Vegas Cupcakes!

Every now and then, I seem to FAIL at taking photos when I make cupcakes. This is one of those times. I didn't remember to take photos as I went along, but I did take some at the end and wanted to share. The cupcakes are the same as the key lime cupcakes that I made for Sara, except I used more green food coloring. The poker chips are made out of fondant:

The one in the back, with red, blue, yellow and green is the one we used.

Here's the poker chips:

Here are the final cupcakes!!

Cardinals Cupcakes

Phuong decided she wanted to make cupcakes for her boyfriend, Jarrett. After much deliberation, we came up with the idea to use mini cupcakes and make a baseball field.

Some of the supplies:

At first we just made 12 normal sized cupcakes, 24 mini cupcakes and 2 hearts.

But overall, we ended up making 12 regular, 36 mini and 4 hearts! Phuong doesn't do much baking so she kind of handled the camera most of the time, documenting her baking experience.

Cake mix with ingredients, before mixing:

This is the baby chickens she killed (jk, Phuong!):

After mixing:

In the cupcake liners:

In the oven:

Ta-da!

We cut into one and tried it. Isn't it pretty?:

Then we started working on the board for the cupcakes and working on getting all the cupcakes placed before we frosted them. Here's the beginning of the board (it started out white, btw):

Then we changed the layout, added some "dirt" and placed the cupcakes:

View from 1st base.

View from home plate.

 After finishing the two in the back:

All frosted and written on. And yes, the numbers are where they are supposed to go. The blue 38? That's a Cubs player striking out. =)

Close up on "Cardinals"

After adding the dots on the back two, two fireworks, and the gloves/baseballs on the players:

Zoomed in on the "Cardinals:"

Zoomed in on the players:

New view from home plate:

 After adding the "21" in hearts and the other fireworks:

Nearly done!

She decided to put his name on it:

Aren't they cute? =)

Key Lime Cupcakes!

First of all, I have to say...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SARA!!

Now that I'm done with that...I can go on to showcase Sara's birthday cupcakes! She decided she wanted Key Lime Cupcakes. The recipe I (basically) followed can be found with a click of this picture:

However, it seems like my cupcakes never go the way the recipe says to. As you read that recipe, you end up making 48 mini cupcakes. However, much to Sara and I's frustration, the recipe I had from the Betty Crocker book (notice that the recipe online is from her, too) was insanely confusing. This ended up causing frustration for not only Sara and I, but also Josh, and Mikah and Mary and a few others. The one in the book states, well, let me show you:

I'm not sure if you are able to tell, but it says, towards the top right hand corner, that it makes 24 mini cupcakes. Big difference from the 48 it says online. However, I found the online version a little late anyways. Oops! So, with Sara's permission, I made the decision to just make 24 regular size ones and say, "Oh well" to the rest.


The first step includes these items:

Topping:

1	box (4-serving size) vanilla instant pudding and pie filling mix
1 1/2	cups whipping cream
1/4	cup Key lime or regular lime juice
4	drops green food color
1 1/2	cups powdered sugar

First you mix the pudding and whipping cream:

You then let it sit for about 3 minutes:

Next, add the lime juice and food color:

Finally you stir in the powdered sugar:

Cover that bowl and put it in the fridge until later. Meanwhile, you make a standard yellow cake mix and bake the cupcakes. Since there wasn't anything special about the cupcakes, I didn't really take any photos of them. I decided to make a change to the recipe and use some of the topping as a filling as well:

I then put the topping on the cupcakes:

I decided to do one of the hearts with more of the white icing then the Key Lime topping. For the white icing, I used Whipped Fluffy White icing:

You add to that a tablespoon of lime juice. You also need a lime:

You add about a half tsp of grated lime peel. 

  
I then topped the cupcakes with the mixture:

I then cut up the rest of the lime:

 Finally, I topped all the cupcakes with a slice of lime: