12 Days of Lailah - Ink & Batter Lailah holiday cupcakes!!

Lailah by Nikki Kelly
Styclar Saga #1
Release date: October 7th 2014

Synopsis:

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely ally – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

  

Hey guys! Today I have a very special Ink & Batter edition, because it is part of the 12 Days of Lailah celebration! You might be wondering what the 12 Days of Lailah are? Well, it's a special tour organized by the founder members of the Styclar Street Team and Nikki Kelly herself!You can discover many new tidbits about the book and the characters, find you awesome Xmas music and drool with Lailah themed cupcakes and cookies!

For my own stop I couldn't choose anything else but Lailah inspired decorated cupcakes! I went with chocolate & vanilla cupcakes (half & half so to speak!) with vanilla cream cheese icing, since it'd would also give a nice contrast in looks as well as in flavour! And then did a few fondant decorations that highlight some key details in the book: angel wings, Lailah's ring, the chess game, fangs, a few country flags and let's not forget the Xmas tree that Lailah and the others decorate!

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And don't miss out on any of the days either past or present of the 12 Days of Lailah!!

 

*Sunday, December 14th: Beth at Curling Up With a Good Book shares a Lailah-themed Christmas playlist.

*Monday, December 15th: Brittany at Please Feed the Bookworm matches Lailah characters to their fitting ugly Christmas sweaters.

*Tuesday, December 16th: Rachel at A Perfection Called Books shares exactly what to get the Lailah, Gabriel and Jonah for Christmas.

*Wednesday, December 17th: Patricia at The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club shines some light on exactly how Gabriel and Jonah would celebrate the holidays in their respective realms.

*Thursday, December 18th: Pili at In Love With Handmade whips up some Lailah holiday cupcakes.

*Friday, December 19th: Andrew at Endlessly Reading showcases Jonah and Brooke's potential Christmas outfits.

*Saturday, December 20th: Jessica at The Book Bratz hosts a guest post by Lailah author Nikki Kelly where she shares her favorite Christmas traditions and memories.

*Sunday, December 21st: Ri at Hiver et Cafe releases some exclusive Lailah quotes and shares her take on what Lailah would wear for Christmas.

*Monday, December 22nd: Andrew at Endlessly Reading hosts a character interview with author Nikki Kelly, Lailah, Jonah and Gabriel.

*Tuesday, December 23rd: Genissa at A Story Diary hosts a guest post from Nikki Kelly about the Christmas scene from Lailah.

*Wednesday, December 24th: Dana at Dana Square bakes some Lailah-inspired Christmas cookies.

*Thursday, December 25th: Amber at The Book Bratz releases a brand-new rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas - Lailah style.

Ink & Batter #9: Ensnared by A.G. Howard!!!

Well, well, well! Finally Ink & Batter is BACK!!

After a loooong hiatus, longer than I had planned at first, I must admit, my beloved feature with book inspired decorated cupcakes is BACK!

I'm not sure if I'll be able to manage weekly posts from now on, but I'm gonna try my best for sure to return to the weekly Ink & Batter posts from now on, since I can bake without melting and the fondant doesn't get sticky easily any more!

I have quite a few recipes & books & notes for decorations in my lil notebook, but it was quite coincidence the way I chose the cupcakes I'd first bake for this return. I planned to bake some cupcakes to take to work at the request of one of my co-workers and I wanted to try this recipe and then I realized it was the recipe I had planned for when I made the Ensnared cupcakes... so one thing lead to another and I ended up making Ensnared cupcakes!

Ensnared by A.G. Howard is the third and final book in the Splintered trilogy and it's a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland! It's a pretty inspiring series because I also made Ink & Batter cupcakes for the other two books in the series: Splintered and Unhinged!

Since I still haven't read the book because it doesn't release till Jan and I haven't got an ARC, I used the cover as inspiration and all the clues about it that A.G. Howard gave during the reveal of the cover.

The red liners were a must, give the colour of the cover, and then I used red, orange & yellow colours to dye the whipped cream of the grasshopper cupcakes, that seemed the more fitting recipe for the series (even Anita chose that recipe when I asked her on Twitter!). Hearts & monarch butterflies are the most important things in the book accoring to my friend La La that has read the ARC, but somehow I also had lobsters in my notes so I made one of those too!

