100th Day Celebration

When I was in elementary school I don't remember counting the days of school, but now, most younger elementary grades begin each day with the routine of counting the days of school. This helps to develop number sense, including place value. On the 100th day, a celebration occurs! Reaching this important landmark number is a reason to enjoy...CUPCAKES. So, for the 100th day of school this year, I baked my students these delicious treats.

Oddly enough, I ended up baking two batches of these treats. Yes, I baked and decorated 27 of them on Superbowl Sunday; the 100th day was SUPPOSED to be the following Monday. But, we had ice and school was canceled. Tuesday brought snow, snow, snow. Somehow we had a full week of snow days. What a great break! But,this was disastrous for my cupcakes. By the following Monday I didn't think they had much life left in them. They really only took me about 30 minutes to decorate, but I thought of a way to make it faster the second time around. I let the kids help decorate them! I brought in the baked cupcakes and supplies to help them ice,sprinkle, and top them off. It saved me time, and they had a BLAST. Happy 100th day!

I'm Back!!!

Where did 2013 go? Well, most of it was spent enjoying an energetic, clever, and loving little boy. I didn't even try to devote time to cupcakes over the past year. But, I'm back! Now that he's nearing age 2, I am able to find a little more time to enjoy this hobby. And, I'm hoping soon enough he can help me, and have fun doing it. I have to celebrate my return to the blog with a photo from Luke's first birthday last year. His party was monster themed, and I was able to create these adorable monster cake pops. They were a hit with the kids! In the spirit of not being stressed, I decided to make 10 of them and buy a smash cake and cupcakes from Hy-Vee. I was able to be creative without having to make the bulk of the dessert. Good decision on my part!

The cupcakes and smash cake from Hy-Vee.

 

1st Anniversary

Instead of baking cupcakes for our first wedding anniversary, I'm going to use this space to reminisce about the wonderful wedding and pre-wedding events we had last year. It's been an amazing year, and I love the life my husband and I have begun together. 

Here are our delicious chocolate raspberry and vanilla butter cream cupcakes for our wedding. These are obviously baked by professionals. There is no way I would ever want to bake for weddings (especially my own)-too much pressure. 

The groom's cupcake cake - a motorcycle on the open road

Here are my work bridal shower cupcakes piled high with delicious butter cream frosting made by my co-worker. They were finished off with beautiful shimmery sprinkles.

These are some of the tastiest cupcakes I've ever eaten. They are delicious red velvet with cream cheese frosting-a perfect combo. My sister made them for my family bridal shower.

More amazing flavors here: Strawberry Daiquiri and Margarita cupcakes. These were made for my cupcake inspired bachelorette party. The theme was "Cupcakes and Cocktails" and my friend planned an amazing event that included all things cupcake inspired from the invitations to the gifts to the pub crawl that kept us out until the wee hours of the morning. 

 

What a year! Happy first anniversary to my amazing husband!

Star Spangled Cake Pops

After learning some cake pop making tips last spring, I was excited to try these American flag cake pops for the Fourth of July. They weren't too difficult to create, but there were a few challenges. First, I couldn't find the right shade of blue chocolate, so I ended up adding oil based food dye to make them a darker blue. Then, I couldn't find white star sprinkles, so I had to intricately pick them out of the mix of red, white, and blue star sprinkles. My biggest challenge was overcoming the thickness of the darker colored melted chocolate. My secret is to add vegetable oil to thin it out. This can cause the chocolate coating to crack when it drys, but only a few of my cake pops were trashed for this reason (and, by trashed, I mean were eaten by my husband and I instead of neatly displayed).  

Happy Fourth of July! 

First Father's Day

As a busy new mom I don't have a lot of extra time to bake cupcakes right now. In fact, I'm lucky to get a shower. Our new addition is super sweet and super time consuming. When I'm not feeding or changing diapers, I'm soaking up as many snuggles as I can get. But, I absolutely had to make time for cupcakes to honor my hubby's first Father's Day. He is an amazing dad, and I'm so glad our son has him as a role model, teacher, and friend. So, in honor of him, I made some manly grilling cupcakes. I honestly can't believe I just used the words "manly" and "cupcakes" in the same sentence. They are made with brownie batter instead of cake batter and are topped with orange and red sprinkles for hot coals. I created a grill grate with black lines of icing and topped them with Hot Tamales for hot dogs. Then, a little more black icing smeared with toothpicks gave the appearance of grill marks on the "hot dogs." Everyone tells me that time flies, so before I know it I'm sure to see my little guy and my big guy out grilling on our deck together. 

Cake Pops!

I FINALLY got some inspiration (and assistance) to create some delicious and presentable cake pops. I took a short evening class to get some tips from an expert who makes cake pops on a regular basis. First, I got some great ideas for flavoring the cake (from various extracts to several different flavored liquors). I also had some help determining the perfect texture and consistency of the cake after it is smashed and mixed with frosting. The biggest tip I got involved using a circular motion to drip of excess chocolate and create a smooth and finished look.

I combined raspberry extract, white cake, vanilla frosting, and pink food coloring to create my first set of cake pops. Then, they were coated in pink melted chocolate and adorned with Eastery sprinkles.

My second set were made with chocolate cake and were coated in purple chocolate. I turned some of these (and some pink ones) into cake truffles (or call them cake balls, if you like). Then, I used a Ziploc bag to pipe some white chocolate stripes on top. Here's the perfect serving container for making some cake shooters:



And, we had enough left-over cake to make more at home. So, I made an Easter cake pop dessert tray:

Sunny Spring

Well, technically it's not spring yet, but it sure feels like spring outside. We've had some beautiful weather lately, and I was inspired to make sunflower cupcakes in honor of my mom's birthday last week. She loves lemon desserts, so I made lemon cupcakes and topped them with lemon cream cheese frosting. I made use of some really great decorating tools that were given to me by a good friend last year at a bridal shower. Three layers of petals made for a realistic look and the center of the sunflower was created with half an Oreo. Bright, happy, and delicious!