Carnival Cupcake Tower for Cub Scout Crossover

This week was our Cub Scout crossover ceremony and the theme was "carnival."  I made about 100 cupcakes for this and built a cupcake tower using foam core board, hot glue, styrofoam blocks (found at Dollar tree), and ribbon.  My husband also put a big dowel rod through the middle to give it added support.  The top cake is the Wilton giant cupcake pan, which I frosted and added some details using gumpaste.  It was super cute, but not terribly stable!

Teapot Cake & Cupcakes

Last weekend I made this little cake and cupcakes for a 50th birthday surprise party.  I used the Betty Crocker Bake & Fill dome pan, frosted it in an ivory color buttercream (it looks yellow in the picture for some reason, but was a creamy ivory color in reality).  The handle, spout, and lid are shaped out of gumpaste.  I painted the knob on the lid with edible gold leaf and then piped a random lacey pattern using the same ivory colored buttercream with dots in between the squiggles, and on some of the dots, I painted the same gold leaf on to give the teapot some interest.   I also added some pink drop flowers and ivory colored leaves and vines on various parts of the teapot. I used the large star tip to pipe the pink buttercream on the cupcakes and then made a simple 5 petal flower in a slightly darker pink colored gumpaste and used a gold dragee for the middle of each flower.  I made the tea bag tags out of gumpaste and wrote different tea names on each one using an edible marker (ie:  "chamomile, Earl Grey, English breakfast, etc.) and the hostess set each cupcake in a porcelain teacup to put around the cake on the table.  I poked holes in the gumpaste tea bag tags before the gumpaste dried hard, and then after it dried, threaded some white thread through the hole and let each tag dangle out of the teacup/cupcake.  I think they all really liked it, including the birthday girl, who collects teapot and loves tea.  This was very simple and fun to do.

Fox Motocross Cupcakes

Yesterday I made these cupcakes for another Fox motocross fan (the brother of the one I did the cake for previously--see picture). I made the stencil out of cardstock and spray painted these using Duff Goldman's new edible cake graffiti color spray in blue.

Rainbows & Lollipops

Yesterday I got to make some really cute springtime cupcakes for one of my favorite little girls. She is the daughter of one of my best friends and has played with my daughter since they were very little. She was having a rainbow themed party, so her mom saw something similar to these online and ordered the swirly lollipops for these cupcakes. Some were red velvet with vanilla buttercream and some were lemon with vanilla buttercream that I added creme bouquet flavoring to (gives it a lemony, tropical flavor).
Happy Birthday, Savannah!

Sweet Ballerina Cupcakes

Yesterday I again broke from my temporary "retirement" and made these cupcakes for Julia's ballet teacher, who was having a recital for the other class she teaches. I thought these turned out really sweet and feminine looking. They are Devil's food chocolate with vanilla buttercream. I made the little ballet slippers using white chocolate candy melts and light pink candy melts. I used my smallest round writing tip, filled a disposable decorator bag with the melted candy and piped them onto waxed paper. It only takes about 30 minutes for them to harden nicely (at least here in New Mexico...) I sprinkled them with sugar pearls in pink, cream, and some of them with little silver dragees.

Happy Birthday, Spencer

Today is my oldest child's 9th birthday. This is my son who does not like buttercream frosting and usually asks for a donut cake instead (sigh...who can understand that???) He does, however, love homemade chocolate buttercream and some fresh whipped cream type frostings. This year, for his class party he requested a giant cupcake cake. I made the cupcake out of a homemade "oreo cookies n cream cake) which had layers of chocolate fudge cake, cream cheese frosting, and whipped cream, plus crumbled oreos on the sides of the cake. The bottom round is devil's food chocolate with chocolate buttercream. Hopefully I can get it to his classroom intact. Happy Birthday, Spence!

Extreme Chocolate Monkey Cupcakes

For my middle son's 6th birthday, I made him monkey themed cupcakes for his class celebration. He is really into what he calls "extreme chocolate" thanks to Dairy Queen's blizzard campaign of that name. These were extreme chocolate in that they were made of Devil's food cake, homemade rich chocolate buttercream, and chocolate fondant monkeys. He was super happy with them.

Dragon Cupcakes

My kids go to an elementary school where dragons are the mascot. Their school colors are red and gold. Last fall, my younger son's kinder class earned what they call a "dragon party" for doing good deeds. We decided to make these little dragon cupcakes for the class party. They were a big hit and easy to make...just lots of figure piping.

Tropical Flower Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a friend whose daughter was turning 1. She had a beautiful tropical backyard party and had custom ordered invitations to match the flowers on her daughter's dress. I tried to match the colors and flower shape exactly. I added coconut extract to the vanilla cake batter and a little bit of creme bouquet flavoring (has a light tropical flavor) to the buttercream and filled each cupcake with apricot/pineapple preserves. The flowers were made of gumpaste. I had to cut out each petal by hand and then push them together and let them dry upside down before applying them to the cupcakes in order to make each one look exactly like the flowers used in the invitation. It was tedious and time-consuming, but the results were worth it.

Flower Pot Cupcakes

One year, my MOMS Club had a garden themed end of the year banquet. I offered to make the favors, which were individual terra cotta pots with cupcakes inside. I used the grass pull out tip to frost them in a bright green and then put a fresh flower in each one (I put the stem of the flower into a cut up plastic straw to protect the cake from the stem), and bought little plastic gardening picks wrote each mom's name on the pick, so they became like name cards for the table. It made the table very colorful and was lots of fun to do.

Superman!

When my middle son turned 4, he was completely absorbed in superheroes. He absolutely loved putting on his superman jammies with the cape and running around saving the day. I was lucky enough to find a vintage Wilton Superman pan at a yard sale which I picked up for a song. Sometimes you can find real treasures for cake decorating just by yard saling a bit. There's always someone's grandmother getting ready to retire her pans, so keep your eyes open for this stuff if you ever want to get into cake decorating. At this party, we had a kiddo coming with dairy allergies, and at the time I didn't know how to make a good non-dairy buttercream. We ended up making chocolate cupcakes with the superman stencil (my husband cut one out of cardstock) and powdered sugar. I loved the way they turned out. The biggest thing I remember about this cake was how sick I was when I made it! I had a really bad sore throat virus and was just miserable, but I was determined to make it through the party. If I had been feeling well, I'm sure I would have had a better plan for where to place his candle! It's now the running joke, when we look back at the pictures...