Manly Apron

I'm not sure why my husband has to make these crazy faces when I take his picture . . . but I finally finished the manly apron I started for him about 5 months ago. The shark side has a divided pocket. He can also turn it around and sport tropical fish. Now he can stop wearing my lavender gingham one with the yellow flowered ruffles. I started using a pattern for this, a Butterick Easy, but the instructions were really confusing, so I ended up winging it and it turned out great anyway. Hopefully, he will make really good use of it and go back to cooking on the weekend out of the Everyday Food cook book he got for his birthday.

Star Wars Goodie Bags

They have these cute chunky looking figures now for ages 4+ that are practically unchokable in all sorts of characters (Transformers, Marvel Comics, Indiana Jones and Star Wars). They come in packs of two for about $7. I bought 5 packs of them and tied one character to each goodie bag. I made from them out of squares of cellophane (red cellophane if the character was from the dark side, green cellophane if they used the force for good). I couldn't find anything else Star Wars related that I could afford so instead I filled them each with a noisemaker, a punch balloon, 2 giant lemon heads (cherry heads, etc.,), two fruit flavored tootsie rolls (I saved all the vanilla flavored ones for myself), a push pop, 3 solid milk chocolate balls from See's, two citrus melts from See's, and a mini pack of Dots (the birthday boy's favorite candy).

I took five boys home from the party including one of my sons. That was when the candy trading started:

"I've got a lemon head I'll trade for an orange head, who'll give me a orange head?"

"I'll give 2 chocolate balls and a citrus melt for a push pop."

"Two tootsie rolls, here who'll give me a pack of Dots for two tootsie rolls?"

 . . . that went on for awhile until my son figured out that by blowing up his punch balloon to the size of a water melon and then sticking the noisemaker on the end, he could make what sounded like the loudest, most annoying scream ever. It was fortunate that I was in such a good mood because all the boys decided to copy him and then tried to scream louder than the noisemaker/balloon combination. The car ride was about 45 minutes long, but my son was having a great time and really that was the end result we were going for that day.

Star Wars Cupcakes or the Force was with me

These were a little complicated to create, but totally worth it for my kids' reactions as well as the kids at the party. If I had had time I think I would have tried to make several characters including Princess Leia (Cinnabon cereal for her hair buns), Jabba the Hut and Chewbaca, but we had just got back from a trip to Europe a couple days before I had to make them so I settled for one good and one evil character. I found that the less detail I put on them, the better they looked.

Yoda:

To make his ears I used Famous wafers which I heated for 15 seconds in the microwave and then cut with an angel shaped cutter and then removed the excess. I cut slits in frozen donut holes and then tucked the cookie ears in. The heads were then attached with frosting to the cupcakes which had already been dipped and swirled in white frosting. I stuck them in the freezer to harden while I made noses and eyes. The eyes were created with tiny white gum balls and cola flavored tootsie roll frooties (I don't know why they are green). I also made noses from pea size bits of same tootsie rolls by making a crescent shape and rolling the ends under, then making creases between the nostrils and bulb of nose. When the Yoda heads were frozen enough, I dipped them in warm green frosting and slopped frosting all over with a spatula and let the excess drip off. When the frosting had hardened enough, but not too hard I stuck the eyeballs and nose on, then added pupils and white dots for shine. I also added a smile which my kids told me was wrong. Smile Yoda does not. Then I added brown to the front for his shirt he wears under his white robe and stuck an old fashioned lemon-lime flavored candy stick in for his light saber.

Darth Vader:

For Darth I used stacked mini cupcakes upside down on top of a regular cupcake and then topped those with 3/4 of a donut hole. I had to trim the mini cupcakes at an angle to get them to look more like the helmet. Then I used a grape starburstish candy for the part of the mask he breathes through. I should have used a regular tootsie roll to match the flavor of the cupcakes. The whole thing was frosted together and frozen. I added black food coloring to a can of dark chocolate frosting and dipped and swirled all my Darths. When the frosting was sufficiently hardened I put Crows (licorice flavored gum drops that had been cut horizontally in half) on for the eyes and silver dragees for helmet details. I then frosted a line along the side and front to give the helmet shape a little depth. All my Darths had old fashioned raspberry candy sticks for light sabers.

