Mario Party!

So I did my first party this morning and delivered 20 Mario cupcakes. There were 5 Marios, 5 Luigis, 5 Toadstools and 5 stars. I have to say they were definitely a hit and a lot of fun! It was a late night last night staying up till 2 in the morning and making them, but it was completely worth it. I woke up at 7:30 this morning to make sure all the cupcakes were still there and in perfect condition. I think I even dreamed about cupcakes. It's so hard now a days to turn my mind completely off of cupcakes because it seem like every minute I think of another idea I want to try. Anyway, we put the cupcakes in cake boxes and delivered them to the party at 9:00am at Chuck E Cheese's.

Making/decorating cupcakes has been so much fun for me, and I would have never thought I would be able to do something like this. It definitely goes to show that if you don't try it then you'll never know if you can do it.

These cupcakes took a lot of time, and without a lot of patience and an amazing husband who helped I couldn't have gotten all these done :)

The Owl

I absolutely love Owls- they are one of my favorite animals. I have lots of owls necklaces and owl statues. I may be just a little too obsessed but I can't help it. I think just think owls are the cutest things ever. They seem to be in style because they are everywhere I look, and I'm completely ok with that :)

This brings me to my next cupcake: The Owl. This was a pretty easy cupcake to make and I got the idea from Hello, Cupcake. For the owl you need Oreos, junior mints, banana runts and black or brown icing.

The first thing you want to do is start off with the eyes which are Oreos. You can warm the Oreos in the microwave for about 5 seconds and will be easier to peel the two part apart. You should get an even amount of icing on both sides but I had a tough time with that so instead I just peeled apart two Oreo and kept the two sides with the most icing. Once you have your Oreos then you can place them on to the cupcake with some icing on the back so they stay in place.  Next you want to place one Junior mint in the middle of each Oreo. Once you are have done that then add a dot of white icing on to the Junior mint to finish up the eye.

The next thing would be to ice the cupcake. You want to start from the inside and go outward. This way your hand doesn't get icing all over it and you have to start over. You want to try and make the icing to look similar to feathers by pulling away quick. The last thing you have to do is put the banana runt under the two Oreos for the beak and the cupcake is finished.

It's such a cute cupcake and it's also something you can do for Halloween! Hope you enjoyed!

Beach Bums

This cupcake makes me wish I was on the beach in Destin, FL catching some rays and reading a good book. I went to Destin, FL quite a bit when I was in high school. I would call it my second home back then. My grandmother owned a condo down there and it was the place to be during Spring Break and Summer time. It's one of my all time favorite places!

The first thing about these cupcakes is to start with the towels. All they are, are starbursts. I heated them up in a bowl for about 8 seconds and then put them on a cutting board and rolled them out. Then cut a 3 inch x 2 inch rectangle. After that I look a pink and yellow starburst and warmed them up (separately) and rolled them out and then cut three lines from each and placed those on to the 3 inch x 2 inch rectangles. That's how you get the towels. Tip: If the lines you are putting on the rectangles don't stick at first then you can dab the back of the lines with a little water so they will stick better :)

The sunscreen is made out of starbursts as well. I just used leftover rolled Starburst and made it into a bottle shape. I put half a toothpick on the back so it stay up on the cupcake.

As for the sand I covered the top of my cupcake with a layer of icing (it's completely up to you how much you are wanting to put on there) and then dipped it into a bowl with brown sugar. It's crazy how much brown sugar looks like sand! If you want there to be a mound of sand then you and pinch some with you fingers and put however much you want on your cupcake. Once again that step is completely up to you. Tip: The brown sugar is a little messy so just letting you know that if the cupcake is bumped or gets knocked over then brown sugar will more than likely go everywhere, but it's an easy clean up with a wet paper towel.

It's fun to make cupcakes that bring back great memories. These did exactly that for me!

Pretty Please With A Cherry On Top

These cupcakes are so simple, but I feel like they would make a party so much fun! They remind me of mini birthday cakes for someone who's celebrating their birthday but not wanting everyone to know how old they are :)

With these cupcakes all I did was put cream cheese icing in a baggy. Then put a few pieces of scotch tape on the corner of the baggy that I was going to cut a hole in to pipe the icing (this helps the baggy to be more stable as you ice your cupcake) then squeezed the icing onto the cupcake in a circular motion building the icing up. To me it looks a lot like self serve yogurt when you pull the lever and the yogurt goes into the cup or cone. I added sprinkles to some or you can go classy and keep in plain, that's completely up to you. I also added cherries on the top of the cupcakes but if you were wanting to celebrate someone's birthday then you could add candles instead.

These cupcakes looked so good I almost didn't even want to eat them. I marveled at how adorable they were, like a kid looking at puppies through the window at a pet store. I continuously said to my husband, "Aren't these just adorable?" Then I had to come back to reality to serve them to the people we were eating dinner with :)

Have fun with the decorating. Add whatever sprinkles you want to the tops of them. It's your masterpiece so have fun with it and make it your own.

