Mardi Gras- Tuesday Toppers

In this weeks installment of Tuesday Toppers, i'm paying tribute to Mardi Gras and showing you how to make a traditional Mardi Gras mask. I just love the vibrant yellow, green, and purple color combination and you can dress the mask up as little or as much as you want.

Here's what you need to make one:

-Fondant smoother

-Drinking straw

-Scissors

-Purple fondant (the picture shows it as more of a blue, but it's really purple)

-Yellow fondant

-Green fondant

-Take a ball approx. 1" in diameter and flatten it with fondant smoother.

-Pinch the center with index and thumb and then flatten again with fondant smoother.

-With index finger and thumb pinch sides forming the point of the mask.

-Using the drinking straw form the indent more.

-Punch out two holes for eyes.

-Shape sides of mask into more of a point.

-For feathers, flatten small balls of green and yellow fondant and cut in half with scissors.

-With fingers move the points into center.

-Take scissors and lightly snip marks up each side.

-Let air dry for about 15 minutes and then attatch to mask with water.

I also painted some detail on after this with some gold luster dust and alcohol and used a fondant rope for the stick.

Now its time to PARTY!!

Weekends in the Kitchen: Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

I've been in the kitchen testing out recipes for lemon cupcakes recently and think I have come up with a winner. All I can say is mmmmmmmmm these are yummy. They are a lemon cupcake with homemade lemon curd filling and a fluffy meringue style icing. It's like eating a lemon meringue pie without the crust.

Lemon Curd Recipe

Fluffy Meringue Frosting Recipe
The only alteration I made on this one was I only added about 1/4 tsp of vanilla because I didn't want too strong of a vanilla taste.

Now for the cupcakes themselves, this is the recipe i've been working on and it is still a work in progress. so if you'd like to take a stab at it and send me your feedback all comments are welcome!

Lovely Lemon Cupcakes

1/2 cup (1 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cups sugar
zest of 2 lemons
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Combine lemon juice and milk and set aside. Cream together butter and sugar until butter turns lighter in color, approx. 4 minutes. Add in lemon zest, sour cream, and eggs and mix until combined. Scrape down bowl. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix until combined, then a 1/3 of the milk/lemon mixture and mix until combined. Continue to add a third of the dry and 1/3 of the wet until everything is incorporated.

Spoon into approx. 16 cupcake liners. Bake at 325F for 18-22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Tuesday toppers- present

Well i've been feeling a bit under the weather the past few days (well, more like someone took me out behind the ally and beat the snot out of me really, lol) so i haven't been able to post, but today i'm starting out with my first installment of a new series called tuesday toppers, where every tuesday I will show you the step-by-step on how to create a new cupcake topper.

This weeks topper is a cute little present.

Here's what you'll need to make it:

-rolling pin
-fondant smoother
-pizza cutter or knife
-white fondant
-mauve fondant (country blue in picture)
-paint brush and water (not pictured)



-Using rolling pin, roll out about a 1" ball of fondat very thin.
-With fondant smoother as guide cut 5 strips approx. 3" long by 1/8" wide. Cut one in half.



-With a ball approx. 1" in diameter, take fondant smoother and start boxing the ball by slightly flattening all sides until it resembles a cube.



-Using index finger and thumb, pinch all edges.
-With fondant smoother square up cube again.
-You should now have a nice cube shaped present.

-For ribbon, put longer stip down first using a small amount of water to attatch
-Next use half strip on either side to finish off ribbon.

-For the bow you need three of the strips about 3" in lenth.
-Make three loops out of each strip, adding a little water at the base of each loop to stick them together.
-Pinch bottom of loops together slightly to hold them together.

-take the three loops and stack them together.
-pinch bottom of all three together, being careful not to squish loops.
- Attatch bow to top of present with a touch of water.

You are now ready to top your cupcake :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope everyone has a great valentine's day today :)

Won't you be my Valentine?

Hearts a plenty

I made 30 of these for my daughters Valentines day party today. The hearts are very quick to shape and here's what you will need to make them:

- Fondant smoother (or flat bottom of glass)

-red fondant

-leaf veiner

-Make a ball approximately 1" in diameter and flatten slightly with fondant smoother.

-With leaf veiner make an indent on top of disk.
-Pick up disk and rock leaf veiner back and forth to further indent groove.
-With fingers round off corners a little.
-Pinch bottom together to form a point.
-Use fingers to round off all edges and top cupcakes :).

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY <3