Designer Cupcake Wrappers

If you're making cupcakes for a very special occasion then consider using some fancy cupcake wrappers to display your creations. I found a site called Paper Orchid that sells the most incredible, decorative cupcake wrappers. Each wrapper is laser cut with an intricate design and many of them come in multiple colors. You can find pink princess crowns, red dinosaurs, little yellow duckies, black spider webs for Halloween or green holly for the holidays - plus many more!

The run about $1 a piece so they're not cheap but for a special event they are truly a beautiful way to make a dramatic statement. I'm personally very tempted by the red poinsettia wrappers for some extra fancy Christmas cupcakes.

Game On - A Selection Of Board Game Cakes

From simple to complicated there are game-inspired cake ideas out there for everyone. I've posted a few below that I ran across recently. If you're starting out, and especially if you have young children, then the Candy Land cake is a great idea. After all what kid wouldn't like a cake decorated with loads of candy? You simply take a sheet cake and frost it in buttercream and then use candy to portray the game itself. Think candy canes, Starburst, gum drops, life savers and more! Use little Dum Dum lollipops to make baby trees and perhaps an upside down ice cream cone covered in white buttercream to make a snowy mountain. The Operation and Monopoly cakes shown below are definitely more complex but very clever. Let me know if you run across any game-inspired cakes out there!

Candy Land cake courtesy of Taste of Home.

Operation cake courtesy of The Cake Fairy.

Monopoly cake courtesy of Patty Cakes.

It's BBQ Time - Watermelon Cupcakes!

Well, I just finished my watermelon cupcakes for the back-to-school BBQ at my sons' school. I made the fondant watermelon decorations a week ago and so they had dried out nicely by today. I used a fantastic red velvet cake recipe that starts with a boxed cake mix. The result is a moist and flavorful cake that has its own unique velvety taste. I think that the Ghirardelli sweet ground chocolate and the sour cream are what really make this recipe so yummy! The frosting is a cream cheese buttercream that I tinted a pale green. You can find the cream cheese frosting recipe on my CakesAndKids.com site in the recipes section. I used a large round decorating tip #1A to get the smooth swirls of frosting on the cupcakes.

Shown below are the cupcakes without their frosting and then the final results.

Do Silicone Cake Molds Really Work?

I'm sure many of you have seen the lastest in cake pans or molds as they are called. They are made from silicone and come in different shapes, sizes and colors. But do they actually work?

I bought the Wilton 6 star cupcake mold shown above and tried it out. I didn't use any baking spray and just poured the batter directly into the mold. I cooked the cupcakes like I normally would and then took them out to cool. The things I liked best about the mold:

1. The mold cools down very quickly so that within just a few minutes I could touch it without burning my fingers.


2. The mold is extremely flexible so that when I turned it upside down to pop the cakes out it took only a little twisting of the mold and they came out perfectly. No more digging a knife down the sides or shaking the pan.


3. It cleans up very easily and is dishwasher safe. Plus it can never rust around the edges.


4. You are cooking at a very even temperature throughout so the bottoms and tops of my cakes looked exactly the same - no bottoms darker than the top!


5. It's easy to store since it's more flexible than a metal cupcake pan.

Overall, I love the pan and am planning to buy some more soon. If you've used silicone molds to bake cakes, let me know what you thought!

Basket Cakes - A Clever Illusion!

I was always fascinated by the cakes I saw that were covered in intricate basketweave patterns like the one above that I found at prettycoolcakes.com. They always looked so three dimensional and I found myself examining them to see how they really worked. Well now I know the secret, and it's actually not all that difficult although a little practice is probably in order.

