Ornaments

For Christmas my dad asked me to make some festive cupcakes for him to take to work. I wanted to do something different than last year so I came up with ornaments. I covered all of the cupcakes with white frosting and then dipped them in different colored sprinkles. The tops of the ornaments were made by sticking Dots onto pretzel sticks and using slivers of Airheads to make the loops and the top. All of the other decorations were a combination of m&m's and Airheads.

Bugs

A couple of months ago one of my coworkers asked if I could make some bug cupcakes for her son's birthday party. To make the bugs I took melting chocolate and piped it into the shapes of different bugs (spiders, centipedes, scorpions, etc.) on parchment paper. Then you place m&m's onto the chocolate to make it look like a bug. You have to work fast because the melting chocolate hardens quickly so you need to have your m&m's ready before you start.

After you decorate the chocolate with the m&m's let them sit for a few minutes to completely harden and then carefully peel them off of the parchment paper. I decorated the tops of the cupcakes to look like grass, but you could use chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles to make it look like dirt instead.

Halloween Cupcakes

This year for Halloween I decided to make some cupcakes. I wanted to do something a little different than what I had found in books or online so I decided to make witch hats, bats, and spiders all out of Tootsie Rolls.

First, I dyed the Tootsie Rolls black with die (my hands were purple the next day). Then I began to make the shapes I needed for the different designs. The witch hats were the easiest. I made the cone first and then took balls and flattened them for the base. I dipped the bottom of the cones into green sprinkles to make it look like a belt and then pressed them onto the bases.

The body and head of the spiders was pretty easy too. I just made different size spheres for them and then slightly flattened the larger one for the body. The legs took FOREVER! I had to roll out the Tootsie Roll and then cut it into pieces. I made the legs stand up out of the frosting so they looked 3D. Then I took red frosting and piped on the hourglass shape to make it look like a black widow.

The bats took a while as well. The head and body were fairly easy, but the wings took a while. I had to flatten the Tootsie roll and then cut a half circle. Then I smoothed the edges (because the knife stuck to the Tootsie Roll) and then formed the points on the wings. Then I piped on the eyes on the bats with left over red frosting from the spiders.

I loved how they turned out. They were delicious, as long as you didn't get too much Tootsie roll in the bite. Unfortunately the Tootsie Rolls started to melt and lost their shape after a couple of days so we had to eat them quick!

WSU Cougar Graduation Cupcakes!

My husband and I graduated from Washington State University this spring and we had a lot of family come down to celebrate with us. So I couldn't resist the opportunity to make COUGAR cupcakes!

At first I cut out a small stencil and tried to lay it on the cupcake then have a sprinkle cougar logo but that did not work... at all. So then I tried to use the stencil then pipe in red frosting to make the logo and that didn't work either!!!

Needless to say I ended up free handing all of them! As I worked on them I got better and better at the design.

I think they turned out great!! GO COUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spurs Cupcakes

For our friend Matt's roomate's (Devin) birthday Matt asked me to make Spurs cupcakes because they're his roomate's favorite team. So I decided to make jerseys for the starters, five basketballs, and two Spurs logos... The jerseys, signs, and the lines on the basketballs were all made out of tootsie rolls that I melted together and dyed black... My hands were dyed black for the rest of the day.

Here is how they turned out!!!

I think Devin liked them! : )

Roses

My grandma asked me to make some cupcakes for someone she knows so I decided to make roses because my grandma loves roses.

I watched a short tutorial on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7gvetgdNnw) on how to make roses and it was really helpful!

First you make the roses on little wax paper squares and cool them in the fridge or freezer.



Once the frosting has hardened you peel the rose from the wax paper and place it on top of the cupcake. As the rose warms back up it sticks to the cupcake.

They turned out super cute (even though the pictue is sideways)!!!!

Chrysanthemum's

My friend gave me a call last week asking for cupcakes for her sister's birthday. She told me to do something girly like flowers, so I chose to make chrysanthemum's.

To make the chrysanthemums you first have to take mini marshmallows and cut them in half diagonally and then dip them into sprinkles. This takes a little while, but the assembly is fast.

Once you have about 30 mini marshmallow halves for each cupcake, put some frosting on the cupcake and then place the marshmallows around the cupcake. Start at the outside and circle to the center. In the center of the cupcakes I put Skittles to make the center.