Hey, Cupcake!

Its getting chilly! I’ve been sick of waiting for snow so I decided to make some of my own. I made these vanilla cupcakes with icy blue frosting the other day. To garnish them, I melted white chocolate, loaded into a piping bag and piped snowflakes onto wax paper over a baking sheet and tossed them in the freezer. Less than an hour later, and we’ve got delicious frosty snowflakes on your cupcakes.. even better than on your driveway!

That time of year is finally here! Christmas is everyone’s excuse to bake.. but for me it’s just another day! Just kidding, I love Christmas!!!!! Here are some Christmas cupcakes I recently made to spread some holiday cheer throughout my apartment.. I’ll be sure to whip up a few more for the actual holiday!

It’s almost winter, but with the freezing temperatures and snow last week, and the warm sunny days earlier this week, it feels almost like spring!

Thus,

Spring cupcakes!

Spring is the easiest time of year to decorate cupcakes.  Flowers are always appropriate and the easiest decorating technique.

These were fondant with black piping gel accents.

These little chickies were a hit at Easter! Just pipe some skinny orange legs, a yellow blob on top, and stick on an orange nose and 2 little black piping gel dots!

This was more fondant than I ever wanted to use, but they were a hit! I made these for the first bridal shower I ever did!

Temple Update is Temple University’s student run television news program. You can catch it airing live on TUTV every Thursday at 10:00 AM. The show covers stories about Temple athletics, organizations, and the community. For their final show last year, (which won a student Emmy) I made them cupcakes!

Check out Temple Update on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube

Most people I’ve met are either huge fans of sushi or despise it. For the fans, you’ll love this. For the haters, it could go either way.

For a sushi loving friend’s birthday, I made cupcake California rolls!

I baked cupcakes without wrappers, put a thin layer of frosting around the cupcake and wrapped it in green fruit roll-ups, resembling seaweed. I covered the cupcake in vanilla buttercream and snowflake sprinkles that sort of resemble rice, and garnished them with orange fondant sticks (carrots!), green buttercream (avocado!) and gummi candies (fish!) and I even put it in an unused sushi container.

I made these extra terrestrial cupcakes for a Halloween party a few years ago. They look much harder to make than they actually are!

You’ll need:
24 cupcakes
24 Dunkin Donuts Munchkins
24 Marshmallows
black piping gel
black licorice
vanilla buttercream

To start, bake your cupcakes and frost them with a layer of frosting. Stick a jumbo marshmallow to the frosting. Put frosting on top of the marshmallow and stick a munchkin to it. You may need to do some sculpting and add some more frosting to the sculpture.

After you’ve constructed the skeleton of your aliens, liquify the rest of your buttercream and dye it a bright green. Let it thicken a little bit and dunk the sculpture into the liquid frosting, creating a smooth look when it dries. Since you’ll be turning it upside down, you need to make sure it is structurally sound!

When the frosting hardens, use black piping gel or little licorice pieces as eyes, and longer thin strands of licorice for antennae!

This Thanksgiving, I’ll be making caramel apple cupcakes again, but here are some pictures I’ve found of a more decorative approach to Thanksgiving cupcakes!

Found here,

Found here,

Found here.

These are all cute and doable! I’m a big fan of the third approach, a sweet turkey!

I have never met a single person who does not like s’mores. And I have never met a single person who does not like my s’mores cupcake! But only 3 people have tried it so far…

Anyways, this cupcake took a WHILE to make.  And it took a LOT of of ingredients ($$).  But it is REALLY good.

List of ingredients:

• 1 bag of milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 sticks of butter
• 1 box of graham crackers
• 3 cups flour
• 5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 16oz jar of Marshmallow fluff
• 4 cups powdered sugar

If you’ve seen Ace of Cakes or Cake Boss, you’ve seen fondant. Most wedding cakes are also covered in fondant. It looks kind of like play-doh and can be molded into shapes or figures or rolled and can cover a cake for a smooth look.

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of fondant. I don’t care for the taste or the texture, and it seems like an easy way out of cake decorating, my passion.

However, I’ve found some good uses for fondant, and some alternatives!

In these two batches, I’ve used fondant as a small garnish and created some simple and elegant themes.

By using fondant as just a small element, you can focus on taste but also make a visually appealing cutey patootie cupcake.

Here are some examples of a more integrated use of fondant on my cupcakes:

Those football cupcake’s were for the premiere of “Temple Tuff: Inside Temple Football” a production of 20/20 Visual Media, my boyfriend’s production company!

Over the years I’ve found some great alternatives to fondant–they taste better, but give the same visual effect. Gummy candies are a great way to add some creative flair that tastes great to a cupcake!

Starbursts are fantastic! These candies are pliable and super tasty, they get a little sticky though. You can mold them into shapes or roll them out and use cookie or fondant cutters. I made these winter themed cakes for a Temple University Snowboarding Club (TUSC) bakesale.. The earmuffs and nose on the snowman and feet and nose on the penguin were all made with starbursts! Starbursts are also WAY cheaper than fondant.

You can also get creative and use other candies.. Remember those pumpkin cupcakes? That stem was made from rainbow Twizzlers!

Airhead extremes also look JUST like rainbows! Check out this super easy to make cupcake that looks awesome!

There are so many possibilities out there for cupcake decorating! These are only a few!