Cupcake Party! - high heels, speghetti & angry birds

After some massive hint dropping, my husband bought me the newest Hello Cupcake book, cupcakes, cookies, & pie, oh my! for Valentine's Day! Love him :) I could not wait to get started on some of their newest designs, especially the high heels!! (I have a slight shoe obsession!) I called 3 of my favorite baker friends over & we had a cupcake party. We do it like this: I make all of the cupcakes & at least one batch of buttercream frosting. Each guests brings over a can of store bought icing (we're going for looks at these, not taste), a design they have picked & all the ingredients needed to make 12 of their design. We all make each design together & have three tries to get it right! When it's time to go home, everyone has 3 of each cupcake to take with them.

Tiffany has a 3 year old boy who loves speghetti, so this was her pick. They were super easy to make & ended up really cute! The "noodle" is piped icing done with a small round tip. The "meatball" is a chocolate candy & the "sauce" is strawberry jam. I'm thinking it wasn't the best taste combination, but it looked pretty authentic!

CUTE!

Jennifer's choice were the characters from the game Angry Birds. She got the idea off Pinterest. Each character was first flat iced and then dipped into solid sprinkles, color depending on the character. The mouths were all made out of marshmallows, the eyes were mini marshmallows with mini chocolate chips, eye brows (?) of licorice, nose/beak from orange candy slices & the feathers were jelly beans.

One of the teachers at Drew's school loved the pictures he showed at work on Monday, so I actually made them again that week for a birthday party. Drew said the ones we made for the party (below) are more correct, because thier faces are to the side, like they are flying, which they do in the game. I have no idea- I don't play it! I just think they are cute!

Next up were my high heel cupcakes!! Not surprising, my design choice was a bit ambitious, but I am in love with them!! The shoe can go from a pump to a peep toe by removing a semi-circle of cake right at the tip of the cupcake. The heel is a pretzel stick, and the sole of the shoe is a grahm cracker, cut into a triangle then dipped in white candy coating. All three pieces are glued together using the same candy coating. It took a little trial & error to make them actually stick, but it was worth the work!   

Here's a side view. Yes, they are a little messy, but it was late & we were a little giddy on all the sweets we had been consuming!

 Here are 5 of our favorites. I'm apparently not real good at free handing zebra print. Something that I'll need to work on for next time. Aren't they aweomse?!

Next up was Kinsey, who wanted to try sheep cake pops. She had never done cake balls before and they ended up being too much work for the amount of time we had left. We decided to save those for next time!

And we forgot to take a group shot of all the cupcakes with the four of us! O well- have to do it again soon!

I LOVE cupcake parties!!

Cupcake Party! Tubers, flamingos, hearts & pool balls

I've had this idea of hosting a cupcake party at my house for a while & finally made it happen! I wanted to do this because in all of my books, there are some adorable cupcake designs that I wanted to make, but would probably never have a specific occasion to bake them for. So, I invited my 3 most baking friendly girls for a night of cupcake decorating at my house. I baked all of the cupcakes, full size & minis and the icing in advance. Each girl picked out a specific cupcake that they wanted to try & create. All of our example cupcakes came from these books,

which the 4 of us all own. My party girls were my bff Tiffany, her mom Pam & our friend Kinsey. After each girl picked out the cupcake they wanted to create, they were in charge of bringing the supplies to make 12 of them. During the party, we'd pick one design at a time & all create it together. So that means, each of us would make 3 of each person's pick & we'd all go home with an assortment of 12 cupcakes, 3 of each of the 4 designs. We had an absolute blast having a girls night while decorating! Here's all the cupcakes in the order we created them: 

These were Tiffany's pick. She wanted to do the pool balls to practice for her husband Kevin's birthday. They were really cute. It took us a while to figure out the colors on the striped balls & yes, we know that our numbers do not correspond to the colors. We thought they were super cute & lots of fun! We used sugar sprinkles to add the color & the tops were spree candies that we dipped in white icing & then piped with numbers.

Next up was Kinsey's choice. She chose the pink flamingos & reeds.

These turned out to be one of my favorites of the night. How cute are they?! She picked these as a possibility for her daughter Ava's birthday party.

They neck of the flamingo is a straight pretzel stick, the head is a jelly bean, the nose is one of those banana candies (who knows what they're called?) & the wings were candy melts that we piped on to wax paper & then chilled in the refrigerator.

The water that the reeds are in, is just blue sugar. The reeds themselves are made out of diagonally cut sour straws. The colors together were so bright & pretty!

Next up, was Mama Pam. She picked some Valentine day cupcakes for us to try. The hearts on top were a Sara Lee frozen pound cake that you thaw & cut into hearts using a cookie cutter. The hearts were "glued" onto the bases with icing & then we dipped them into different colored melted icing.

We know our writing skills aren't the best, but we were using a store bought icing pen for quickness, instead of filling a bag & piping real icing. Lesson learned on these- throw away the scrap pound cake immediately or you will be dipping it into the icing & eating the rest of the night!

And these were my choice! Drew & I have loved these since I first bought the book so they were a no brainer for me! They took some time because of all the different details but they were soo worth it!! Each of us created ourselves & our husbands! The heads, bodies & arms were made out of mini vanilla wafers. The girls bikini tops were made out of Dot candy.

The tubes are mini chocolate covered donuts. Our flippers were cut & shaped out of gummy airheads. The bottles the boys are holding are cut sour belts & all hair & facial features were piped with icing.

This is Drew & I! The cupcake in the middle is our icechest filled with drinks! (all diet dr. pepper of course) I loved all of the tubers!

Here we are from left to right, Kinsey, me & Tiffany!

 Wish someone was there to get all 4 of us! Here's Mama Pam

We had an absolute blast & want to do this again really soon! Here are some more pictures of all of our hard work!

Anyone interested in having a cupcake party?

Do-it-yourself Baby Cakes



Kambryn, the birthday girl!

My sister-in-law Ashley contacted Drew & I to do some Baby Cakes for our niece's Kambryn's first birthday party. She had a fun idea for the kids, creating their own Baby Cakes! Since her older sister Kynlee is 3, it was really something for her & the older kids to do during the party. I made 2 dozen strawberry cupcakes, not iced. Then we made butter cream icing & bought tons of different kinds of toppings that the kids would like. We brought mini chocolate chips, colored sugar, crushed up candy bars & lots & lots of sprinkles! We did it outside on the deck with a sheet under us. I gave the kids a quick example & then they got to it! It ended up being a total hit at the party & all the kids had tons of fun making their own cupcakes. If fact, many of the kids made lots of their own cupcakes! Here are a few pictures from the party that I was able to get from my mother-in-law.

We had soo much fun!! And what a fun party idea for little ones!