American Alligator cupcakes

For my son's 5th Birthday I made him an alligator made out of 2 dozen cupcakes...
It was pretty easy when I followed the instructions in the Hello, Cupcake  book.
All that I needed to decorate it was icing, green tint, yellow banana-shaped runts, marshmallows, oreo (100 calorie) thins, 2 jr. mints, and 2 green jellybellies. The hardest issue that I ran into was having a surface large enough to display (& transport) this big guy!  (I found a large pizza box opened flat worked well for display!)

Cakepops!

Found a new book, Cakepops by Bakerella. This book is right up my alley! Creative yummy balls of cake & frosting dipped into candy melts, and stuck on a stick.

Here are my latest creations!

After baking a cake, crumbling it, and mixing it with frosting- I rolled them into balls. Then after chilling them in the freezer for 15 minutes, I shaped them into a "cupcake" shape using a flower-shaped cookie cutter. Next placed them back into the fridge to keep them from losing their shape while I melted the candy melts.

 I dipped the bottom of the "cupcake" into the melted chocolate candy melts...

Then I quickly dipped part of the lollipop stick into the chocolate and pushed it about halfway into the cakepop.

After the chocolate was dry, I dipped the top of the cupcake into the a different color candy melt. I did a batch of white & one of pink.

Then topped with sprinkles & a skittle!

Then I put each into a bag and tied it with a ribbon.

I also made Owls (for my daughter's 3rd Birthday)...

And turkeys for Thanksgiving....

Monster Cupcakes

For my daughter's 7th Birthday I made her "Monster Cupcakes" from the What's New Cupcake? book.

I got the height for the monster by attaching a mini cupcake to the top of the unfrosted regular cupcake. The eyes of the monster were made by stretching a gummy peach ring over a Dum Dum lollipop. Then I used a tiny bit of vanilla frosting to attach a mini- M&M to make a pupil for the eye.

They were really easy to make, once I fixed my frosting issues. To apply the tinted frosting I put the frosting into a ziploc bag and then snipped off a small piece of the corner.Then I just let the frosting drip in "strings" over the cupcake while moving it around to cover the mini cupcake & regular cupcake.

When I used my tinted Duncan Hines Rich & Creamy- it was WAY too soft & melty. Here is the first cupcake I made, it turned out ok- but after sitting for 20 mins or so, it turned into a smooth melty blob!

I ended up using some of the Wilton's White Decorator Icing (which has a nice stiff consistency) - mixing it into the already tinted Duncan Hines. This allowed me to also make some furry monsters (see the above green monster.)

The hardest part of these cupcakes was transporting them because they were tall & top-heavy! But the Birthday girl loved them!

Freshly baked- Cherry Pie Cupcakes

For my Mother-In-Law's Birthday, I decided to try out a new cupcake from my NEW cupcake book, What's New Cupcake?
Cupcakes shaped like little pies! (Perfect for my mother-in-law who is the pie-baker for our family holidays).

I baked chocolate cupcakes (from the box) but modified slightly.

Then I tinted the vanilla frosting with yellow food coloring & unsweetened cocoa powder to mimic the color of pie crust.

Then all I needed to top the cupcakes with were some M&Ms. I bought a bag of all red ones at our local Michaels. I was planning on getting blue ones for "blueberries" but they were all out!

The finished product! Closely spaced "Cherries" covered over with piped lines to look like the lattice on top of a pie. I think they turned out well :)