Mother's Day Cupcakes!

Well of course you must do mother’s day cupcakes to sweeten her up! The ideas I used are similar to the picnic ones:

Hershey’s recipe-my mother will accept nothing and I mean NOTHING else! ;)

Green grass, butterflies (using the pretzels and m&m’s, and flowers (Sunflowers and basic ones using cut-up airheads and m&m’s).

The grass and Sunflowers turned out MUCH better than the first few times! What I did differently was plan way ahead for time and after coloring the frosting, I stuck it in the freezer and took it out only when used.

The more firm the frosting is, the better shape you are going to get. I did use my pastry bag and the grass tip for the grass (best turn out yet!). For the petals I used the technique advised from the book: V-shaped cut on corner with the tape to make it stronger. REMEMBER: the wider the cut the better the flowers. If you look closely at the petals you’ll notice a line in the middle, that’s from the cut! I love it! And I used off-brand Oreo’s for the middle and it shows “seeds” better than the Oreo would! 

So this was definitely a success and I’m getting better and better every time I create. I am still looking for ideas people so get them to me please!

Monkeying Around!

So this is a request for me: make monkey-themed vanilla flavored cupcakes. I been searching around for some homemade recipes (and forgot to check my cookbooks! SHAME ON ME!) and found one I thought would work good. I did everything right down to the last detail. They baked, smelled, and tasted like sugar cookies! When we tried to peel them from the paper-EPIC FAIL! They were no longer a “cake”. The recipe I used was VERY similar to the one I mentioned in the first post; except I added milk and baking powder. That was NOT a good recipe to use so I promise to post one better. (I will definitely be posting some in June for “wedding season” cupcakes!)

 So being limited on time, I decided to stick with a boxed mix and will try another time.

My decorating methods were simple: white frosting mixed with a golden yellow and (tiny) tiny bit of brown to create that golden brown look. And you’re going to have to play around with it to get that color you want. Then I applied it to the cupcakes evenly. Next, I took vanilla wafers cut the top part off (they cut sooo nice with a small sharp knife), and placed them on the bottom half of the cupcakes. After that, I took mini-nutter butters and placed them on top for the ears, Jimmy Chocolate sprinkles for the hair, M & M’s for the eyes, and finally banana runts for the mouth. (And drops of left over frosting for the nostrils). Still using the same method for nostrils, eyes and mouth of course, and the (the book used) used Chocolate Oreo O’s cereal; I’ll just use the nutter butters for now to mix it up and call it original!

VOLIA! There you have cute and simple smiling monkeys!