Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

We went to a BBQ for our exchange student and I wanted to bring something fun. I went to the cupboard and thought why not Peanut Butter cupcakes then I had some Jelly left and thought what a perfect combo for a cupcake. I did a Google Search and found PopSugar posted Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes. The only thing I would change was blend the jelly or use a jam so it didn't have big clumps of strawberries (was a little hard to pipe onto the cupcake).

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

1 box yellow cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
For the frosting:
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 ounces cream cheese
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the filling:
1 cup grape or strawberry jam

Directions

1. To make cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350ºF and place mini baking liners in mini muffin tins.
2. In a large bowl, beat together cake mix, water, peanut butter, vegetable oil, and eggs until combined. Divide batter into mini cupcake wells, filling each well about 2/3 full. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool.
3. To make frosting: Meanwhile, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or using a hand mixer, whisk heavy cream until soft peaks form.
4. In another large bowl, beat together cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, salt, peanut butter, and vanilla on medium speed, until combined. Then carefully fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter icing until smooth and fluffy.
5. To assemble cupcakes: Fit a piping bag with a pipping tip, then fill the bag with jam. Inject the tip into the center of each cupcake and squeeze to fill the center of the cupcake with jam, just until it swells but does not overflow.
6. Into a second piping bag, fill jam on one side and peanut butter frosting on the other side. Pipe frosting into a swirl on each cupcake. Let cupcakes set in the fridge for about 15 minutes before serving.

ALEXIS NOTES: I made regular size cupcakes, easy to travel with since I have cupcake holders I use for my charity cupcakes. I used my cupcake center tool to take out the centers to inject the jelly.

Enjoy!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Turtle Cupcakes

I was asked to make 48 cupcakes for a baby shower the theme was sea and turtles. So on the hunt I went for turtle cupcakes and found a few easy ones all of the same design so I'll just give one I found the most. Wonderful DYI had a great step by step.

You’ll need:-Cupcakes
-Frosting
-Sour Peach Gummy ring candies
-Red and green gum drop candies
-Spearmint Leaves candies
-Mini chocolate chips
-Toothpick or kitchen skewer
-Oval fondant cutter

Instructions:1. Bake cupcakes and frost them

2. For the turtle shell: Place a gummy ring on each cupcake. Slice off the bottom half of a red gum drop and place the top half at the center of the gummy ring. Push the gum drop into the frosting so it will stick.

3. For fins, slice a Spearmint Leaves candy in half. Using a oval fondant cutter, cut each half into two pieces (shown far right). Use the curled pieces for the front fins and the thicker pieces for the hind fins.

4. For the head, poke a hole into the sides of a green gum drop using a toothpick or kitchen skewer. Push mini chocolate chips into the holes for the turtle’s eyes. Use a dab of frosting to hold the eyes in place. Place the head onto the cupcake and slightly push into the frosting so it will stick.

ALEXIS NOTES: I had a heck of a time finding some of the candy, I even went to Winco which has a HUGE bulk section. So I winged it and used a circle cookie cutter to cut out the legs and made them the best I could!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Owl Cupcakes

Before school ended they had an event where they asked for cakes for the cupcake walk. The previous year I made a monkey cake this year they had a zoo theme again so I made Owl cupcakes. They gave out awards for best cupcakes / cakes, yes I'm competitive and a little upset when I did not win ... lol. Next year it is on! I saw several ways to make these but the one's I liked the best was on Family Circle.

What you Need:

Cupcakes frosted with brown icing (I made chocolate cupcakes also)

Oreo's

Brown Candy (or Modeling Chocolate like I used)

Orange Candy (or Modeling Chocolate like I used)

First, frost the cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Next, untwist two cookies and carefully push two brown candies onto the white part of the cookies. Place the cookie eyes onto the cupcake. Then put an orange candy on its side in between the eyes to make the owl beak. Swirl some owl eyebrows at the top if you’d like.

Alexis Notes: Now I had some modeling chocolate on hand from a previous cupcake so I used what I had instead of running to the store. Might be why I didn't win my cupcakes were a bit rushed since I forgot about doing them until hours before they had to be delivered .. lol. I also skipped doing the eyebrows out of frosting and made them out of Oreo's I halved (with the white cream taken off). 

Last Years and This Years Creations .. Thank You Time Hop!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Pokemon Party ... Pikachu Cupcake Wrappers

And this week we wrap this Pokemon Party! It really didn't seem that much was done but when I blog about it sure is a lot! This last one was another super easy one! I saw on several pinterest pin's these cupcake wrappers. I thought this would be a perfect way to go with my theme AND even though I was told outside food to the bowling alley I COULD bring cake!

I did a search on Ebay and came across this digital download for Pokemon Pikachu Cupcake Wrappers. NOW I waited a little late for these (uh hum .. the night before). Thankfully even when I downloaded like 9pm I received the digital download within 20 minutes.