It's a fairly simple process that is repeated over and over until your desired area is completely covered. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

1. Using decorating tip #47 with medium consistency icing. Hold the bag and tip at a 45° angle. With the serrated side up, lightly touch the surface of your cake with the tip and squeeze out a vertical stripe of icing from top to bottom.
2. Then squeeze out short horizontal stripes of icing across the vertical stripe starting at the top. The spacing between each stripe should be the same as the width of the tip opening.
3. Squeeze the next vertical stripe over the ends of your horizontal stripes.
4. Start the next set of horizontal stripes by burying the tip under the first vertical stripe. Squeeze, pulling your hand back slowly and lifting the tip over the vertical stripe and then back down again.
5. Repeat step #3.
6. Repeat step #4.
7. Repeat vertical lines then horizontal lines until you achieve basketweave effect. Each new set should fit between the previous set.

Dreaming Of Oranges

I love any kind of citrus cake and while it's easy to find a boxed lemon cake mix, it isn't always as easy to find an orange one. This recipe starts with a boxed cake mix and ends with a moist and dreamy orange cake. Just yummy!

Ingredients:

1 box of white cake mix (preferably Pillsbury)

1 small package of orange gelatin

1/2 cup of milk

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1/2 cup of orange juice

4 eggs

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1-2 teaspoons of orange extract

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour your cake pans. Mix together the boxed cake mix, orange gelatin, vegetable oil and milk. Then while your mixer is running, begin adding the four eggs one at a time. Add in the orange juice while cake is still mixing. Then add the baking powder and orange extract. Pour into your cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

It's Pinkalicious!

This is my daughter's absolute favorite book at the moment, and one of mine also! After all, it's all about a little girl that loves to eat pink cupcakes :) She eats so many that she turns pink and while her mother is horrified she loves it. But then she eats too many and ends up a bright red that she doesn't like. The book provides an important lesson regarding enjoying things in moderation and makes the saying 'too much of a good thing...' easier for little ones to understand. I highly recommend Pinkalicious for your youngsters.

And then yesterday I received a catalog in the mail from CWDKids and what did I find but a lovely Pinkalicious shirt that is decorated with jeweled studs. I will definitely be ordering this for my daughter for this fall and winter. She will absolutely love it!

Cupcake Robeez Shoes For Baby

OK - How absolutely adorable are these little Robeez baby shoes sporting a cupcake topped with a pink cherry? The soft pink and white color combination makes these perfect for your new baby girl. They almost make me want to have another baby - I said almost...lol.

I did use Robeez shoes with my 3 children though and I really do love them. They are so soft, including the suede leather bottoms, and actually mimic a baby's bare feet which is the best type of shoe for a little one who's learning to walk. They flex and bend easily and don't restrict the growth of baby's feet. And best of all, the elastic around the ankles means they actually stay on so you're not always hunting for that lost shoe or sock that you know was on when you left home but is now somehow missing.

You can find these particular shoes for a great price at Amazon.com. See the entire Robeez collection at Robeez.com.

Fondant Watermelons

This evening I made some little fondant watermelons that I plan to use next week on some cupcakes for my sons' back to school BBQ. I'm going to make red velvet cupcakes with a pale green cream cheese frosting. And these little watermelons should be the perfect toppers!

I began by cutting green circles out of fondant. I actually use decorating tips upside down to make my circles.

Then I cut out slightly smaller circles in red fondant using a smaller decorating tip. I wanted just a thin rim of green around the red inside.Using a small brush I dabbed just a little water on the underside of the red circles and then attached them to the center of the green circles. Hint - use only enough water to make the red circle damp on one side and don't brush it all the way to the edge because if you do it will bleed out on the green fondant when you stick the two together.

I let them sit just long enough for the red fondant to be well stuck to the green fondant. Then I took a pizza cutter and used that to cut the circles in half. I find a pizza cutter to be a very useful fondant tool.

The final step was to take a black edible food pen and place 5 or 6 dots in a semi-circle on the red fondant. I did this before the fondant was really hard which allowed me to indent the dots slightly giving the dots more dimension.

And here's a close-up shot of the final product!

