Rainbow Cupcakes

So in my post about Boogey's RAINBOW party HERE, I gave you a glimpse of the rainbow cupcakes that I made. Aren't they fun?

Colorful Rainbow Cupcakes

They were a big hit with the guests and defintiely came out better than this cupcake "fail" HERE.

Candy rainbows on cupcakes

Now, I won't claim that these were my original idea - you can do a google or pinterest search for "rainbow cupcakes" and come up with a kajillion blog posts about them. But I will share my process with you and if you get inspired or learn a little something... great! :)

First I mixed up 2 boxes of yellow cake (maybe one of these days I'll try making cake from scratch, but for now, I'm a "from a box" fan!). Then I divided the batter into 6 plastic bags. [Tip: place your bag in a plastic cup to help keep it open and make it easier to fill].

Use a cup to keep your plastic bag open while you fill it!

Batter divided evenly and ready to be colored

Next I put a little gel color into each bag and kneaded the batter until it was well-mixed.

Batter colored like the rainbow!

Next, I cut a small corner off the edge of each bag to make it easier to pipe it into the cupcake tins.

Cut a corner off the bags makes piping the batter easier

Then I piped a layer of each color into the tins trying to make sure the individually-colored layers were the same thickness.

Pipe the batter in equal layers of each color

Bake according to the package directions then remove from oven and cool.

Rainbow cupcakes waiting for frosting

These worked out much better than my semi-fail HERE and I was really pleased with the end result of the rainbow effect. So pretty!

Rainbow Cupcakes

Next I took out my tub 'o' frosting (I used buttercream) and got ready to make my rainbow-adorned sky. {sorry no pictures of the process, but it isn't too difficult to figure out}. First, I reserved a small amount of the white frosting in a plastic bag to use later for my "clouds". Then I colored the remaining amount blue to simulate the sky and spread it on top of each cupcake. Next I applied the rainbows! For these, I bought a package of Airheads Extremes in "rainbow berry" flavor - they're sour belts and I found them at the candy store. I cut the long belts into smaller pieces (about 3" or so), formed them into an arc and stuck the ends into the frosting to look like a rainbow.

{empty} wrapper of candy used to make rainbows

Then I piped a small amount of the reserved, no-colored frosting at the base of each end of the rainbow to (1) prevent the candy from sliding in the frosting sky and (2) simulate the look of clouds. It worked great and looked fabulous! Lastly, I added cupcake toppers I made using the same freebie images (found HERE at Paper Glitter) that I had used for the goodie bags and paper cup stickers.

Side note: If you haven’t ever made your own cupcake toppers before, they’re really easy but add so much “professional” flair! As mentioned, I used some freebie images I found online. I printed them out on photo paper  I bought at the dollar store (I don’t use my good photo paper for this project as it will just be tossed at the end of the day – use the inexpensive stuff! But I do find that the photo paper gives a nicer, more ‘professional’ finish/look than cardstock (but that would work OK too if it’s all you have). Then I cut the images out using a 2” circle punch. You can certainly do the cutting by hand, though, or use other shapes – so many options! Then I stuck the printed toppers to lollipop sticks using some 1” white circle stickers. (I use THESE which I found at Office Depot, but you could also just use scotch tape).  And that is it! So easy, but such a big impact. 

And... voila! I think they came out pretty darn cute if you ask me!

Rainbow Cupcakes with candy rainbows on top

And another view...

Candy rainbows really make these Rainbow Cupcakes special!

I think it's fair to call these a success, don't you??

Rainbow cupcakes

These would be great for St. Patrick's Day too!

 What do you think??

See the rest of the RAINBOW party HERE!

This project was featured! Thank you!!

And be sure to check out these fabulous blogs!!

Linking up to these parties - check 'em out: 
{If I joined your party but didn't link back here, I apologize. This post had to be rebuilt and I couldn't remember all of the places I had linked up - I'm so sorry!}
A Turtle's Life for Me
House of Hepworths
Polish the Stars
A Little Knick Knack
It's a Keeper
Somewhat Simple
The Frugal Girls
Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons
WHile He Was Napping
Truly Lovely
Bacon Time with the hungry Hungry Hypo
Eat at Home Cooks







 
 

Rock Star and Zebra Striped Cupcakes

So in my post HERE about my 5-year old's Rock Star Party, I mentioned that I had made some "rock star/tie dye/zebra" cupcakes. To go with the theme, they were pink, black and white zebra stripe (kind of) but didn't quite turn out as well as I had hoped. Granted, they still tasted great, but didn't have quite the stripe effect I had wanted - clearly I am an amateur. But... I'll give you my tutorial anyway in case you want to give it a go.

Zebra-stiped and tie-dye cupcakes

I was originally inspired by THIS post where she made a fabulous striped cake that I thought would be perfect for the Rock Star party. But since I always make cupcakes for my girls' parties, I thought I'd try a twist on it.

The first thing I did was mix up a batch of boxed yellow cake mix. Then I split it into 3 bowls and colored 2 of them accordingly with my Wilton gel food coloring to make black and pink batter.

Colored cake batter using Wilton gels

Next I transferred the batter into squirt bottles.

Squirt bottles gave me more control over the batter

Then I squeezed a little bit of each color into the center of each cupcake liner giving it a bit of time to spread out before I squeezed in the next color.

Let's get started squeezing...

Then I continued...

Keep going...

And continued...

Looking good....

And continued...

Not bad...

Until I had run out of batter and had only barely half-filled my cupcake liners. What the heck??!! Thankfully I had another box of batter so I repeated my mixing/coloring/filling and squeezing process, but by that point I was pretty annoyed and tired and admit that I kind of rushed through the process for the second half. *sigh*  But I finished them all anyway and they looked like this before I popped them into the oven...

Ready to go the oven

When they came out of the oven they looked pretty cool from the top!

Neat-o Stripes!

And even looked cool on the side where you could see the stripes through the wrapper.

You can even see the stripes through the wrapper

But when I cut one open, it didn't have nearly the striped effect I was going for.

Not as many stripes as I wanted :(

You can see where I obviously got lazy and started rushing just to get them done. *sigh* Pretty neat still, but not perfection. And, yes I am a perfectionist, so I was kind of bummed that I put all that effort into it and it didn't look perfect. But I sucked it up and reminded myself that none of the kids (or the parents, for that matter) would know what they were supposed to look like, so it didn't matter that they wern't perfect.

Since I did like the way the tops looked, I left half of them unfrosted. The other half I frosted with white icing and topped them with a zebra sugar-sheet circle.

Zebra-striped sugar sheets added some rock-n-roll fun!

I found the sugar sheets at Michaels (used a 40% off coupon, of course!) and cut them into circles with a cookie cutter from my stash.

Sugar sheets found at Michaels

Cut them into circles the same size as the cupcakes

Overall, everyone thought they looked cool so I decided not to beat myself up too much for the "failure" of my cake stripes. I added some cupcake toppers to the plain cupcakes to really "rock them out!". (using a images from the file I won from Bird's Party)

Rockin' Cupcake Toppers

Rock n Roll Cupcakes

Rock Star Party Cupcakes

As I said, I'm just an amateur (still, not bad for a CPA, huh?) so I guess I won't complain or criticize myself too much! Whatcha think?


Linking up to these parties - be sure to check them out!
The Frugal Girls
Truly Lovely
Keeping it Simple
Under the Table and Dreaming
C.R.A.F.T.
House of Hepworths
Eat at Home Cooks

Easter Dessert "Reveal" {mini marshmallow flowers}

Hmmmm... using the word "reveal" in my post title sounds so dramatic! But, since I gave you a "teaser" in my last post, I suppose it'll work. LOL.

So as I mentioned, we went to my in-law's house for an Easter Brunch on Sunday. I was in charge of fruit salad and dessert. I decided to make cupcakes for dessert and immediately knew that I wanted to go with a spring-like theme so that meant... FLOWERS!

First I just made some plain yellow cake cupcakes - I was able to get 12 regular size and 24 mini size out of one box of cake mix. Then frosted them with white, vanilla frosting (yes, from a can - for shame, I know!). Sounds pretty boring up to this point, doesn't it? Well... that's when I added the piece de resitance! :) These flowers...

DIY edible flower

Before I tell you how to make them, let me show you a couple more pics of these little beauties.

 

Mini Marshmallow Flowers are so easy to make!

I love all the pretty colors

So how do you make these beautiful little things? It is really very easy, but I'll admit it, kinda time consuming so be sure you have a couple hours set aside. 

