Lady bug Spring cupcakes

I randomly made these the other day after wanting to try out a new cream cheese icing recipe I found. At first I was just going to make some basic red velvet with cream cheese icing, but then I got the idea to make a spring-themed cupcake. Cream cheese icing doesn't work as well as butter cream to make decorations, so instead of making grass with my decorating tip, I chose to use Wilton's green color spray to make the icing look like grass. The lady bug is a cinnamon chewy candy I drew on with Wilton edible decorating pens and some black icing for the head. The flower candies are spring sprinkles I have been dying to use for awhile.

Pink lemonade treats

 

As I have probably mentioned before, I've been learning how to make cake batter and icing from scratch. My icings are delicious (if I do say so myself) but I am still experimenting to find the perfect cake batter recipes. I have had a vacation planned to go to South Carolina for the last few months and I wanted to make cupcakes with my cousins (who are 11 and 13). Since I wasn't familiar with their kitchen (or what they had or didn't have that I would need) and knew that I couldn't take every single thing from my kitchen on a car ride for seven hours, I decided to settle on a box mix just this once so that my cousins and I could focus on having fun and not worrying about missing ingredients.

While grocery shopping for a box mix, I came across a pink lemonade flavor. I texted with my cousins and made sure they liked the idea of a pink lemonade cupcake, then bought the box mix. Then, since I worried my cream cheese and butter cream icing recipes wouldn't go with a pink lemonade cupcake, I bought the pink lemonade icing too. That evening, I searched my kitchen for some things to make these cupcakes perfect. I got straws, cake liners, icing bags, tips, etc. and packed them in my suitcase. I intended to buy lemons when I got into my aunt's town, but I guess the excitement of finally arriving in my destination made me forget to buy them.

The icing on the cake (pun intended) is that when I arrived to my aunt's house, they happened to have a bunch of leftover lemons from another family member's recent stay there, so I was excited. Leah, Carsyn, and I put on our aprons (which I made the three of us a few months ago) and we got to work.

I got to teach the girls how much batter to put into the cupcake liners and how to even them out. Then I showed them how to fill and hold the icing bags and pipe icing onto the cupcakes. We cut the straws and lemons and decorated the cupcakes and had a great time. Needless to say, they were a hit. The two dozen cupcakes we made were gone within 48 hours!

I've already found a pink lemonade mix to make from scratch online and I am going to find an icing recipe too. I have so many great summer ideas planned for this cupcake flavor!

I decided to attach two extra photos with this entry. One is of Carsyn, myself, and Leah (and yes, I am aware that even though I am more than a decade older than both of them, they look my age) and the other is of Carsyn pretending to drink the cupcake like it is a real pink lemonade.

St. Patrick's Day cupcakes

I have been trying to find ideas for St. Patrick's Day cupcakes for a few weeks now. When I saw rainbow sour strips at the grocery store I knew I had the perfect idea! The only problem with my idea is that you cannot find gold chocolate coins anywhere these days! I have looked at grocery stores, pharmacies, etc. and couldn't find any! However, I was glad I could at least find gold chocolate nugget candies, so I had something to go at the end of my rainbow. I have some ideas to tweak these cupcakes in the future, but I think they're pretty cute now. :o)

Present birthday cake

My mom's birthday is coming up and I wanted to make her a cake that looked like a present and this is what I came up with! The woman who taught all of my cake classes helped me decide on how to make the wiggly strips on the bottom layer. I had never made them before. I surprised my mom with the cake last night and I'm pretty sure she loved it. :o)

PUPcakes: The cupcakes for dogs!

Today was my dog's birthday. I know people think I am crazy that I even celebrate her birthday, but to me she is the greatest animal in the world and she's more than "just a dog" to me. Anyway, she turned 10 and as I do every year, I baked her a cake, except this year, I made cupcakes for her and my mother's dog. I am calling them PUPcakes! They're made from peanut butter, honey, carrots, and some other things and are made especially for dogs. Friski loved her PUPcake and Snuggles (my mother's dog) loved his, too! Happy birthday, Friski!

Rainbow/Tie-dye cupcakes

 

I was excited to try making these. I saw them on Pinterest and had to make them! I also made a new filling for these cupcakes that was basically a vanilla custard. It was also delicious! I think these cupcakes would be good for children since they are very colorful and fun.

Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing

These are just like the blueberry cupcakes I made a few weeks ago, except with strawberries instead of blueberries. I made an order of strawberry and blueberry cupcakes for my mother to take to the final session of a medical coding class she teaches and her class loved them! She had 15 students and of the two dozen cupcakes, only three remained at the end of the night!