"i give up" cupcakes....!

....yep, i give up....halloween stuff is in walgreens by the end of august.....turkey paraphernalia shows up in cvs when the kids start school, and holiday/christmas tchotchkes by the time you decide you're in need of some face make-up for the halloween party you forgot you got invited to comes around.....

...so decided today that instead of complaining about how fast the holidays are coming this year yet again.....to just dive in and accept it.....accept that yes....it's less than a week away until thanksgiving....and that means that christmas is only a month or so away.....so in the spirit of that....baked up some christmas cupcakes to start off my acceptance of how fast the time flies and that i will, repeat, will start enjoying the holiday season, no matter how busy life is....

....but you can take short cuts as necessary....!....this is a doctored box mix (use an extra egg and replace the water with 1 cup of buttermilk)....decided to mix it up a bit and still go with green and red cupcakes (tint half the mix with red food gel and half with green)....but sliced them up and mixed and matched the layers....freeze the baked cupcakes first....it's much easier to slice them evenly......

...then filled with a marshmallow buttercream between the layers....swirled on top.....and sprinkled with some red and green large non-pareils...

....life is good and there are so many things to be thankful for....so these are a present to myself for remembering that's the case everyday.....happy holidays....!

cider cuppies rule!

.....woohoo....!.....these are for a holiday challenge...and this week is a favorite cupcake flavor of the season....apple cider cupcakes it is...!....these were made with real apples and apple cider as well as with real nutmeg, all 3 ingredients always remind me of the holiday season.....ok well it's supposed to be for thanksgiving, christmas, and new year's eve...but white/orange/yellow are the fall colors for thanksgiving, are they not??....these are not, i repeat not candy corn cupcakes made for halloween, they are indeed thought up just for thanksgiving which is right around the corner....if they happen to resemble candy corn, well it's probably just all that left over candy corn that no one eats and is still around way into the winter holiday season....and sometimes left over way into summer until finally someone has enough sense to toss it or the kids get so desperate for any candy by that point and just eat it......ok, so yes we'll call them "picked over candy corn cupcakes" for the upcoming holiday season....enjoy!

....entering these into hoosier homemade's cupcake challenge!

a month of cupcakes!

...the wrap up for Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Challenge....although I wasn't really planning on doing all the cupcakes for this challenge, it kinda fit in with other stuff going on that just *needed* cupcakes too...the theme was summertime fun.....

Week 1 Flavor: What flavor screams Summertime Fun to you? Create a cupcake with that flavor...watermelon cupcakes!

Week 2 Event/Activities: Did you visit the zoo or maybe go to the beach this Summer? Create a cupcake that shows the fun you had this Summer....baseball cap cupcakes!

Week 3 Cake Mix: Turn an ordinary cake mix into a special cupcake. Create a special flavor using a cake mix, post the recipe....flav-or-ice cupcakes!

Week 4 Candy: It’s all about Candy this week! Create a cupcake, using the Summertime Fun theme, using candy as decorations....lego dude cupcakes!

...this was really a lot of fun, and a distraction for me having to think about doing that iron man cake at the end of august (see previous post)....!

Watermelon cupcakes=Summer!

I would have held off posting these had I known about a cupcake challenge!...but these are for Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday Cupcake Challenge.

When I think of summer I really do think watermelon really represents so well. These are watermelon cake with watermelon cream cheese icing with pieces of chocolate candy melts for seeds.

Watermelon Cupcakes:

• 1 box white cake mix
• 1 (3 ounce) package of watermelon jello
• 1 and 1/3 cups cubed watermelon
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tablespoon of oil

Watermelon Icing:

• 6 ounces of cream cheese
• 1/4 c butter
• 1/4 c watermelon juice
• 3+ cups confectioner's sugar

the green wrappers are a must for the full effect....I also used enough confectioner's sugar until the icing was pipeable and even that was hard with the 98+ degree weather on the east coast....there really is nothing better than watermelon in the summertime...!

...and if you can't do this...

...these are the next best thing....enjoy!

sharing these at tidy mom!