Holly's 101 Cuppycake Challenge: birthday party

8/03/2011

6/17/2011

Lions and Monkeys and Elephants Oh My!

Over memorial day weekend I got the pleasure of putting together some fun jungle themed cupcakes for a little guy's first birthday. One requirement was there couldn't be any hard candy for choking reasons. So I switched out parts like the elephants tusks and the lion's nose with melting chocolate. The alligator's head is actually a peanut butter cookie that I trimmed down and cover with frosting. Out of the 4 the monkey was actually the hardest for me to figure out. I originally was going to use vanilla wafers for both the face and ears but after I assembled one the poor thing looked more like a dog than a monkey! So after playing with a couple different cookies, I decided the little peanut butter cookies worked the best. Overall this was a great experience and it's nice to do something different and maybe a little artsy too :)

It's a jungle out there!

*Keep your eye out for Delectable Feature Fridays! It's just a little something I'm putting together to showcase some stuff from my etsy shop Delectable Delights and other baking projects I've taken on.

12/20/2010

#25 Strawberry Confetti Birthday Cupcakes

I'm such a slacker!!! It's not that I'm not baking, because I'm on baking overload. It's just that I haven't been keeping up on my blogging :( So sorry! Don't be surprised when you see Christmasey cupcakes in January! These butterfly cupcakes turned out amazing! I made them for one of my co-worker's daughters birthday at the beginning of December. I made all the chocolate butterfly wings and leaves a couple of days ahead of time and everything was assembled the day of the party. With the extra cupcakes I made some flower bouquets. but i noticed that after a couple days the marshmallows get a little mushy so they should be eaten quick.

Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes
The strawberry comes later. If you don't want the confetti affect just leave out the sprinklers.

I noticed when you find the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe its best to just stick with it so I went with Martha Stewart's vanilla buttermilk cupcakes which I used for national vanilla cupcake day. For the confetti effect I added pink and yellow sprinkles. I know your dying for pictures but my computer must have eaten any pre-decorated pictures of the cupcakes
:( So you'll have to use your imagination.....

The flower petals were made out of marshmallows that were cut in half and dipped in sprinkles

Strawberry Filling
This will leave you wanting more! It tasted just like fresh strawberry shortcake!

The Goods
1pkg (16oz) frozen sliced strawberries in syrup thawed (I ran it through the food processor)
1cup heavy cream
2tablespoons cornstarch

The How To
Combine strawberries, cream and corn starch in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until thickened, about 8-10mins. Remove from heat and chill before filling cupcakes. I made this the night before.

Vanilla Frosting

For the frosting I went with Martha's delectable fluffy white frosting. Nothing screams birthday more than this stuff!

The Goods

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

The How To

With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy. Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth.

So after you have the cupcakes cooled, filled and frosted it's now time to decorate!!! Unfortunately i didn't take step by step pictures of the process since I would like to keep somethings a secret ;) So here are a few more pictures of the outcome.