Black and White Affair

These cupcakes were a lot of fun to make and they didn't take a whole lot of time. They would be good if you were wanting to do something for a party and only had an hour or two to prepare. Also with these cupcakes you can custom decorate them and be as creative as you want. Some of the designs came from Hello, Cupcake and others I came up with by myself. With these, you don't really have to follow any type of directions because you can make them however you want and do what you like. Also you don't have to stick with this particular color scheme. You can mix up the color and do a certain theme such a green and red for Christmas or black and orange for Halloween. The main thing is to just be creative with it. Another good thing idea is to make at least 12 cupcakes so if you mess up one then you have plenty of extras.

I went to the candy store where I live and picked out different black and white candies. I also went to Michael's and picked up some white and black decorating sugar, which is what the half and half cupcake and the bullseye cupcake are decorated with. I also used some melting white chocolate and made my own candies.

Feel free to explore and have fun. If you get frustrated then put it down for a few minutes and find something else to do so you don't ponder over it, and then come back to it later. That's helped me quite a few times in the past.

ROLL TIDE

I grew up in Tuscaloosa, AL and went to college at the University of Alabama. So I guess you could call me an Alabama Football fan from birth! Now I live in Missouri where college football is taken seriously, but not near as seriously as it is down SOUTH.

Since football season is just around the corner I decided to make a few cupcakes for inspiration. I knew that I needed to have crimson and white icing, and some how come up with a grey elephant since that is Alabama's mascot (BIG AL).

I also wanted to have some decorative cupcakes surrounding Big Al since he was going to be the center of attention. For these I decided on white iced cupcakes with red M&M's on the top for decoration. Also in the decorative cupcakes I wanted to do the Alabama "A." I covered those cupcakes with red icing that I dyed, and then made the "A's" with melting chocolate. I froze them for about 15 minutes and then placed them in the middle of the cupcakes. I know these may seem like small details or less important cupcakes, but they are very important- so don't be lazy! I've found that it's just as important to spend time and energy on the less elaborate cupcakes because they are like the background for your centerpiece!

Finally I got to the elephant. I dyed icing with very little black coloring to make grey, and also died the white melting chocolate to get the same color grey as the icing on the cupcake. When dying the melting chocolate you have to work quick because it starts to harden very quickly and it gets frustrating. Trust me I know (and so does my husband) :) For the trunk and the ears I used the melting chocolate that I dyed grey and then froze them as well. For the tusks I used white melting chocolate and put those in the freezer too. Once those hardened I put the elephant together and I absolutely fell in love with it.

These are probably my favorite cupcakes so far! I definitely put my roots in them and it almost feels like home! So all I have left to say is Roll Tide Roll!

It's a me, Mario!

So, the other day I got a message from a friend who asked me if I could do Mario cupcakes for her son's Birthday Party. As I read the message my brain began to think on all the possibilities of how I could make these cupcakes. I knew that I needed several different things for the cupcakes, so I decided on making Marios, Luigis, Toadstools, and Stars. I decided it would be best to start with Mario.

I looked up a few pictures of Mario to get an idea of how I was going to make his face. First I started with his nose. It's extremely big and round so I automatically thought of a marshmallow. Then I moved on to his hat. "What in the world could I make his hat out of???" I asked myself. Then it dawned on me...What about a cookie!? Ideally, I would have used Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers to shape the hat. But of course, I went to all the stores here in town and couldn't find the type of cookie I was looking for. So then I decided I would bake my own. This way they could be the exact thickness and size I needed anyway.

After getting those two things (the nose and the hat) down everything else just came into place. I then started mixing colors with icing for his skin, mouth, and hat. I made his ears, mustache and eyebrows with melting chocolate. Finally I was finished with Mario! (Luigi is virtually the same as Mario, except with a green hat and an "L")

I used the cookie concept when I made Toadstool, except I used a little bit bigger piece of cookie (cut in half). Then I iced the cookie and the cupcake to look like him. And then finally the star was the easiest, I simply iced a star pattern onto a cupcake.

The lesson I learned is that I feel like if I am going to do this as a hobby then I have to put in the time and effort that it takes. You get the best ideas when you sit down and draw stuff out. Even if you aren't the best artist it will help to have something in front of you to look at. All in all it was a fun project and I'm excited about the way it turned out!

Cupcake Love

Hello and welcome to Cupcake Love!

I've always loved baking, and just a few weeks ago I went to B&N and came across a book called Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson. It was filled with a lot of ideas for decorating cupcakes, and so I decided to buy it and give it try. It only took one batch of "Shark Attack" cupcakes and I was hooked :) Since then I have been baking and decorating cupcakes like crazy!

I decided to start this blog because I wanted to be able to share my cupcake journey with friends, family, and also anyone who might be interested. I hope that you will find this blog interesting and FUN! And I also hope that it inspires you to be creative as well! You never know if you can do something until you try :) The name "Cupcake Love" came because I hope that by baking and decorating cupcakes I can show love to people. Thanks for reading and be sure to check back soon for fun pictures and cupcake stories!