Here is what I used: mini marshmallows, colored sugar sprinkles, white chocolate and mini M&Ms. You'll also need a sharp pair of scissors, some wax paper and a plastic bag.

My supplies for Mini Marshmallow Flowers

First you want to cut your mini marshmallows in half - along the diagonal.

Cut the Marshmallows diagonally

Drop your cut halves into the sugar sprinkles. Shake them around and you'll see that the inner, sticky part of the marshmallow (the edge that you cut) will pick up all those pretty colored sprinkles.

Toss the halves in the sugar sprinkles

Melt some of your white chocolate in the microwave. Place it in a small plastic bag and snip off a tiny bit of one corner.

Cut off a tiny corner of your plastic bag filled with white chocolate.

Squeeze out a dime-size amount of chocolate onto some wax paper. I recommend only doing about 3 dollops at a time otherwise the chocolate will start to set up on you too quickly. Take my word for it! LOL. As you can see in the below photo, I didn't take this approach at first and had to re-melt most of those dollops! :)

Dime sized dollops of white chocolate

Take 5 of your marshmallow halves and place them in a circle around the edge of your white chocolate (you want the marshmallow to actually be about halfway in the chocolate). 

Place your "petals" in the white chocolate, leaving a little room in the middle.

After you place your 5 petals, add a mini M&M in the center. Of course, you don't have to use an M&M here - a small round pearl sprinkle would work well, or some other mini round candy. Whatever you happen to have or find! :)

When the chocolate sets up, the marshmallow "petals"  and the M&M will stick to it, creating a solid flower that can be peeled off the wax paper in one piece. I was worried that the marshmallows would harden overnight but I stored them in a ziploc bag and they were still nice and soft the next day. (And for the record, it is now Wednesday -  4 days later - and the leftover flowers are STILL nice and soft!). Now keep making flower after flower after flower! LOL.

I then just stuck one flower on each mini cupcake and 3 on each large cupcake. The white frosting really helps the colors of the petals POP!

Stick 3 flowers into the frosting of a big cupcake and voila! Beautiful Marshmallow Flower Cupcakes!

You could put all the same color flowers on each cupcake, but I chose to mix it up!

Mini cupcakes got one flower. For these petals, I mixed up the sprinkle colors together.

The kids actually placed these flowers - they just stick right to the frosting - so easy!

I also made a few bunny rabbits for the kids using some big marshmallows I had on hand for the ears, a big dollop of chocolate for the face, chocolate sprinkles for the whiskers and a heart sprinkle for the nose. I put one each on a big cupcake - the kids loved them!

hop hop hop

Ready to go! (I always have to keep one naked cupcake for my niece who doesn't like frosting - whaaaat???)

You could even customize the colors of your sugar sprinkles to suit your needs - think baby shower or wedding shower. Oh and they'd be sweet for Mother's Day too! And the nice thing is you can prepare the cupcakes and flowers in advance like I did. Then on the day of the event, simply frost and apply the flowers.

So, what do you think? Pretty? Fun? If nothing else, they're cheap frugal! :) The cake mix and frosting cost $1 each on sale. The bag of mini marshmallows was on sale for $0.99 (and I only used about half of it). I actually had all of the sprinkles on hand already (I admit it, we let the girls put sprinkles on their fruit cups and applesauce) so there was no cash out of pocket for those. And the mini M&M's were from a snack size bag left over from trick or treating so again, no cost to me. Gotta love a pretty dessert for less than $3 out of pocket! :) Not to mention the YUM factor!

Lots of pretty marshmallow flowers - I just love looking at them!

This project was featured! Thank you!

 

Linking up here:

Someday Crafts

Nifty Thrifty Things

House of Hepworths

It's a Keeper

Fingerprints on the Fridge

Mommas Kinda Crafty

Simply Designing

A Little Knick Knack

Truly Lovely

WHile He Was Napping

Tatertots and Jello

Green Door Designs

Be Different Act Normal

Craft Envy

Under the Table and Dreaming

C.R.A.F.T.

The Tattered Tag

Keeping it Simple

Muffin Monday at Talking Dollars and Cents

Polly Want a Crafter

Polish the Stars

Krafty Kat

Not Just a Housewife

Small Fine Print

Also Linked up to the CSI Project's Flower Challenge!