Star Wars

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Just kidding! These Star Wars cupcakes were a lot of fun to make and it was my first time working with fondant. I was asked if I ever used fondant before with my other cupcakes and I hadn't, so I thought it would be fun to try. It was definitely a lot of work but a great new experience at the same time. 

I started off picking which Star Wars character I wanted to do, and I picked a few that I knew best. For each one I followed a picture to look at as I cut out the different shapes. For each color I had to knead coloring dye to get the exact color I wanted. Make sure to wear gloves, because I forgot to buy some and my finger tips were all different colors.

Let's first start with Yoda; he's my favorite! With Yoda I got a cupcake and outlined the bottom of the cupcakes on wax paper which made a circle. This would be his face. I then rolled my fondant out rather thin and put the cut out circle on wax paper on top of the fondant to follow the circle so the cutting would be exact. Once the circle was cut out I placed it to the side, and then started working on his ears. I cute out two long bunny-like ears and once they were cut out I pinched the ends of them and stuck them to the circle head. I then went back with a knife and put lines in the face to give him all the lines and wrinkles that Yoda has. I took a little left over green fondant and rolled it into a ball to make his nose and then did the same thing with his eyes with white and black fondant.

Next is the Imperial stormtrooper. I actually printed out a picture of a stormtrooper helmet so I could follow the size and the details of the helmet. With this one I would definitely suggest patience. It took me a while because of the details, but it ended up turning out really well. I cut the helmet from the paper and put in on the fondant so I could cut it out to the exact size I wanted. Once I cut the helmet out I started working on the details. I started from the top of the helmet and worked down. I first put the black line of fondant going across the forehead of the helmet. I then did the eyes and so on and so on. It was a lot of details, but you don't have to cut out all of the details. You more just have to mold and shape the small pieces. 

I think I picked a very hard subject to do for my first time working with fondant, but I definitely got a great idea of how it works and I will be using it again. But I still think regular ol' icing and melting chocolate are my favorite to work with. 

National Punctuation Day

"A celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and proper use of periods, semicolons, and the ever mysterious ellipsis."

I was asked by a teacher for some cupcakes with punctuation marks so she could give them to other teachers that she works with. As first I just thought, "She is an english teacher, so punctuation mark cupcakes would make sense in her case." But then I was told that it was for National Punctuation Day, which until this point I didn't even know existed. How cool is that? One whole day for punctuation marks! They should feel special. I was never very good at English, and I'm still not the best at it. But it's nice to see that teachers are trying to teach kids the importance of punctuation, which is something I feel so many kids are never taught.

These cupcakes were so simple but they turned out so classy. Black and white are the most classy colors when put together. These cupcakes remind me of Jackie O.

All I did for these cupcakes was iced each one with vanilla icing, and then made sure the icing was extremely smooth. I drew out different punctuation marks on wax paper to follow as my templates. Then I took black melting chocolate (which they actually have at Michael's right now since Halloween is just around the corner) and put that on my punctuation mark templates. I set them in the freezer for about 15 minutes, and then simply placed them on top of the cupcakes as the finishing touch.

These reminded me that the simplest things in life can sometimes be the most important :)

Frosty the Snowman

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. I love the colder weather and all the decorations with lights, presents, and Christmas trees. And I absolutely love shopping for presents. If I could, I would have Christmas two or three times a year- although I would probably be broke :)

These Snowman cupcakes were so much fun and made me even more ready for the holidays. For this cupcake you are going to need a mini cupcake and a regular cupcake. The mini cupcake will be the snowman's head and the regular cupcake will be his body.

First, you are going to want to ice both the mini and the regular cupcake. Then you put some chopped coconut on a plate and spin the outside edge of each cupcake in the coconut so that coconut is hanging off the sides. You want to try and not get coconut in the middle of the both cupcakes because then you will have a hard time sticking the mini cupcake to the regular cupcake and sticking the eyes, nose and mouth to the mini cupcake.

Once you have finished adding coconut to the edges of the cupcakes you then want to work on the snowman's scarf. I used a starburst for his scarf so you have many different color options that you can use. You can also add stripes and polka dots if you want to get really fun with it. I went with yellow because it was the only color I had left. I melted it for about 5 sec. and then rolled it out a cutting board until it was pretty thin. I then cut the starburst into a long rectangle and cut little lines into the end of each side of the rectangle to make it look more like a scarf. I would recommend using a pair of scissors to cut the starburst because it's really sticky and a knife doesn't quote get the job done. After I finished the scarf I went ahead put it on the regular cupcake.

