Roar! Safari Baby Shower ... Monkey & Banana Cupcake Toppers

This past weekend one of my dear friends had a baby shower to welcome in her 2nd baby boy that is coming very soon.  She picked a safari theme and I was asked to help with treats.  As usual I went a little nutty going over the board buying things and wanting to make everything I found.  With some urging from Rick I stepped back out of the host roll I was not and back to the helper role I was asked to be (yup I'm working on my over doing it .. lol).  Returned $100 worth of items and stuck to a few basics for the party.  First on my list was the cupcakes, I made 2 dozen with two different toppers.  The toppers I could make before hand so the day of the party I could just go and not worry about making them the day of.

I first started with the monkey's since they would take a little bit of time to make.  I found a few versions of pictures that I like and kind of made my own from it.  I used inspiration from Rose Bakes and Stagetectures.

I started with making my favorite Rolled Buttercream Fondant (I've posted my recipe so many times I'm just going to give you the link to not make this post crazy long).  I hit up Micheal's for Wilton icing food coloring in Brown and Ivory.  I used a circle cutter and two oval cutters.

What you Need:

Rolled Buttercream Fondant

Wilton Icing Color Brown

Wilton Icing Color Ivory

Circle Cutter

Ivory Cutters

Paint Brush with water

Powder Sugar (for rolling)

Make the fondant, break into 2 balls one larger ball (brown) and one smaller one (ivory).  Roll out the fondant using powder sugar so it won't stick.  I only made 12 monkey's so my monkey's were really thick, you can roll your's thinner if you would like.  The brown I rolled out and cut out 12 circles.  With my left over brown I rolled it out and used my smallest oval cutter to make the ears (24 total).  I then rolled out the ivory cut out 12 ovals (for the mouths).  Once the mouths were cut out I used my fondant cutter VERY lightly to make a straight line for the lips.  I was going to use food writers to color on the eyes but instead I used the pointy end of my paint brush to make two eyes.  To attach my mouth and ears I used my paint brush and a little warm water.  I let the Monkey's sit out to harden up a little bit before attaching to my frosted cupcakes.  See the picture below for a step by step.

After the Monkey's I made my go to best Buttercream Frosting (again to keep this post from being so long I'm including my recipe via the link).  I also made my go to Moist White Cake Recipe.

After the Monkey's were done I made the banana's for the other 12 cupcakes, this was the easiest part.  I bought a banana silicone mold off Amazon.

What you Need:

Banana Silicone Mold

Yellow Wilton Candy Melts

I loaded up each banana cavity with 6 melts and placed it into the microwave for 1 min 30 sec. You may need to do a extra 30 seconds if needed.  When you take them out bang the tray a few times to get the air bubbles out.  I placed mine in the freezer, about 10 minutes later I carefully popped them out.  I placed them on top of the cupcake and then into the fridge to make sure they didn't melt.

The cupcakes were a little time consuming but so cute and worth it!

Stay Tune for a few more Safari themed items

Thanks for Stopping by!

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

Dolphin Cake (Easy Step by Step from 2 round cakes)

My friends daughter was having a dolphin themed party this weekend and instead of buying a gift, I thought it would fun to make her a cake.  I asked my friend if she had already ordered a cake if not can I make it?  They had not to off I went on the search to find the best and easiest dolphin cake I could find. I found many different versions and a lot of them saying you could do it with 2 round cakes but no real step by step.  That was until I came across Something Edible and the great tutorial on how to make a dolphin cake (He included a pdf that you can print cut out and then put together like a puzzle.

What you need:

• Double batch of Homemade yellow cake mix (or your favorite)
• 2 - 9" Round Cake pans (Mine was 10" so I had lot's of left overs)
• Buttercream Frosting (dirty Icing and glue to hold pieces together)
• Rolled Buttercream Fondant (or your favorite - White & Blue)
• Delphinium Blue Icing Color
• Black Wilton Icing
• Licorice Strings
• Cake Board

Instructions:

Bake the 2 round cakes as directed, let cool.  I just had mine cooled but I have heard that they are easier to cut if frozen.  Print the pdf pages from Something Edible.  I then cut out the pieces of paper and laid them on each round cake and got to cutting.  I then like a puzzle piece put them together, each paper was labeled (a,b,c etc).  I then took buttercream frosting and glued the pieces together and dirty iced the top of the cake to be able to put the fondant on.  I rolled out white strips to put on the front of the cake (the stomach & bottom fin of the dolphin , I also made a circle that went up the side for the dolphin.  I rolled out the blue icing and covered the dolphin.  Cutting off the edges and the part that was white.  I took a little black and to a small ball of fondant to make an eye.  I then cut some licorice string to be the eyelashes.  I took some fondant and made letter's to write out Happy Birthday.

