Monday, September 14, 2009

Dad's 50th Birthday Meatitarian Feast

Cheeseburger Cupcakes

For this weeks edition of Mmmm good Mondays I bring you Cheeseburger Cupcakes and a feast fit for any carnivore!

We themed the party "Meatitarian" after the Wendy's commercial. Ron and I are raising Wednesday vegetarian and we ourselves only eat meat rarely and when this commercial was released we recieved a couple phone calls from our family making reference to it. We decided to use it as the them to the dinner because my dad is always complaining about the lack of meat at dinnertime these days and I thought he would be able to appreciate a meat buffet.
The buffet consisted of dry rubbed and marinated for two days in a homemade sauce by Ron and then slow baked in the oven ribs, meatballs slow cooked in a crock pot in the same homemade bbq sauce, Sweet and spicy Thai chicken wings, two coleslaw (another homemade ginger sauce by Ron) type salads, bake potatoes, cheese bread, mac n' cheese bake and the Cheeseburger Cupcakes for desert.

The cupcakes were almost as big a hit as Ron's ribs. I got a lot of oohs and aahhs but Ron's ribs were eaten into extinction. I tried a couple meatballs and although the sauce was wonderful I cannot stand ground beef and it's meatballs counterparts. Give me a meatless meatball any day! I did manage to fill up on a bake potato with sour cream and some mac n' cheese. After the entire day in the kitchen making the cupcakes, I really was not that hungry anyway.

The cupcakes were inspired by this flickr tutorial set. I tweaked them a bit using brownie hamburgers (inspired by Martha's brownie cutouts from her Cupcakes book) and buttermilk in the vanilla cake mix (it was a *gasp* box mix) and I made my own vanilla icing recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. A tip: Dust your cookie cutter with cocao to cut out browine 'burgs. I used icing sugar without thinking first and well...you can see where I am going with this.
Topped with some killer 5-0 shaped sparklers they were worth all of the effort.

Better than all of the cooking and baking though was having my family here. My sister and brother were here from Toronto for the night and my other brother came in from Kingston the day of the dinner. Very close friends of the family made it in from out of town for dinner and cake and it was great. Said friends even bought dad a t-shirt that went perfectly with the theme it said "There is room for all of God's creatures, right next to the mashed potatoes." I was sad when everyone had to start heading out hoping to beat the Sunday night traffic but I was exhausted at the same time. After battling that cold this month, having a child who now rises with the sun (literally) and company, visiting and baking I am truly exhausted. I slept like a rock last night and I just might nap with Wednesday in the next hour.

Then again, I might start another craft project because I am a glutton for punishment.

5 comments:

happybirdycake.blogspot.com said...

hi melissa! love the new blog look and awesome cupcakes!
I have both of those new martha books!!! can u say...YUM!! I just made orange cardamon madeleines from her cookie book! sooo good....Honeypie was not too keen on the cardamon though... big hit on the orange frosting...
baking is...addicting!

Melissa said...

Thank you on both counts! The cupcake book really is one of the best food porn books I have! I didn't realize she has a cookie one too. Truth be told I am not the greatest cookie baker so I would probably just muck up most of the recipes. But practice does make perfect and who does not love cookies?

Donna said...

Melissa--what a thoughtful dinner to give your dad! I'm sure he enjoyed it very much. I've been in the hospital with mine and at is home caring for him and am reminded of his importance to me. The cake is darling!!

Melissa said...

Thank you Donna, and I send happy and healing thoughts your way.

Denise Marie said...

this is soooo cute!! I saw this idea in a cupcake book today at Barnes & Nobles. You rocked it! One of my fav friends is from Prince Edward Island but also lived in Toronto.