Jasmine Disney Cupcakes

These cupcakes I made for work- the assignment being to pick a Disney princess and embody them in a very simple manner. I picked Jasmine, and so decided to use rich, vibrant, contrasting colors and lots of shimmer dust rather than more complex elements. I used a half moon shaped cutter on rolled out gold fondant to make the basic lamp shape, and then stretched, molded, and exacto-ed them more..exactly. :) I also used a small star cutter and then pinched the edges to form the magenta and blue stars. I cut out orange circles of fondant and then "glued" on black (tiger) stripes of fondant using a bit of water. I also heard an interpretation viewing them more conceptually as an orange, arabic sky. Good stuff either way. Let all those fondant pieces harden. I dusted the lamps and stars with their respective shades of shimmer dust, and set them atop cupcakes frosted with dark purple icing piped using a star tip and covered in purple glitter. Then I made a light shade of "Jasmine" turquoise that I piped using a round tip. Jasmine Cupcakes. Easy.

Baby Chick Cakepops

In keeping with stereotypically springtime animal Cakepops...and the fact that I still had some funfetti Cakepops left to decorate...and it was almost Easter...I made some Baby Chick Cakepops.! These were super simple to make, and I didn't create the idea at all, but they turned out cute. To make these Cakepops, I dipped each Cakepop in melted yellow vanilla candy coating, added two yellow rainbow chip sprinkles as wings, an orange one for the beak, and two

Lamb Cakepops

 It was recently my friend's birthday, and she has an affinity for lambs and lamb..paraphernalia.?..Well..lamb-themed things anyways, so I surprised her with some FUNFETTI lamb cakepops.! :D And also it's almost Easter, so sure, that too. The look sorta lamby...for cakepops anyways. I didn't really like any of the lamb ideas I found online, so...I did this instead.! First, make your FUNFETTI cake....(then let cool, crumble up and mix with 3/4 a container of icing, and shape into balls. Keep in the freezer whilst decorating. I only take out 2 or 3 at a time lest they thaw too much. Easier to work with.) and all of that.

 I dipped the end of the sticks in melted white chocolate candy melts, attached a soon-to-be lamb, and then covered lamb with said melted white chocolate candy melts. I quickly (quickly quickly) sprinkled sugar pearls (crunchy pearls of sugar..that look like pearls) around each lamb before the candy melts set, leaving his face sugar pearl free. I then attached black sprinkle eyes, and a pink sprinkle (or heart, depending on the breed of sheep) nose, and chocolate jimmies for the little legs. For the ears, I cut miniature marshmallows in half and shaped each a bit to resemble a tear drop..and a lamb ear. :)

 My little cousins wanted custom bunny cakepops instead..I thought that my sheep looked a bit bunny-like anyways...stereotypically spring time animal androgynous if you will...! So with a few minor adjustments, I also created a couple of lamb-like looking bunnies. I simply added chocolate jimmies for whiskers, and flipped the ears so they were standing up and voila.!

 They were excited, I swear.

Packaged happy lamb cakepops.! Yay.!

Big Bang Theory Cupcakes

 Big Bang Theory Cupcakes.!!! Hooray.! :D made for one of my fellow fun crazayy BFFs Hannah.! hence the one non big bang theory themed cupcake. :) Besides lookin pretty nerdtastic...they are...wait for it...mint chocolate chocolate chip oreo cupcakes with Bailey's icing. YES. pretty perfectly delicious in every way. Just tasting the icing made me feel like impending cavities were settling into my teeth...but SO WORTH IT. So I'll share my recipe as well as decorating tips for these.! Whee.!

 The white circle on the BAZINGA! cupcake is gumpaste cut out ahead of time, as well as the blue circles on the Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock cupcake. I used black food gel and a toothpick to carefully freehand each different hand symbol onto the circles.

 Soft Kitty was made ahead of time as well, out of grey gumpaste. After the initial shape dried a bit, I added the pink and darker grey gumpaste details with a bit of water to make them stick. The eyes, mouth, and outline I drew on using a toothpick dipped in black food gel.

 Hannah's special hannaH birthday cupcake is yellow and purple because we met at JMU, and features her signature self portrait. hannaH herself holding a trumpet. because she plays trumpet. This is exactly what Hannah looks like, so fellows..eat your heart out.!

 I got the idea to replicate the main characters from the Big Bang theory (Raj, Leonard, Sheldon & Howard) in a Beatles-esque fashion when I found this picture online: (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcasKo3XUQwDLnfNg5OlTOxbis9-voHSewzCv_cAxpNhIBdgK0nvNqa1UEyekpyk6vT4xKsslvG6GjhaRhwHA4-ILc2wKc-1u9qYQtX0hyelsH7k6HvvdcOvJdiHqL0liv4qEmHpw0B8/s1600/2012-12-26+16.53.46.jpg ) Ahead of time, I rolled out black gumpaste pretty thin, and then used tools to cut out each silhouette. I let them fully dry on wax paper.

 Cupcakes.! YAY.! OKAY. recipe.!

Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Oreo Cupcakes

 Yield: about 15 cupcakes...that's what I got at least.

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp.
• 1 C sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour
• 3/4 C unsweetened special dark cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 C milk
• 1/2 C mini chocolate chips
• MINT OREOS

Cream the butter and sugar together until it’s light and fluffy. 