Hope you make this for someone special!

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

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.

Sturdy Buttercream Frosting (The Best Frosting EVER)

Since this has become my go to frosting and I'm linking to a post with tons of words so I wanted to break it out and put it in a post on it's own.  This has become my favorite frosting for cupcakes I've been making and getting tons of compliments on this flavor.   It holds up great for parties and if you leave it out.  I found this amazing recipe for  Sturdy Buttercream Frosting on Coleen's Recipes.

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!  This frosting also does great in the freezer!

Easy recipe to make and the best frosting I've come across.

Look for a little Crème? How about Cookie style!

I wanted to make something nice for the ladies at my women’s church group and ran across this recipe.  Around this time of year I always stock up on Betty Crocker Cookie mixes since they have box tops and they are great starters for cookie recipes.  This Snickerdoodle Crème Cookies turned out great, I switched out the cream to Wilton’s Buttercream Icing.

Then Cole’s was in the Children’s play at church so I thought I would whip up a Pumpkin version using the Betty Crocker Pumpkin Spice Cookie Mix.  Well I got the cookie made but then found out the kids needed to be there early for rehearsal so they went in the fridge and now will be passed out to neighbors .  I used the Very “Butter” Cream Frosting that I made a while back that pared perfect!

Now on to more cookie making this week, must get all my homemade gifts out the door this weekend!

Have you done any baking?  Do you make cookies for friends/family?

Leftover Turkey & Cupcakes!

I found this amazing recipe to use the last of my turkey.  I used my hard apple cider instead of beer (it’s my special treat every once in a while .. lol). I used Agave instead of honey.  Cole liked this so much that he had me put it as his warm up the next day at school.  The Turkey Chili with Whole Wheat Orzo is one of the best chili’s I have made.

This was the best butter cream icing I have ever made, talk about super buttery .

I took this S’Mores Cupcake recipe and tweaked it since I didn’t have time to make the pretty frosting.  Ok the thing is I didn’t have a kitchen torche and Rick’s Man Cave scares me to go out there to get his torch.  I did the base the same with the graham cracker & chocolate cake part.  Just used a butter cream frosting instead (see above recipe).

Something warm for your tummy and something sweet for your sweet tooth .  Do you have something on your menu tonight?

Not your NORMAL Chicken, Rice & Brownies

As usual we don’t have the same boring meal we have to mix it up and all of these were amazing. NOW the chicken and rice both are low fat, the brownies NOT so much! Thankfully those went to church so we didn’t have them sitting around the house to tempt me .

First off we had a very yummy chicken the recipe called for thighs but I don’t do bones, I know were nutty. So I used it for breast meat and put the sauce as a marinade and let it sit in the fridge for 12 hours then baked it. I’m lazy like that, I LOVE my delay button on the oven and that way I can go to the gym and when we return home it’s done. Asian Glazed Drumsticks by my girl Gina at Skinnytaste.com.

Yummy is all I can say about this Wild Rice, Barley and Asparagus Pilaf. the boys ate it with out the asparagus. Now the recipe has you do the rice and barley in steps on the stove. I did it in my rice cooker that also has a steamer on top! I’m all about the quick and easy here and it turned out perfect!!

And now this is FAR from healthy but as we know portion control is key. The church had a BBQ/Potluck so I whipped up these Oreo Brownies With Buttercream Frosting. I used brownie mix from the bulk section at Winco and used a oreo knock off because I’m cheap … lol.

Now let’s talk about PEOPLE at potlucks! What the heck as soon as I cut them people ran up and then got picky on wanting to get the largest one! Then people grabbed more then ONE before anyone else could get one! Of course the first in line where the people who brought NOTHING! It really irks me when we have maybe 9 dishes and there is 60+ people wanting food. NOW some I understand others have no excuse!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

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