Easter

I made these for Easter Sunday dessert. The cupcakes are white with white frosting and I dyed coconut to make the grass. I had a great plan for rabbits, but then I couldn't find all of the candy I needed and since I waited until the last minute, the peeps are my stand-in. (Speaking of which, don't these peeps look odd to you? They're lopsided. But I digress.) The decorations in the grass are spinkles for the flowers, plus jellybeans and malted milkball eggs. I like how they turned out, even if it wasn't what I had in mind.

Gardening and Spring

I made both of these sets for the youth group's baked goods auction. I mentioned that I'd make cupcakes, but I don't think they expected what I brought. I wasn't able to attend the actual event but everyone was excited the next day and kept complimenting me. Maureen actually split them into groups of three to try to make more money and it evidently worked -- the first set sold for $15! People kept coming up to me and saying "I got a radish and two carrots!" I'm really excited that they went over so well.

The garden set is a butter fudge cupcake, with milk chocolate icing rolled in cookie crumbs to make the dirt. The fruits are molded mostly from starburst and airheads. The carrots are orange starbursts that I dabbed with cinnamon to make them look dirty. The lettuce leaves are raisin bran flakes covered in green tinted vanilla frosting. The shovel is made from a piece of gum and pretzel sticks. The beans are skittles and laffy taffy.

I took this idea straight from Hello, Cupcake. They were actually pretty easy to make, although it did take me awhile. I made my vegetables one night, then the cupcakes the next day.

These were simpler and didn't take so long. They are a white cupcake with white icing. and the candies are just random decorations in spring colors. They looked nice and were easy to make, so I think they turned out well. The youth group raised over $1500, so it was a successful night for them! I'm glad I was able to contribute.

Valentines!

I made my second set of cupcakes for Nathaniel for Valentines Day. These were strawberry cupcakes with plain icing. I copied the idea from the book Hello, Cupcake but I used white icing instead of chocolate. The candies are pretty self explanatory. I bought red items for a month ahead of time and sprinkles out of the dollar bin at Target. I love this style of random decorations though, and I'll use it again.

Panther Paws

This is my first set of creative cupcakes, which I made in January for the Panthers second round playoff game. Looking back on it, they weren't anything all that special, but at the time they seemed remarkably clever. I tinted the frosting with blue dye until I matched the Panthers color and used frosting in a can to make the paws and numbers. I only knew the numbers of three players: Jake Delhomme (17), Steve Smith (89) and Julius Peppers (90), so they each went on three cupcakes.

Sadly, the Panthers went on to not only lose this game, but to suffer a loss so embarrasing that we turned the game off halfway through the second quarter. The only redeeming part of the night was that we got to vindictively "eat a Jake" to make ourselves feel better. They did taste great though!