Then I had the baby and that was even rougher and the weeks following were rough and now here we are still rough but blogging because I have cupcakes I am dying to show off!
First off were the cupcakes I made for the 4th of July. Red velvet cupcakes, strawberry cream cheese frosting base, cream cheese butter cream swirl & topped with blueberries. In addition around the outer edge was a layer of red pop rocks (flavor raspberry I assume) and topped with red, white & blue star sprinkles. These were so good and festive! I used red velvet from the box and as this was months and months ago I don't remember the frosting recipe but I am fairly certain I just threw ingredients in the mixer and called it good.
Next up (although technically they happened before Fourth of July but I forgot about them until I started this post) are cupcakes for my son Henry's 2nd birthday! Dark chocolate cupcakes, strawberry cream cheese & topped with his most favorite candy mini m&m's. He got very excited over blowing out the candles and eating a cupcake but in the end he ate all the m&m's off the cupcake and then ate ice cream. Toddlers have no appreciation! The cupcake was my go to recipe that I have posted before. The strawberry cream cheese frosting was just butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla & pureed strawberries. It was a fairly humid day and the frosting didn't get as stiff as I would have liked. Which is one of the reasons it wasn't piped on. The other reason was he's two and doesn't care!
Then came my children's combined birthday party. Henry was 2 on July 2nd and Arianna was 12 on July 14th. We did a combined party in our backyard (omgosh the weather was so amazing you never know what you are going to get weather wise in the summer in Seattle, last year my cousins outdoor wedding in July was rainy and cold!) and each kid got their own special cupcakes.
Henry got monkey cupcakes, I found a picture on pinterest no tutorial but it seemed easy enough to figure out on my own. They were Yellow funfetti (from scratch) cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese sour cream frosting. Monkey face made with nila wafers (mini and regular) and candy eyes. The candy eyes I purchased from Sweet! Baking Supply (I fully intend to put a click able link in here for them, I love them!) and the nila wafers just at the grocery store. The mini wafers cost more than the regular size, why?! Everyone seemed to enjoy the yellow cupcake but honestly I found the taste and texture to just be gross. No one complained so it may have just been me or else they just didn't want to be rude. I did not like the recipe and did not save it. The texture reminded me of a vegan gluten free cupcake I once ate and tasted like bananas despite no bananas in the recipe. The frosting I again just threw whatever I had in the fridge in the mixer and hoped for the best. It was quite delicious and quite decadent which is good because there was not a lot of frosting on the cupcakes so a little went a long way!
For Arianna I made panda bear cupcakes Bakerella posted a blog on how to make mini panda cupcakes. I used her tutorial only making regular sized cupcakes and per the request of the birthday girl I added sugar mustaches courtesy of again Sweet! Baking Supply . The cupcakes were dark chocolate cupcakes, cream cheese butter cream. Face made out of Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips, candy eyes & sugared mustaches. The Ghiradelli chips were preferable as they are larger than regular chocolate chips. The dark chocolate cupcake was once again my go-to recipe.
So that is my year end recap...only I am making myself birthday cupcakes/thanksgiving cupcakes in the next few days along with obviously cupcakes for the rest of the holiday season. Hopefully I will blog about them before 2013 arrives!
