The Time I Made 150 Cupcakes For My Own Engagement Party

Don't forget, we are collecting your favorite cookie recipes for the Virtual Cookie Swap! Email them on over to theavidappetite [at] gmail [dot] com, we'll start posting them later this week!

This time of year, particularly the weekend after Thanksgiving, always takes me back to one of the best celebrations I've ever attended - Shaun and my engagement party, which took place on the Saturday following Thanksgiving in 2007! Since we had decided to get married on a beach in Aruba, where surely many friends and family would not be able to attend, we were lucky enough to have a huge engagement party thrown by our parents at my parents house. With about 150 of our closest friends and family. Had we not gotten married in Aruba, I would have loved to get married in the fall. Rich, deep colors and breezy cool weather has always been my favorite time of the year! So instead of planning a fall wedding, we planned a fall engagement party! I thought it would be fun to relive this as the last weekend went by and share it with all of you!

Though it was long before the blog days - and pre-cupcake obsession days to boot - I knew that I wanted some fun and festive touches to mark the occasion. I wanted fall-themed cupcakes. After researching well-known Manhattan confectionaries, including Crumbs and Magnolia Bakery, I someone had the genius idea to simply make the cupcakes myself. Why?

Well...

In hindsight, I do not know.

I'm not going to lie to you (remember how I hate that?), it was a lot of work. And so I spent the week before the party baking cupcakes, freezing 'em and making lots and lots of frosting in deep, fall tones. I do know, however, that icing 150 cupcakes with a piping bag can injure your hands to borderline carpal tunnel syndrome. You were warned.

But aren't they pretty? My mom and I devised the entire tablescape and I couldn't have been happier with the outcome. Mom picked up Fall tableclothes and giant styrofoam pices that we covered with fabric. For the cupcakes themselves, we chose vanilla cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook along with both vanilla and chocolate buttercream.

In addition to the glorious cupcake display (which, by the way, only about 75 of them were eaten, so we had a veritable freezer's worth of cupcakes for months...), I thought I'd take you on a little tour of the party! The house was so jam packed with guests that at times it was tough to move! We had set up tables in the kitchen, dining room and family room.

So many friends and family joined us to celebrate and we considered ourselves the luckiest people in the world to have such wonderful people in our lives!

And you know it wouldn't be a party in the Cannon house without an overload of food! In addition to a catered buffet, we also had some hors d'oeuvres trays, veggie crudite and some other desserts, including cheesecake made by my mother-in-law!

We even set up a bar (with bartender...who I think we pushed out of the way so we could get in there at the end of the night) in the entryway between the living room and my dad's office. Here's a bunch of us toasting a great night with great friends!

It was also so wonderful to have all of my bridesmaids together. I was thrilled to have my sisters Christine and Kimberly, along with my long-time besties Jen, Catherine and Lindsey as part of the wedding. Now we all live so far apart and it's so nice to look back at a time when I could be with all of them together on this great evening!

And can we take a moment for this guy?

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I just had to include this great photo of my dad and me (can you tell we're related?). I always regale you with tales of my mom here on the blog, and Dad usually doesn't make an appearance. But I have to tell you. My dad is the best ever. In fact, he was the first one rejoicing when we announced that we wanted to get married in Aruba (he loves travel, warm climates, and making his 3 daughters happy :)). Since I was a child, he has always told me that I could do and be anything I wanted and I doubt that I would have even had the guts to share this blog with the world if it weren't for him. And...oh alright. Now I need to share my favorite throwback photo of Dad and me...

I'm sure my mom would want me to mention that she has since removed the floral wallpaper in her kitchen.

But I digress. It really was the best party, and only the beginning of so many happy times to come in Shaun and my life together. 

And as I sit on the couch typing this article, with my beloved playing Christmas music DJ and tickling my feet as I try to swat him away while giggling, I look back on that night as one of the best of my life - the night I celebrated with all of my friends and family, basking in happiness that I was about to embark on a new chapter with the man I loved.

Oh and I almost forgot the whole point of this article. The cupcakes were pretty good too.

Holiday Cookie Swap + My Etsy Shop

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I'm feeling severely under the weather today and I'm continuing to give thanks that I have this guy in my life...

...since he has not only cleaned up the joint after our game day feast, but voluntarily picked up my tissues, made me tea and went out to get us lunch supplies for the week while I blog and watch The Muppets Christmas Carol. True story.

Anyhoo, I have already begun my holiday baking! Though I save most of my cookie making for later in December with my mom and sisters, I thought it would be fun to try out some new recipes and have some pretty cookie trays as hostess gifts from now until New Year's.

