Head of the Class

Last weekend was a double cupcake weekend. My boyfriend's niece graduated from high school, and I couldn't resist a chance to make some cupcakes out of my latest book, "What's New Cupcake." It was fun to be creative with with the hair of these graduates, and I used Fruit Loops, chocolate sprinkles/icing, and Juicy Fruit to create brunettes, redheads, and blonds. Reese's mini peanut butter cups topped with square trimmed cookies created the mortarboard caps. A mini M&M secured the icing tassel. Good luck, graduates!

Happy 2nd birthday!

My nephew's 2nd birthday was last week, and, as promised, I created his birthday cupcakes. I wanted a train theme, but didn't necessarily want "Thomas the Train" themed decorations. It was harder to find generic train themed items than I thought. So, I went to the Internet for ideas and found someone who used tin boxes to make a train. Then, I decided to put some empty tin boxes behind the engine to hold the cupcake cargo. The cupcakes were blue and orange to match the plates, napkins, and balloons. My nephew might not have appreciated the thoughtful decorating, but he sure did love the cake.

Kentucky Derby

Last weekend I gathered with some of my college friends to attend the Kentucky Derby. We went to visit one of our friends who lives in Kentucky, and we took along our decorated Derby hats and our infield tickets for the big show. Everyone brought something to snack on, and I just had to make festive horse cupcakes. "Hello, Cupcake" has a fairly simple design for horses, complete with edible hay. The horse cupcakes went well with our mint juleps, chocolate bourbon balls, and Derby pie. Although it rained during most of the day, we still had a great time tromping around in our cute wellies that were purchased at Target on the way to Kentucky. Best $25 I've ever spent.

Rivals

My boyfriend's 30th birthday was at the end of April. I wanted to make him some special cupcakes. I thought through a list of ideas that matched his interests-guitar, motorcycles, basketball, etc. My friend suggested an idea that shocked me, because it involved making cupcakes that resemble the mascot of our college's biggest rival. You see, he grew up a Kansas Jayhawk fan. I am a Mizzou grad, and a dedicated Tiger fan. But, because it was his big day, I decided to go for it and make Jayhawk cupcakes. If nothing else, I would get pleasure from devouring and destroying them. There weren't any books with directions on how to create a cupcake to resemble this fictitious bird, so my friend and I walked up and down the aisles of the grocery store to find food items for our creation. I left the grocery store $50 poorer with items like mini M&M's, Twinkies, marshmallows, Peeps brand Bunnies, icing, and more. We worked late into the night to create the Jayhawk cupcakes, but finally found success with a small tip of a Twinkie, the yellow ears of the Bunnies, and lot of dyed homemade butter-cream icing. He loved the cupcakes and held back his urge to say...Rock, Chalk...oh, I can't even say it.