakes in a pretty wrapper and remember to add love....Enjoy!

Creasing Be Gone

On my quest to find the perfect eye shadow base I've come across many that were good but not great. I needed a base that would allow my shadows to stay on for very long periods of time, as I work long hours in cosmetics and I am always hot because of the lighting lol. This candy eyes eye shadow helper from Lime Crime is probably one of the best things I have ever tried/use. Not only does it stay on eyelids that are oily w/o any creasing, but it makes any eye shadow water proof! I've put on eye shadow early in the morning and the shadow was in tact at night. Try it and you'll love it! For $16.99 you cant beat it.

Purple Haze

One of my favorite colors to do on my eyes are purples and plums. They work great on pretty much any color eye, especially brown and green eyes. Sometimes finding the right shade of purple can be tricky and might give the impression that you have dark circles. The bluey, purples sometimes can do that, so I would suggest having someone try them on you before you buy.  

Lid color is from the butterfly collection from Mac (loose pigment) in desert cloud. The Crease color is parfait amour, also from Mac and of course Black gel liner from Bobbi Brown ( nothing beats that liner!!!)

 Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Pop Of Colour

The smokey eye is definitely one of my favorite looks and there are so many different variations of it you can do.  What I love the best is when I do a soft smoke on my lid and then add a pop of color to my lips.

In this case I used Bobbi Brown's Iron shadow on my lid and charcoal haze in my crease. The lip color is from Revlon called hot coral.

Lemon Bombshells

As The weather WAS getting warmer and I emphasis the "was", because now I am freezing again lol,  I wanted to make a cupcake that reminded me of Spring. I chose this Lemon cupcake with lemon butter cream icing which I think turned out to be a really big hit.

 For the cake:
4 room temperature eggs (separated)
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of room temperature butter
2 cups sugar
1 cup room temperature milk ( I added a little more then a cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest

For the Frosting
A stick 1/2 of butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons lemon zest

Steps:
350 degree oven!
Beat the egg whites to soft peaks with your mixer. Carefully remove to another bowl and set aside. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.  Beat the softened butter until light and fluffy. Pour in the sugar and continue mixing until it is well combined and  fluffy. Then add the egg yolks, one at a time. Next, add in the vanilla, and then the juice and zest.
Add the flour mixture and milk alternately and slowly until the flour mixture and milk are just combined. When the flour is fully mixed, gently fold in the egg whites.
Bake 20-25 minutes depending on your oven, mine only needed about 20 to bake.
After cupcakes are baked have them cool for a while before putting the frosting on.

To make the frosting, beat the butter on a medium speed until light and fluffy. Add in the powdered sugar and beat until the mixture is fluffy and airy. Add in the vanilla, lemon juice and zest.

Garnish with some lemon peel, lemon zest or some fun spring colored sprinkles like I did....and make sure to use a fun cupcake wrapper and don't forget to add Love!! Enjoy

My Pick of the day:

For all you MAD MEN fans out there, this new limited edition lipstick in cherry from Estee Lauder may be just what your looking for to complete your spring look. Inspired by the cherry red lips worn for that era, this lipstick is vintage and classic.

Something OLD, Something BLUE

Hello Everyone!!!

This is my first blog entry and for those of you reading this I would like to thank you for stopping by!

As I was cleaning out my drawers this past weekend I found this oldie but goodie color from MAC called "freshwater." Such a beautiful color, I decided to rehash it and wear it.  With fresh water on the lid I paired it with China blue shadow from Nars and Charcoal shadow from Bobbi Brown, both in the crease.