And since I've been making so many, I recently opened up an Etsy shop, where you can purchase holiday cookies for all of your party needs! We are shipping anywhere in the US, however, if you live in Manhattan or Jersey City/Hoboken, we can arrange a pick up if you wish and can include more custom orders like cupcakes since they won't be damaged during shipping. If you're in the market for some holiday cookies, head on over to The Tiny Red Kitchen to check them out. Oh and as always, feel free to email me with any questions!

Holiday cookie tray featuring Eggnog Snickerdoodles, Chocolate dipped Shortbread, Chocolate Snowcaps, White Chocolate Cherry Chunkies

Now that that's out of the way, here's what I really wanted to discuss with you. Since I'm such a cookie fiend around the holidays, I thought it would be fun to organize a virtual cookie swap here on TAA. From now until December 23rd, I'll be collecting your favorite cookie recipes and posting them here on the site for all to see, bake at home and enjoy! Oh and if you don't celebrate Christmas, that's no excuse since, hey who doesn't like cookies regardless of the celebration?

So if you have a recipe to share, please email it over (theavidappetite@gmail.com) along with a photo (the photo part is very important since we all eat with our eyes before our mouths!) and I'll try to publish as many as I can. So what do you say? Are you up to the challenge? By the time Christmas rolls around, we could have an arsenal at our disposal for all things cookie baking!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

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It’s Friday and it makes me oh-so-happy for a number of reasons. First, because it’s almost the weekend, which always deserves and automatic hooray! Second, because next week will be a very short week since it’s Thanksgiving. After today, it feels like it’s officially the holiday season, and I love every minute of it!

So today I’m wrapping up our fun Thanksgiving roundup with another very important piece of the puzzle - dessert! Since there was only 4 of us, we decided to skip the table full of desserts thing, and only serve one dish. I have to admit, while I am a sampler at heart, having one dessert to share and enjoy by all was a really nice change. Especially since it was light, airy and pumpkiny to boot.

Hold the phone. You’re probably thinking, Light? Airy? I thought we were talking about cheesecake here. Yup, you heard me right.

Since Lindsey isn’t huge on the traditional pumpkin pie, and I’m always looking to change it up, we decided on pumpkin cheesecake. And after gathering all my ingredients on the morning of the dinner party, I realized that the recipe we planned to use called for a 3 hour baking time (Now I felt like Ross from Friends when someone steals his sandwich, as I ranted 3 hours? 3 HOURS?!). Anyhow, we needed a back up plan and fast. After a quick search, I came across Paula Deen’s version.

And though you can judge all you want for her obsession with butter and generally all things terrible for your body, the lady knows what she’s doing. Her cheesecake seemed simple and quick to boot - 1 hour cook time, no pre-baking the crust, mixing everything together in one giant bowl. So we went with it. And the result? An airy whipped cheesecake set in a graham cracker crust that had just a hint of pumpkin flavor. Can we say perfect dessert for post-huge dinner? Though there were a few flaws (like a giant crack down the middle of mine!), I’d make this recipe again for its ease of use, quick baking time, and delectable outcome, despite its final aesthetics. Plus, what do you think they invented whipped cream for?

Pumpkin Cheesecake
*Adapted from Paula Deen
For the crust:
1 3/4 C graham cracker crumbs
3 tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 stick melted salted butter
For the filling:
3 (8 oz) pkgs cream cheese, at room temperature
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Special equipment:
9-inch spring form pan (I got one as a Christmas gift 2 years ago!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, butter, sugar and cinnamon. Press into the pan. (Note: I found pre-crumbed graham crackers in the grocery store, which eliminated the extra step of processing them myself! Though I normally would not have a problem with this, the point is that even if you don’t have a food processor, you can snap these up. Oh and did I mention that they were cheaper than a box of whole graham crackers? Well they were.)

In a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth (it’s best if you leave it out of the fridge the night before...I didn’t do this and it took longer for mine to come together, not to mention that it still had tiny lumps in it!).  Add in the pumpkin, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar and spices and mix until combined. Add the flour and vanilla, beating until it’s all combined and smooth. Pour the filling into the crust - mine filled almost up to the top of the pan. Doesn't that look delightful?

Bake for one hour. Remove and let sit for 15 minutes. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours. (Note: I made this first, before anything else, so that it would have plenty of time to cool!) Serve with lots of whipped cream if ya like! And I do like. 

So there you have it. A light, easy pumpkin cheesecake of which, admittedly, I'm still polishing off the remnants. So what do you think? What is your favorite Thanksgiving dessert?

In case you missed it, check out how we brined a turkey at 3AM, made hearty turkey sausage stuffing and mashed up the perfect potato! And for even more Thanksgiving food ideas, check out our Recipes page, under Thanksgiving!