Then I began working on the eyes, nose and mouth. For the eyes and mouth I just used melting chocolate but you can also use mini m&m's as well as chocolate morsels. For the nose I used an orange starburst. I once again melted it and then rolled it out. I cut a small triangle out of the orange starburst and then rolled it up and made it look similar to an ice cream cone, also I put ridges in the nose to make it look more like a carrot.

Finally, once I finished the mini cupcake I simply put in onto the regular cupcake laying on its side. And then you have yourself a snowman!

Just to leave you with a smile on your face we ONLY have 93 days 'til Christmas :)

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The Beez Kneez

I had the opportunity to do my bee cupcakes for a little boy's birthday party. I had to make 30 of them and then take them up to his school for his party that was going on at the end of a school day. I love these bee cupcakes and I think they are really cute and definitely a summer cupcake. They are also extremely easy to make and take all of a about 5 minutes make one.

Of course for these cupcakes you will need icing dyed yellow and back, white melting chocolate, brown melting chocolate and white decorating sugar. Oh and of course the cupcake :)

First, I put the two different color icings into two baggies then I cute the tips of a corner of the baggy. I first pumped the black icing on the cupcake in the three different lines and then went back and smoothed the lines out a little with a knife. Then I went back and did two yellow lines in between the black lines. Once again I smoothed the yellow icing out as well. This just made the icing look a little more smooth.

The head/antenna, the stinger and the wings are all made out of melting chocolate. For the head/antenna I drew out a template on wax paper and then followed that with melting chocolate and then put it in the freezer for it to harden. I did the same thing for the stinger as well. For the wings, I used white melting chocolate and also drew out a template in follow. Right after I followed the template with melting chocolate I sprinkled white decorating sugar on them to make them look a little more like wings. You have to do this step quickly because if you wait too long then the melting chocolate will harden and the decorating sugar won't stick to it. Then I placed them in the freezer to harden as well. Also, it is helpful to make a point or an arrow going down from the head, stinger and wings because this will help when you are wanting to stick them into the cupcake to stay. This will help them not to fall off the cupcake.

Once the head, stinger and wings were pretty frozen I took them out and placed them in the cupcake. With all these pieces it's better safe than sorry to push the head, stinger and wings a little more into the cupcake than you would think. This way they won't fall off if you are traveling with them somewhere. 

Another tip with using melting chocolate is the go ahead and turn your car on to cool it down if it's hot outside, because the melting chocolate doesn't stay frozen for very long. You will learn very quickly while using it.

The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others. -   Saint John Chyrsostom

NFL Football

My husband and I are huge college football fans, but have never gotten into NFL football. I feel like more people in Missouri are NFL fans than college football fans, so I was asked to make Kansas City Chief logos and St. Louis Rams logos on some cupcakes. I have to admit I had no idea what the logos even looked like. That might be bad to admit but I'm not ashamed to admit it :) You learn something new every day!

At first I didn't know where to begin. My husband and I were watching the movie Clash of the Titans, the new one (which we suggest not renting) and I got rather bored so I thought I would look up the logos and start coming up with some ideas of what I could do. I had the color of the Chiefs down perfectly but it was the Rams that I kept getting stuck on. The Navy and Gold where two colors that aren't easily made, especially the Gold from the logo. Well I ended up settling with a gold yellow color which in the end looked really good with the Navy icing that I mixed with blue and very little black food coloring.

First, I started off by making templates for the logos and made 6 Chief logos and 6 Rams logos out of melting chocolate. With the Chiefs logo I made the arrow and then went back with red icing and wrote the KC in the middle of it. With the Rams I made the logo with yellow and white melting chocolate and then went back over the white melting chocolate with the Navy icing I made. After I got done I was rather impressed with the way they looked. It was something I was unfamiliar with but I think it ended up turning out very well.

With the football cupcakes, I covered the cupcakes with green icing I had mixed together and then covered it in coconut that I had dyed green with green food coloring. I feel like the coconut gives it that grassy texture and make it look more real. The footballs are made of melting chocolate with white icing for the laces, and I just put more icing on the back and placed it in the middle of the cupcake so it was secure when we delivered them. 

