So sorry it has taken me so long to announce the winner…life is busy as normal.  But before I congratulate the winner I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the contest.  I was absolutely blown away with how many people left comments.  Not only did I get a lot of comments, I got really nice comments…THANKS!!!  I was so happy with this last cookbook giveaway that next week I will be doing another one so make sure and check back with me.  Well, I have delayed enough…the winner from the random drawing is MANDY SESSLER!!!  Congratulations Mandy!  Please email me your address and I will send the book off to you so you can start the baking!  

Today my friend from pastry school is having her 40th birthday party and she asked me to help out.  For the dessert she wanted cupcakes of course.  She said she wanted to keep it simple so we went with vanilla cupcakes with chocolate mousse buttercream and chocolate cupcakes with Chockylit’s cream cheese frosting (aka Vanilla Bean Frosting).  Both of these are simple delicious!  The vanilla cupcakes I tried for the first time are from Vanilla Bakeshop.  They gave the recipe away on the Martha Stewart show and I knew I had to try it.  The chocolate mousse buttercream is from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey which is a fantastic book that I recommend.  This is probably my favorite chocolate frosting right now…definitely worth a try.  

As you can see I topped the pearls with little balls of goodness!  On the chocolate mousse buttercream I sprinkled Pearlized Ivory Dragees from Surfas.  On the cream cheese frosting I sprinkled Valrhona Chocolate Pearls from Surfas too (You can also get them at a lot of Whole Foods too).  These are a fun topping that also taste delicious!