I'm dying to get my hands on the book so I can see the relevance of all the little details I picked from my notes! Btw, in case you are wondering, what's on the cupcake with the lobsters is a bad attempt at a red bat! ;)

If you haven't read the first books in the series, do it now! so you can be ready to read Ensnared when it releases!

What do you guys think? Happy to have Ink & Batter back? I know I am!

Stay tuned for more book inspired cupcakes in the next edition of Ink & Batter coming soon! (next week, hopefully!

Ink & Batter #8: The Art Of Lainey by Paula Stokes!!

Hello everyone!! Happy Thursday & welcome once again to a new edition of Ink & Batter!

Summer has arrived and although I have many recipes that I want to try and many ideas for book inspired cupcakes, Ink & Batter is gonna be taking a bit of a breather from its weekly schedule. It's too hot to get the oven cranking and to play with fondant (it dries up too easily and gets too sticky when modeling), so unless I get a few cooler days (with summer storms and lower temperatures...) I won't be baking as much.

But, this week there's a new collection of cupcakes! And this week once again Pivot Book Reviews's Cover Puppies and Ink & Batter are synching books!

And what book is the one inspiring Becca and me this week? The Art of Lainey by Paula Stokes!

 Check out Becca's Lainey Cover Puppies too!

I looked around in my liners bag and ended up settling for the lilac ones since they seem to match the colour of the back cover of the book best. When choosing decorations I had to have two, a cupcake with a mohawk (the author herself requested it) and one with a football (soccer) ball! As for the flavour, I went for chai cupcakes cause I noticed quite a few mentions of chai latte or chai tea while reading the book!

Football (soccer) ball and jersey, some of the different locations from the book, the book that started it all and a cupcake with a mohawk! I had a blast making these! Hope you guys will like them!

Hopefully I'll get to make more if the weather isn't too horribly hot! But at the very least, be on the lookout for Deliverance cupcakes Ink & Batter on it's release week! ;)

Ink & Batter #7: Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins!!

Hello everyone! Happy Thursday and welcome to a new edition of Ink & Batter!

This week, I'm sharing the cupcakes I did inspired by a book I hadn't read yet (at the time I made them and wrote this post) but since then, it was selected as Read Discuss Repeat Virtual Bookclub's book for May: Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins!
I was quite inspired by its lovely cover and I asked Wendy from The Midnight Garden and Stephanie from Inspiring Insomnia for decoration ideas, since both had read and loved the book! Thank you ladies for your ideas!

I went for the orange and pale pink cupcake liners since they matched the cover colours, and used my mango lassi recipe for the mini cupcakes since I already had to do the test run for the recipe for my friend's wedding!

Dagger, orange ribbons and pearls, I got from the cover. Then on Stephanie's suggestions I did the lipstick/lipgloss, tiara, newspaper and grade's report!

Have you guys read the book? Do you think I did a good job on these cupcakes?

Stay tuned for more book inspired cupcakes on the next edition of Ink & Batter!

Ink & Batter #6: The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski!!

Happy Thursday everyone! Welcome to a new edition of Ink & Batter!

This week's cupcakes are inspired by one amazing book with one hell of a beautiful cover, and as much as I've tried, I don't think I've done justice to the absolute beauty that is The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski!

As Becca had already done a version of this stunning cover for her Cover Puppies, she's doing a different cover this week, but do check Gentry being as gorgeous as Krestel HERE! Puppies in dresses for the win!

Since I was already making red velvet mini-cupcakes to test the recipe for my friend's wedding, I thought they'd be perfect for the colour scheme of the book and chose brown lines to match the cover since the base is brown flooring. And I did my best to give the impression of the dress with the coloured icing!

I had quite a few ideas for decorations to make for these (like the piano, the daggers and the Bite & Sting tiles) but I asked Marie on Twitter and she asked her followers in turn, so some of these are also their suggestions, like the boat! I also tried hand modeling a krestel, but making birds of prey is out of my abilities!

The daggers & tiles, along with the piano and notes are for Krestel; the scroll horseshoe & hammer are for Arin's stint as slave blacksmith; the boat, anchor and rope for Krestel's escape; the wine cup and tie are for the party that started it all; and the sword and money bag for both the money that bought Arin and the one that saved Kestrel and swords that started the rebellion.

I hope you'll love these cupcakes, guys! I tweeted a sneak peek of them a while back and Marie said she loved them, so I'm beyond happy!

Next week I'll be back with more book inspired cupcakes, so stay tuned for even more Ink & Batter, guys!