What You Need:

Cupcakes 

Frosting (I used my Sturdy Buttercream)

Yellow Heavy Card Stock

Scissors

Tape

Thankfully I had Cole and he is old enough to cut things out straight as could be. I baked my cupcakes, I waited to frost them until I put the wrappers on. After all the wrappers were cut, we attached them to the cupcakes. I wrapped the wrapper around the un-frosted cupcakes and attached with a little tape, make sure snug so they stay when transporting them. Once the wrapper was attached I frosted with yellow tinted Buttercream.  Since we had to drive them I did my trick of putting in a clear cup and wrapped in a clear bag and tied with a bow.

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Spiderman Cupcakes for Birthday Dreams

Next on my cupcakes list to do for Birthday Dreams (bringing cupcakes to homeless kids) was for Spiderman cake .. WELL what I wrote down was Spiderman what it was suppose to be was Batman.  I felt like such a boob, so have to much on my plate ... ugh.

What you Need:

Cupcakes

Frosting

Spider Cookie Cutter (I bought mine at Halloween from Michael's)

Spiderman cookie Cutter (I bought mine on Ebay)

Black Modeling Chocolate

Red Modeling Chocolate

White Modeling Chocolate

I found a recipe for Moist Chocolate Cupcakes on Food.com and made them, they smelled so good! This was a great easy and yummy recipe!

While the cupcakes were cooling, I found a recipe for Easy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting on Good Cheap Eats. Another super easy and yummy frosting, I found it a little thick so I added extra heavy cream to make it easier to pipe onto the cupcakes.

For those who have not seen my previous post on how to make modeling chocolate (aka candy clay) all pictured but the orange.

Modeling Chocolate

12oz Candy Melts

1/4 Cup light corn Syrup

Melt your Candy Melts in microwave (mine takes about 2 minutes). Stir them to become smooth and add the corn syrup.  It will become thick and form a ball.  Wrap in plastic wrap and let it sit out and dry.  Takes a few hours or over night is best. (Alexis note: I found to roll this out use a little powder sugar (like you would do with flour), also you have to kneed it a little like you would dough to make it easy to roll out).

For the Eyes I cut a small red circle from the candy clay.  I then took the inner eye and made white eyes that I attached to the red.

For the spider's I used a spider cookie cutter to cut out black spiders.

I attached the Spiderman Eyes and Spiders to the top of a frosted cupcake.

I box them up in the great clear cupcake boxes I picked up on Amazon.

And deliver them to the shelter.

Have a great week!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

And again I volunteer ...

LOL I just can't help myself!  But at least this time I volunteered to bake!  The boys school is having their Spring Fling this Saturday.  I said I would bake the cupcakes for the cake walk!  Of course I couldn't do just store bought cupcakes or box cupcakes.  So on the search for what I wanted to do ... lol.

Our School colors are Red, White and Black and the theme is Nascar.  I thought it would be fun to do red & white cupcakes and frosting and see if I could find a flag to put in them.  ON to Pinterest and Google Images I went.

Wish me luck!  I was going to make 200 mini cupcakes.  But I think I may just make 100 or so regular cupcakes since they now have asked for people to bring desserts and it's not really fair if one person gets a pie and one person gets a mini cupcake!

So here is my plan, and Thank God my friend said she will help me!

The inspiration:

This sturdy Frosting

Using this trick

This Cupcake (with out the peppermint flavor)

Thinking a few of these Stickers cut out and put on a tooth pick.

Wish me luck!

Pumpkin Cupcakes turned into Turkey Cupcakes

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving?  I know crazy huh?  Cole had his pioneers meeting last night (like the boy scouts) and I always like to make a special treat for them.  Why not make cupcakes that look like turkey's?  I saw a few ideas on pintrest and kind of ran with it.  I first started with a pumpkin  cupcake recipe that I found on Taste and Tell Blog.  And then frosted with chocolate frosting and formed the little guys.

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup milk
Grated zest of 1 orange
One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin puree

Preheat the oven to 350°.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, pumpkin pie spice, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar and the 1 cup granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until combined.

Beat in the flour mixture in 3 parts alternately with the milk and orange zest on low speed until just combined. Add the pumpkin puree and beat until just combined.

Pour into cupcake liners and bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean about 15 to 16 minutes.

Then went to the decorating of the cupcake to look like a turkey!  I saw this picture and added my look.

• Chocolate Frosting
• Candy Corn
• M&M's or Reese Pieces

Frost the cupcakes I used a knife so it wasn't the big glop of frosting I usually do.  I then added Candy corn to make the tail feathers (You can use 3 or go crazy and add 6 to 9).  Add a small round dollop of frosting for the head.  Then add two pieces of candy to be eyes and add one piece of candy corn for the beak (see the picture below for the step by step).

Tada You're done!

Have a wonderful day!  I hope to get one more Thanksgiving treat recipe up for tomorrow!