Triple Birthday Part 3: Penguins!

This post will be quite similar to my normal posts, since Kenny and I actually took photos as we created these. We worked off and on for about four hours on these, but I think they turned out great! So...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KENNY!

Here's everything we used:

As you can tell, there's A LOT there! We've got:

1. Red Velvet cake mix
2. Eggs and Oil (for the cake mix)
3. 1 can of chocolate icing
4. 2 cans of cream cheese icing
5. Plain donuts
6. Donut holes
7. Chocolate Wafers
8. Coconut
9. Marshmallows
10. Sweedish Fish
11. Rock Candy
12. Black food coloring (not pictured)
13. Yellow fondant
14. Candy eyes
15. Paper liners

First, we created the cake batter. I LOVE how red velvet cake batter looks:

While I worked on filling the liners, Kenny worked on slicing the marshmallows and cutting the chocolate wafers in half:

As the cupcakes baked, I sliced 6 donuts in half:

 Here are the cupcakes fresh out of the oven (we also made some mini cupcakes, but I forgot to take a picture):

Since the donuts were larger than the cupcakes, we had to cut them down:

We placed a bit of cream cheese icing under the donut and then placed some under a mini cupcake to put it on top, followed by the donut hole:

As you can see, I've already placed a bit of icing around the cupcake/donut hole, but we ended up doing more:

After completing all 12 of the penguins, we placed them in them in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes. However, the penguins weren't the only part to this set of cupcakes. We also made icebergs! We started with a regular cupcake:

 I then put cream cheese icing on it (sorry for the blurry photo!):

 Kenny then added the coconut:

 Next, we added some sweedish fish:

 Finally, Kenny added some of the rock candy:

 Ta-da!

 Here's all of them in the tray:

Once the penguins were done, we tinted the chocolate icing black and put it in the microwave to melt it (took about 40 seconds, checking it every 10 seconds):

Kenny says it looked like tar, and I can't help but agree. Anyways, you then take the penguins out of the freezer and dip hem into the melted icing.

Next, we placed the marshmallow slices in the penguin as it's 'stomach:'

Next, cut about a quarter of an inch off of one end of the chocolate wafers so you can place the flat end under the penguin's head (using the cream cheese icing or chocolate icing as glue), with the round sides facing forward:

Next, using a bit of the cream cheese icing as glue, we put the eyes on:

Finally, we added small triangles that Kenny cut out of the fondant as their beaks:

 Ta-da!

 

The best part, was when Kenny took a bite (completely eating the head), you could look into the penguin and see the red velvet mini cupcake, making it look like blood inside. Was pretty funny. =P

Triple Birthday Part 2: Lemon and Peanut Butter!

First of all,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TJ!

For his cupcakes, I knew I had to make something that was peanut butter. However, when he asked for peanut butter and lemon, I was QUITE surprised. Therefore, for his cupcakes I used a lemon cake mix, and did the filling explained in this blog post: St. Patrick's Day! However, I wanted to take the peanut butter a step farther and did a peanut butter frosting:

1 stick of butter

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tbsp milk

You start by creaming the peanut butter and butter together. Then add the powdered sugar and milk.

Click below to see Part 3!

Triple Birthday Part 1: Cheesecakes!

Three friends of mine, Almir, TJ and Kenny, all have their birthdays the first week of July. Almir's is the 1st, TJ's is the third and Kenny's is the fifth. This year, I decided each boy would get their own set of specially made cupcakes of their choosing. I soon realized that making 72 normal sized cupcakes was going to take quite a while and ended up getting help from Kenny. However, the first set I did on my own, Thursday night. This set being Almir's cheesecakes! So, first of all:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALMIR!

Josh's grandma has a recipe for individual cheesecakes that I used.

3 eight ounce packages of cream cheese

1 cup of sugar (added very slowly)

5 eggs (added one at a time, and blended)

1 tsp vanilla

After mixing that together, you fill the liners about half full and bake them for fifty minutes at 300 degrees. Meanwhile, you mix together the topping:

2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

You put about a teaspoon of that onto each of the cheesecakes and bake them for 10 more minutes. Here's how mine looked right out of the oven:

After they've cooled, you can add any kind of fruit that you want. I decided to add strawberries this morning:

Before:

 After:

Here's some more photos of the finished product:

 Click below to see the next set of cupcakes!