Elmo Cupcakes

While out in Ohio last week, I got to make my nephew's birthday cake.  Last year he was too little to have a favorite, so we went with a typical boy sports theme.

A year later and he's definitely got a favorite, and it's this guy:

Personally, I was a huge Ernie fan as a kid, but I do think Elmo is pretty cute also, he wasn't around when I was a kid!!!!  Originally I was going to use the football pan from last year, but it mysteriously disappeared so I went with plan b, Elmo Cupcakes!

I really don't like red frosting so I tinted the frosting and then covered each cupcake in red decorating sugars.  The eyes are coconut jelly beans cut in half with a dot of melted chocolate that squeezed out of a zip lock bag with the corner snipped off.  Elmo's nose is an orange jelly bean.  Realized the night before making these, I could go to a candy store and only buy the amount of each color of jelly bean that I needed instead of having to buy a large bag of mixed and hope there was enough of what I needed!  I might be the last person to know that, but if not, that's my tip of the day, lol!!!

For his big-ol grin, we split your basic "sandwich cookies" scraped out the creme filling and cut them in half.  Slow sawing resulted in less breakage of the cookies.  I did need a bit more icing on the back of each cookie to "glue" them in place.

Tatertot mush have overheard the discussion of the cupcakes because he woke up from his nap (I decorated while he napped) asking for Elmo Cake.  He was so incredibly thrilled when he got his own Elmo cupcake.

This was only the first day with is cousins.  By the end of the week, the poor babe was so over tired from not wanting to miss a minute of his time with them, especially O-man!

Peace be with you,

Kid's Corner: Hot Dog Cupcakes

O-man's last day of school ended with a Hot Dog Picnic.  His teacher (my neighbor) asked me to make cupcakes, knowing I wouldn't just buy something.  Of course I had to make something to go with the theme!

These were actually so easy to make and the kids did a lot of the work.  Here's what you'll need:
Yummy cupcakes frosted and sprinkled, large marshmallows, caramels, brown food coloring, water, yellow frosting (I used gel in a tube... next time I will use regular frosting).

First, cut your caramels and marshmallows in half using kitchen scissors.  Snip the center of each half of the marshmallow making a place for the hot dog to go.  Have the kids roll the caramel halves turning them into the hot dog shape.

Now it's time for a little finger painting!  In a small bowl of water add brown food coloring until the water is about the same color as the caramels.  Have the kids dip their finger into the dyed water and finger paint the marshmallow halves on the rounded side (not the cut side).

Don't forget to paint the ends of your buns.  They actually went right up to the hot dog, some white showed, but this made it look more real in my opinion.

Place on top of your cupcakes and pipe a squiggly line of yellow "mustard" frosting.  I used a tube of yellow gel icing because I was too lazy to mix up the small amount of frosting I needed... mistake!  Maybe in the winter it would have been fine, but the gel had melted by the time the party started and didn't look nearly as cute.  But they still got rave reviews and tasted really yummy!

I got quite the kick out of O-man and his friends at the picnic, one little guy wouldn't eat the bun of a regular hot dog... or the marshmallow version!  I'm pretty sure he was expecting the caramel to actually be meat too!

Peace be with you,

I'll be linking up to several of these parties:

M: Made by you Mondays, Made with Love Monday, Making the World Cuter, MMM @ CRAFT, Just something I whipped up, Organizing Mission Monday, A Round Tuit, Motivate me Monday, DIY, Sharing Monday T: Sew Cute Tuesday, Handmade Tuesdays, Tip Me Tuesday, TCB, Topsy Turvy Tuesdays, Take-a-Look Tuesdays, Too Cute Tuesdays, Giggles Glitz & Glam, Gettin’ Crafty With It, It’s Sew fun Tuesday W: We Did it Wednesday, Night Owl Crafting, Sugar & Spice, Tea Rose Home, Upcycled Awesome, We’re Organized Wednesday, What I Wore Wednesday, What’s Up Wednesday T: Make It Wear It, Frogs & Snails, It’s Stinkin’ Cute, Making it with Allie F: Fun Friday Finds, Fingerprints on the Fridge, It’s a Hodgepodge, Chic on a Shoestring, Fantastic Friday, TGIF, I’m an Organizing Junkie, Spunky Junky, The Shabby Nest S/S: KISS, Funky Fresh, Weekend Wrap Up, Nifty Thrifty

Edible Rolled Flower Tutorial

A few years ago I made the cake for the teacher appreciation luncheon.  They wouldn't cut it!  The teachers thought it was too pretty to cut so they raffled it off with the other prizes.  Needless to say I was flattered but I made it to be eaten!

Now it is pretty much known that I will make the cake every year.  I try to do something that goes with the theme.  This years theme was "Teachers plant the seeds of knowledge" which meant I had to do something with flowers!

"Teachers plant the seeds of Knowledge"
Triple Chocolate Fudge, Golden Pineapple and Vanilla Cloud Cakes
Garden markers were labeled with the type of cake, the theme and other thank yous to our wonderful teachers

I love to decorate cakes but my wrist problems make it hard to pipe everything so I have learned to improvise sometime with candies in some way.  Here is how I make flowers while my cakes are baking. It's a huge time saver to make up lots of flowers before the cake has even cooled and been iced!

Supplies: jelly beans, Laffy Taffy, Fruit by the Foot, rolling pin, crinkle cutter or knife, cutting board

1.  Roll out Laffy Taffy with a rolling pin.  It helps to mush it into your hand before, warm it up a little bit, making it easier to roll out.  Sorry about using a yellow cutting board and yellow Laffy Taffy!  When I took the picture O-man looked at it and said "oh, you made it disappear!"

2.  Cut strips with a knife or crinkle cutter, I switched to a white plate!  I cut about 3 strips out of each Laffy Taffy.

3.  Begin wrapping the strips of Laffy Taffy around a jelly bean (these ones were Nerd's Jelly Beans so they were bumpy - clearance!).  Put one flat layer all the way around the jelly bean.

3a.  Do some without the jelly bean to make a different type of flower:

4.  Continue wrapping the strips of taffy folding and twisting it back and forth, much like the rolled fabric flowers that are very popular now.   The cool thing is it sticks to itself, no glue needed like the fabric version!

5.  Make them as large as you like, mix and match the colors.  Fruit by the foot works awesome too and doesn't need to be rolled out.  Add spiced gummy leaves as petals (I cut these into three because the ones I had were too thick for my flowers).

Since this was a garden theme, I used dark chocolate icing and sprinkled crushed chocolate graham crackers around the edges as dirt.

I heard one of the first teachers there say it was too pretty to cut.  I told them if they didn't cut it and enjoy it I would bring them a piece to their class room, make them eat it in front of the kids and then they would have to deal with the kids whine about not getting any cake!  Mean, but effective.

Teachers rock and should be appreciated more than one week a year.

PS - I'll be linking up to many of these parties this week, check them out!