Giant Cakes Feed 100

I spent the last week cooking up at a church camp for teenage girls. These two cakes are made with 3 cake mixes and three cans of frosting each, star shaped marshmallows, m'n'ms and skittles. The chocolate one seems kind of Care Bears-ish while the white cake reminds me of a pastel colored confederate flag. I scored the cakes into pieces so that I could decorate each square evenly and I think they turned out pretty cute for the limited amount of supplies I had on hand.

Bend and Snap, I mean dip and swirl

The best way to do the dip and swirl method is to freeze your cupcakes beforehand. Heat your canned frosting in the microwave for 10 seconds, if it is still not runny enough, heat it in 5 second increments. It should be runny, but not so hot it is bubbling. Stir with a butter knife or chopstick. Holding the cupcake by its base, dip it in the melted frosting head first and swirl. Let the excess drip off while slowly turning similar to winding a knob. Voila, frosting so smooth you'd think it came out of a factory. These blue and yellow cupcakes I made for scouts were decorated using the dip and swirl method. To really cover the entire top of the yellow ones with sprinkles I dipped the cupcake, already frosted, into the tub of sprinkles. The big star sprinkles are made by Wilton and were purchased at Wal-mart.

Giant Flower Basket Cupcake

Tomorrow is the last day of school and I decided to make a giant cupcake for my daughter's teacher. I am one of the room moms and I get to present a gift certificate and card to her teacher.I learned two new methods for this cupcake: mini marshmallow flower petals and basket weave frosting technique. For the mini marshmallow flower petals you snip each mini marshmallow in half and dip the cut sides into colored sugar crystals and arrange around a skittle. The basket weave frosting method is best explained here. The colors of my frosting didn't turn out quite bright enough for me and I wish my basket had a handle, but I ran out of time. Still cute though! 

Barnyard Cupcakes

Aren't these CAH-YOOT? I made them for my son's end of the year preschool program. The horses were the hardest. I originally made 5, but two died of broken necks. The eyes of most of the animals are mini chocolate chips. The ears, combs, tails are mostly made of starbursts or fruit flavored tootsie rolls. The horses necks are made of vanilla creme wafers, the heads are made of circus peanuts, the manes are made of melted chocolate that I drizzled over the head and neck. The horsetails are licorice shoelaces. 

The chicks and chickens are my absolute favorites in the bunch. I dipped the chicks in melted frosting and then yellow candy sprinkles to achieve a fuzzy look. The chicks' beaks and the nostrils of the pigs and horses are candy coated chocolate covered sunflower seeds I bought from Trader Joe's the weekend I was in Boston. The sheep and lamb heads are made from caramels. What a six hour (not counting mixing up batter and baking) decorating blast! When they were all set up at the Preschool all the parents went crazy over them. A lot of them took pictures of my cupcakes. I couldn't be more proud of them if I had actually given birth. What a high!

The horses were really difficult because I had to glue the heads to the necks using melted and dyed almond bark which was not smooth and really hard to use. I probably won't be making those again, but the licorice tails were supercute. I originally made manes and tail from caramels pushed through a garlic press and they looked great for about an hour. Then they kind of slumped together in a gooey mess. I probably won't use caramels again. 

Everything else was constructed using mini cupcakes and mini mini cupcakes and regular size cupcakes glued together with frosting and frozen. The only trouble with this method is that once you take them out, the condensation starts and the colors on the the candy start running into your frosting so by the time I got to preschool today, my white chickens all looked like they had slight head wounds. I wish I had a bigger kitchen and possibly a clean up crew because the mess is the only downside of creating such cupcakey bliss. 

I tried putting legs on my pigs with pretzels coated with white chocolate dyed pink, but they didn't look smooth. Then I tried pink licorice vines and they turned out with the same flying effect as the pretzel legged sheep, so I left the pigs legless. My tails on the pigs were too cute though, thanks to Amy Jo and Mindy for their pig tail advice last night. 

I think I will show off my cupcake making prowess at my mother-daughter book club meetings next. Stay tuned . . .