Add the eggs in one at a time while continuing to mix. 

Add the vanilla extract & peppermint extract.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda.

Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture a little at a time, alternating with the milk. 

Stir in the chocolate chips. 

Ready to get CAHHHRAyyyyyyz..?!?!!??!

Line your cupcake pan with liners..and then...ADD A MINT OREO TO EACH.

YESSSS. that's right.

THENNNnnnn..

Pour in the batter over your lined and oreo-ed tins.

Fill them a little more than 3/4 of the way. 

Bake cupcakes at 350 degrees for about 18-20 minutes. 

 YUM. :)

ICING.!!!!

I used about 6 TBSP of Bailey's, 1 1/2 sticks of butter, and around 5 cups of powdered sugar. Combine and adjust to reach desired consistency and taste.! I won't judge you if you drink some Bailey's whilst all this crazy deliciousness is going on :)

Cars Cake

 This Cars Cake was for a very special birthday.! My little nephew Trey is one of my favorite people ever and just so adorable and sweet...and he's already a year old.! The theme of the party was obviously everything Cars. The cake itself was a marbled red velvet and yellow cake that I cut and shaped to emulate desert dunes. I iced the cake with a sandy desert color dyed frosting, and then sprinkled a mixture of graham cracker crumbs and brown sugar all over the cake. For the road, I processed some oreos, and laid them down in a curvy manner. Everything else I made ahead of time. The road sign I cut out of thinly rolled gumpaste, and then used a toothpick dipped in black food gel to freehand the birthday message. The traffic cones I made by cutting small orange circles of gumpaste, slightly stretching them out to form the base of each, and then topping with more orange gumpaste shaped to form a cone, and a thin stripe of white gumpaste. Lightning & Mater took forever to make. I formed the basic car shape out of gumpaste using sculpting tools, and then basically added a lot of extras. Lightning has a lightning bolt on his front, flames on both sides, and a '1' on his back. I also used a toothpick dipped in orange food gel to trace detail into those features, and used black to outline his eyelids.To attach gumpaste to gumpaste, use a brush dipped in water, and voila.! To give Mater another layer of dirt & rust, I rubbed some cocoa powder on him. As you can see, I also made a smaller cake just for Trey to play with. I recreated the 'Cars' logo with his name instead out of white chocolate and red candy melts. Unfortunately, Trey was really tired and overwhelmed by all the people at his big birthday party so he didn't really go crazy with the cake when we wanted him to.

 He did like it though.!

 And he's just so stinkin' cute.! :)

 There's a little blue icing on his face...

Me & Baby :) Baby nephew Trey..I'll just be obnoxiously cliche and say it but I can't believe he's already 1..!

Toy Story Alien Cupcakes

A friend shared a picture of a version of these cupcakes with me recently, and I'd been wanting to recreate them my own way, so when I wanted to surprise Oliver with birthday cupcakes and didn't have my usual ridiculous amount of decorating supplies, this is what I came up with.! Toy Story Alien cupcakes. :) Not that it matters, but I made banana cupcakes with chocolate chips and white chocolate chips, and then iced them with blue tinted cinnamon vanilla buttercream...I suppose that there's a chance that aliens enjoy those flavors...I couldn't tell you for sure. They don't sound especially intergalactic, but those are the ingredients I had on hand, and they sounded good to me...a mere earthling. Anyways. To create the aliens, I rolled out white gumpaste, and used a Yoda Star Wars cookie cutter I happened to have to get the basic shape of the head. Then, I smoothed out "Yoda"'s forehead wrinkles, reshaped his ears a bit, added an antenna, and voila.! Aliens. I melted vanilla lime green colored candy melts, coated each alien with that, and then poked upside down white chocolate chips into the still soft gumpaste for the eyeballs. I then used black gel to finish off the little aliens and add some detail.!

Snowmen Cake

Snowmen Cake(s).! Happy Birthday Aunt Ginny :) It's January..snowmen are her favorite..sounded like a plan. How to make them though....so I thought of a few different options, but ended up making the equivalent of gigantic popless cakepops..in snowman shapes.! First, I baked a cake in a 9 x 13 pan- I added some shredded coconut, almond milk, and coconut milk to be fancy, no big deal :) After the cake had cooled completely, I crumbled it into a large bowl. Then I added a few dollops of almond icing to the cake, and mixed with my hands. If you've made cakepops before, then you know the consistency you're looking for- not too much icing, but enough that the crumbs can be molded together..without overly oozing everywhere..that's what you want..neither of those extremes. Anyways. I formed two snowmen heads and two snowmen abdomens, wrapped them in aluminum foil, and stuck them in the freezer. In the meantime, I used gumpaste to create carrot noses, stick arms, eyes, the bowtie, top hat, and party hat. Be creative.! I let all of those items dry completely before assembling my studly birthday snowmen. I originally thought I'd cover both snowmen in white chocolate..but discovered that I was out of white chocolate when I went to put these guys together..so instead...I attached the head of each snowman with a pretzel stick, and then covered both snowmen with more almond icing. Notice the snazzy snowflake sprinkle buttons :) Pretty easy to stick everything in the right place..that's what he said..?. or...?..Anyways. They came together quite nicely. Hah. Okay. Personalized snowmen cakes surrounded with piles of coconut snow on white plate- couldn't be easier to create a unique and delicious gift.!