Yummy Nail Art

I have loved getting pedicures this summer and my local nail salon is brilliant with hand-painted nail art. Last month I had the loveliest little flowers painted on my big toes and this month I have a more modern design in white, black and silver on a pinkish-coral background. But today I ran across this photo and fell in love :) I want cupcakes on my toes too! I'm going to ask my nail salon if they can replicate this next time I visit.

OK, so this post wasn't really on the topic of baking or kids' cakes but my obsession is starting to move beyond the kitchen :) If I do end up sporting some cupcake adorned toes, I'll be sure to take a photo and share!

Protect Your Counters In Style

With my love of anything cake related, I am always searching for cake-themed products and ideas. And today I ran across this really cute pink cupcake hot spot/pot holder at SurLaTable.com. It's made from silicone, is safe to put in your dishwasher and can withstand heat up to 425 degrees. So it's perfect for protecting your kitchen counters from those hot cake pans that have just emerged from your oven.

And best of all, it's on sale right now for just $5.99 - what a steal!

Kids Cupcake Costume - How Sweet!

I know it's early to start thinking about Halloween but I just ran across this absolutely adorable kids cupcake costume available from Pottery Barn Kids. I can just imagine how cute my 3 year-old would look in this costume but she's very much into princesses these days and I'm not sure that I could convince her that being a cupcake would be just as much fun. Wish they had an adult version because I could probably be persuaded into buying it :)

If you're already looking for Halloween costumes then you might want to visit one of our sister websites CostumesAndKids.com for a wide variety of kids costumes. I may just have to add a cupcake page after seeing this costume!

Red Velvet Cake Recipe

Ever since the armadillo cake appeared in the movie "Steel Magnolias", I have been fascinated by red velvet cake. It has such a gorgeous, rich color and an even better taste. But for beginning cake makers, the idea of producing any type of cake that doesn't come out of a box can be quite daunting. Well, I did a bit of searching and ran across a recipe for red velvet cake that starts with a boxed cake mix and ends with a rich, luscious red velvet cake.

Ingredients:

2 boxes of french vanilla or white cake mix

2 cups of all purpose flour

2 cups of granulated sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1 cup of Ghiradelli sweet ground chocolate (or 1 cup of chocolate cake mix)

2 and 2/3 cups of water

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 cups of sour cream

6 eggs

1 jar (1 oz) of Wilton's no-taste red food coloring

Directions:

Place all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and blend. Add the remaining ingredients and mix at medium speed for about two minutes. Place the batter into your greased baking pans and bake at 325 until a toothpick comes out clean. This recipe will make two 8 inch rounds plus two 6 inch rounds for a small two tier cake.

Watch for more recipes that start with boxed cake mixes coming soon and happy baking!

Ice Cream Cupcakes For Summer

I just ran across this great summer cupcake idea on the Wilton site. You simply make your favorite cupcakes and let them cool completely. Then right before you want to serve them, top each cupcake with a scoop of ice cream.

Finish by adding some sprinkles, hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry. And there you have it - cupcake sundaes! Perfect for a hot summer's day - You could even let your kids help with this one!

GI Joe Cakes - Hooah!

With the new GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie scheduled for release this Friday, I thought now would be a good time to add a GI Joe cake and party idea page to CakesAndKids.com. The new party supplies for GI Joe are great and the ideas for GI Joe or army style cakes are plentiful. The picture above is a cool idea using fondant to make a camouflage design on the sides of the cake. The top and around the bottom is made to look like sand. This effect is easy to copy using either brown sugar or crushed graham crackers. You can use army or GI Joe toys as cake toppers.

Another fun idea was one I found on a cake blog called RachesCakes. She made a fun camouflage cake and then made some dog tags out of fondant. The birthday boy's name and birthdate was placed on the tags. You could even take the dog tag idea one step further and make a single large dog tag cake. Start with a large rectangular cake, round the corners and frost it in gray or silver or cover in fondant that you airbrush or paint silver. Add the name and date in fondant and use some fondant beads for the chain that can curl around your cake board.

Enjoy the movie and be sure to send me photos of any GI Joe cakes you make!