Tuesday Toppers: Basketball Cupcake

This week I'm showing the last of the 3 sports cupcakes. The basketball. It isn't quite basketball season yet, but since it's just around the corner I decided to show it to you this week. Here's what you need to make one:

-Fontant smoother
-Black edible marker
-Orange fondant (made with orange, and a touch of brown and red)

-Take a 1" ball and flatten slightly with the fondant smoother

-Using the fondant smoother again, round off the edges.

-Take the black edible pen and make a two lines that cross in the center, then a half circles on each side.

Don't forget to check in next week when I start my halloween cupcakes!

Happy Tuesday!

Well it's football season again and depending on how you look at it, this could be a good thing or a bad thing.:D Fortunately I've grown fond of football, or at least I can tolerate it now, lol. And of course with football season comes football parties and tailgating, both great excuses to make cupcakes! So this week I'm going to show you how to make the football cupcakes that will make you the MVP of the party. Here's what you will need to make one:

-Fondant smoother
-Knife
-Paint brush and water
-Redish-brown and white fondant

-take a 1" ball of the brown fondant and flatten slightly with the fondant smoother.

-Pinch both sides to form almost a diamond.

-Round off the top and bottom edges with the fondant smoother and pinch ends to define them more.

-Take the white fondant and form it into a thin rope (if I were going to make a lot of these, I would probably either use royal icing for the stitching or make sure i had a extruder gun!)

-Cut a 1" piece and 8-1/4" pieces.

-Attach the long piece first with a little water.

-Then evenly divide the short pieces along the longer piece attaching them with a small amount of water. (ok so i only used 7 of them because they would have been too crowded, but if you want to be completely accurate you need to use all eight of them :)

Your now ready for kickoff!
Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Tuesday Toppers: Sports Cupcakes

With baseball season coming to a close, football season starting in a few days , and basketball season right around the corner, I figured now would be the perfect time to bring these cupcakes out. In our house we favor football, GO COLTS!, but I decided to start with the baseball since the season will be ending next month. Next week i'll be doing the football topper just in time for tailgating season :D. Here's what you will need to make this very simple topper.

-Fondant smoother
-Red food safe marker
-White fondant

-Take a 1" ball of white fondant and flatten just slightly.

-With the fondant smoother at an angle, go around the fondant forming it into a half circle.

-Now for the lines take the red food marker and draw two curved lines.

-And then make the red stitching lines.

Now your ready to hit a home run!
Happy Tuesday!

Tuesday Toppers: Monkey Cupcakes

In this weeks edition of Tuesday Toppers I'm bringing out some cupcakes that I made for my daughters class as an end of the year treat. Most of the teachers at her school have classroom themes and last year her teacher did frogs and this year it was monkeys. So I went to work on a topper that was cute, but didn't take too long to make, mainly because I had to make 30 of them! They ended up being a huge hit so I thought I'd share them with you. Here's what you will need to make them (unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the items needed ):

-Rolling pin
-leaf veining tool
-1 3/4" circle cookie cutter
-Small metal icing tip (doesn't matter which one)
-Large metal icing tip (doesn't matter which one)
-Knife
-Black edible marker
-1 1/2" 5 petal flower cutter (i used a wilton one that came in a rose making kit)
-Paint brush
-Brown and tan fondant

-Roll out the brown fondant to 1/4" and Using circle cookie cutter cut as many circles as you need.

-Take the circles and stretch slightly to form an oval.

-Roll out some of the tan fondant to 1/8" and using the large piping tip cut out circles for the mouth.

-For the eyes take some of the tan fondant and roll out very thin. Then take the flower cutter and cut out pieces with at least two of the petals.

-Take the knife and cut off any excess pieces

-All of the pieces ready to assemble.

-Take the eye pieces and with a touch of water attach them to the face.

-Do the same with the mouth.

-Take some more brown fondant, make a thin rope and cut small pieces for the nose.

-Shape the pieces into tiny triangles with your fingers and attach to the face.

-Using the black edible marker make two dots for the eyes.

-And a small u for the mouth.

-For the ears, take the small icing tip and cut out some circles.

-Cut the circles in half.

-And squeeze the flat edge to make it narrow.

-Using leaf veiner, make an indent in the ear and attach to the back of the face. If you'd like to make the bows just roll out what ever color you want and using the small icing tip cut out a circle and pinch it the center and you have a super simple bow!

Now your ready to do some monkeying around :D

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Flower cupcakes

Just couldn't resist decorating some.

Best Ever Chocolate Cupcakes

Well i'm ashamed to say that I am hopelessly addicted to P-Dub, and her cows and her punks and her yummy looking recipes that make me want to go cook something everytime I take a look at her website. For all of you who haven't yet read her blog, I would highly recommend it! but be warned its addictive! she has this sense of humor and down-to-earthness about her that is so refreshing. Go check her out, the pioneer woman, after you read the rest of this of course :).

Now the reason for this post. She recently had Bakerella come to the ranch and make cupcakes and thats where I found this recipe for her Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever. She made the recipe into cupcakes for them to decorate, and they had the nicest little dome and it was made up of ingredients that I always have on hand. So i decided to head into the kitchen and bake the family up a batch of them. I only made a half batch because although after trying them and wishing I had 12 more of them to eat, my hips are glad I only did half.

PW's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever (Cupcake edition)
(this is a 1/2 recipe that yields 12 cupcakes)

1 stick unsalted butter (she used salted, but i don't ever have salted in the house)
2 heaping tbsps cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt (adjusted because I used unsalted butter)
1/4 cup buttermilk ( or 1/4 cup milk and 1/2 tsp vinegar)
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350F/180C

In saucepan melt butter. While doing that put 1/2 cup of water in the micro. to boil. (takes about 1-2 minutes in mine). Add cocoa to butter and stir. Add in boiling water and let boil for 30 seconds. Turn off heat and set aside.

In a large bowl mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Pour in chocolate mixture and mix together just until combined.

In glass measuring cup measure out buttermilk (or make sour milk mixture) add in egg and beat. Add in vanilla and baking soda and mix together well.

Pour into flour/chocolate mixture and mix well.

Divide into 12 cupcake papers and bake for 18-20 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

I didn't use the Frosting she used for her sheet cake, i just used my old standby chocolate frosting.

I will have to say these are really as good as she says they are. I will have to try out the sheet cake sometime with her frosting too! I'm sure its just as amazing!

Now go make some of these! Trust me!

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!!