The last cupcakes are the logo for Palen Music Center here in town. This logo is also made out of white melting chocolate and once those were pretty solid I put them where I wanted them on the cupcakes and then went back with blue icing I made and put it on the white chocolate. Making the Palen logo was fun, and I can definitely see myself doing more custom logos of businesses!

Elmo and Cookie Monster

The Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes are so cute to me and I think they turned out better than I thought they were going to. My nephew loves Elmo and so that's what gave me this idea. But then I also remembered that he laughed so hard at Cookie Monster eating all the cookies and it made me want to try and make a Cookie Monster. These were fun cupcakes to make but they also took a lot more materials.

I'll start with Elmo first. His eye are made of a big marshmallow that I cut in half and then used mini m&ms for the center of the eyes. I wanted to make his nose fun and not just a blob of icing so I thought a gumball would be fun and it of course adds to more sugar on the cupcakes which in a kid's mind is GREAT :) And as for his mouth I took an oreo cookie and split it in half. As for the icing I just dyed it with a lot of red food coloring to get it that rich red color. I also got the no taste food coloring because I had to use so much I didn't want the icing to start tasting weird. I put the cookie mouth on first and then froze the cupcake for about 10 minutes in the freezer which then allowed me to put icing on the rest of the cupcakes without it moving. Then I added the eyes and the nose and got cute little Elmo!

Now on to Cookie Monster. He turned out to be the cutest I've made so far! When I got done with him and he was just smiling at me with his cookie mouth and I had to smile back, haha :) Anyway, for cookie monster I also used a marshmallow for his eyes and brown mini m&ms for the center part. For the mouth I used a soft batch chocolate chip cookie and cut in half. I put the cookie on with a dab of icing and then put it in the freezer until the cookie didn't movie around the cupcake. Then I was able to ice it with my blue icing and then stuck the marshmallow eyes on him and this was the outcome.

I hope you enjoy these; they were a lot fun and easy to make so it's definitely something that you can do with your kids or if you babysit it would be a fun project to do with them. What kid doesn't like to eat cupcakes after they're made :)

Dumbledore's Army

I know it's been a while since my last blog post so I thought I would come back with one of my absolute favorites. I am a huge Harry Potter fan (or HP fan for others that are as well). I have two cats, one named Luna Lovegood Sweet Potato Myers and Neville Longbottom Chic-fil-a Myers, and hopefully somewhere in the future I will own a Great Dane and his name shall be Hagrid :)

Anyway, back to the cupcakes... I made these and of course my inspiration was Harry Potter. With a movie filled with so many characters the cupcake possibilities are endless. I decided to do the three main characters and of course the lightning bolts which Harry is famous for (His scar is the shape of a lightning bolt).

I started out by dying all my frosting to the colors that I needed. For the skin color I had vanilla frosting and put a little cocoa powder in it with a drop of yellow food coloring. This gave the frosting a nice rich tan color. If you want to go darker on the skin color then you just continue to add more cocoa powder. Next, I dyed some frosting black and orange (for Harry and Ron's hair). You can also get dark chocolate melting chocolate and orange melting chocolate, although a lot of stores don't carry the colored melting chocolates.

For Hermione's hair I used brown melting chocolate. I drew the hair out on wax paper and then followed my template with the melting chocolate and stuck it in the freezer until it was solid.

For Harry's glasses I just took some left over black icing and went around his eyes. And as for the lightning bolt scare I took leftover yellow icing from the lightning bolt cupcakes and put some in a baggy. Then I cut an extremely small hole in one of the corners so it piped out really thin.

I put a mini marshmallow for the noses on with a tiny amount of icing and put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes until the marshmallows wouldn't move around on me. I did this so I could ice the whole cupcake. Then I put the hair on each one. After that I went back and did the eyes and mouth on all of them as well as Ron's freckles.

For the lightning bolts, I mixed yellow dye with icing and then free handed the lightning bolts on the cupcakes. If you don't feel comfortable doing it free handed than you can draw a template on wax paper and use that as your guide. I then went back with blue icing and went around the lightning bolt for the background.

These are such fun cupcakes and they make me so excited about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 movie coming out in November. You can bet that I will be there with my scarlet and gold scarf on ;)