Birthday Party Must ... Race Car Themed Cupcakes (All the tips I've seen on Pinterest wrapped into one CUTE package)

I'll apologize up front this is going to be a LONG post!  The recipes I used will all be featured so you can weed threw and find the one you want to make or make all the recipes to make these super cool cupcakes!  As you may have remembered I talked about in my post last Thursday, that I volunteered to make cupcakes for the cakewalk at the boys school Spring Fling this past weekend.  I was going to make 200 mini cupcakes, but then I heard some ppl would be donating cakes etc and thought that wouldn't be fair if one person got a pie and one got a mini cupcake.  So I switched to regular sized cupcakes.  I used a few cool tricks I saw on Pinterest.  I made red and white cupcakes (I took inspiration from Cookies and Cups picture).  For the dual frosting I found an idea to do two pipping bags on Blog Confetti Couture but my amazing friend who helped me decorates cakes and she just use one bag and put one color on one side and the other color on the other side (see picture below).   I also saw a great idea to put cupcakes in a clear plastic cup and clear bag and tied with a bow, I've seen it several blogs but I'll give credit to The Crafting Chicks.  The other recipes and links are below with recipes.

I first started out the homemade yellow cake mix that I showed on Friday's post.

Since I made 98 cupcakes I tripled this recipe.  I made one that was doubled and kept it the white color.  Then I made another batch and used Wilton's Red Gel Icing Color to turn it that beautiful red color. I thought red and white cupcakes would be cool for a race car themed cupcake along with those are two of the three school colors.

Homemade Yellow Cake Mix

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup non-fat dry milk

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and non-fat dry milk.

Add water, vanilla, butter, and eggs. Combine with an electric mixer then beat two more minutes. Pour into a greased and floured cake pan. Bake at 350-degrees cupcakes — 12-15 minutes.

For the two colors I split the batches and colored one.

The finished Cupcakes

Start with Mix, Add the wet ingredients, Dye one part and Bake them!

How to make the cupcakes

After the cupcakes came out and cooled down I took them to my best friends house to help me frost and make them pretty.  I first started by making the frosting, I found this AMAZING Sturdy Buttercream Frosting on Coleen's Recipes.  My friend tasted it for me and said it was excellent not too sweet and let me tell you it was so sturdy and easy to work with.  THIS will be the frosting I use from now on.  AND as a side NOTE always use butter when it calls for butter DON'T be cheap and try to use the cheap non butter.  FROM personal experience you get goop ... it doesn't come together it separates and you end up wasting money!

Sturdy Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

1 cup white Crisco shortening
1 cup butter (room temperature)
6 to 6½ cups of powdered sugar
½ cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (important)

In the large bowl of a stand mixer, whip the shortening and butter together for about 3 minutes on high. Add 6 cups of powdered sugar, the extracts and whipping cream to the butter mixture and whip ON HIGH for about 8 to 10 minutes.

Depending on climate, you may want to add an additional ½ cup of powdered sugar.

Once you frost your cake, put it in the fridge to let everything "set". Remove your cake from the fridge about an hour before serving.

ALEXIS NOTE: I used just almond instead of vanilla and almond (I personally prefer the taste).  I found this to be the best and putting in fridge is perfect to hold up for the next day or in my case 2 days later and they were still in perfect condition!

I made a double batch of the frosting and kept it white.  Then I made another batch and dyed that black with the Wilton's Gel Food Icing Coloring (I HIGHLY recommend using this instead of food color you buy at the store, taste better and color is better!  I buy mine at Walmart in the decorating section). 

Mix the Black in

Remember at first it will be Grey GIVE it a DAY

Now that frosting is done we go on to making the black and white swirled frosting.  My friend who does an amazing job at decorating cakes.  Did the pipping for me, she used one pipping bag with two colors.  NOW at first I was going to do Red & White ... But then I thought about the flag for the race is black and white how cool would it be to top with black and white to tie the cupcakes all together .. PLUS the school colors are Red, Black and White so I captured them all in the cupcake.

Cupcake with Black & White frosting

While my friend was doing the pipping I started to work on the Car themed Cupcake pick's.  I found this super cute design for Fuel up up on Vinnie Pearce's Blog.  She had them as stickers, I took her design copied and put in a word document to I could print 20 of them at a time.  I had this brilliant idea that every cupcake needed one!  YUP so I ended up printing and cutting 98 of them (well 100 in case I had any oopps).  Let's just say cutting out that many my fingers were hurting!  AFTER they were all cut out I took a little glue and glued a toothpick onto the back.  Then we added a cupcake pick to each cupcake!

And to finish off the look, I picked up some clear cups at the dollar store.  I got a pack of 10 for $1!  I even found clear bags 25 pack for $1 oh yes it was a score day!!!  Each cupcake fit nicely in the cup with out squeezing or knocking any frosting off ... PERFECT.  We then put a cupcake in a clear cup into a clear bag and tied with a bow either black or red.  My friend and Cole helped making all these looking pretty!  Thank God for them or I would have been up way past midnight!

Cupcake in a Clear Cup

How to Make Pretty

The Finished Project!

The Finished Cupcake

The finished look of both!

Phew .... that was a lot of work!  It ended up costing me around $60 to make these 98 cupcakes for the school.  BUT I got so many compliments, people actually thought they were bought from a bakery and I was told yet again that I need to go into business (one day my friends). This would be fun for a Race Car / Car themed birthday party.  You don't have to make as many as I did and can make them for around $20 to $30 for a normal party and just think that is what you would have spend on a crappy Costco or Walmart cake.  With a little love and thought you could have these!  You know me I rather make them then buy.

Thanks for hanging in for this super long post!

I hope you make these!

A recap of what we did:

Hope you have a great day, sorry I haven't been around I promise I will soon!

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