Sugar Swings! Serve Some

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Disney Little Princesses Cupcakes

So my twins turned 6 recently! Hard to believe that they are in big kid territory now, no longer babies or littles, but full on kid mode! And my Greta (the twins are B/G) is definitely into all that is princess (as much as we tried not to be point them towards traditional boy or girl toys, they just tended to gravitate toward what appealed to them). And Disney totally has the market on all that is princess. You can't get away from it.

Since I've been making their birthday cakes for years now, this years' cake request had to be a Disney princess one, and her fav is Belle from Beauty and the Beast. So the request was Belle, with smaller princess cupcakes all around her.

Clockwise from the top in case you need help!
Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty

It was kinda natural to do all the little princesses in candy since I've done little candy people a lot before, using Hershey chocolate bells (or you can use Hershey kisses) and vanilla tootsie rolls as the base of the body.

All the rest of the detail is done in candy melt, with a tiny heart sprinkle as their mouths and an edible food writer to add the eyes. For more specific info on how to make candy people you can check here or here or here.

They take a little time to make, but always come out really cute for me. And I love they are not typical princess pretty, but cute and stocky princesses! I added these to some homemade chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream (which just happens to be one of my favorite cake/frosting combinations!)

And the Belle cake came out better than I was thinking too. It's just a Belle Barbie covered in plastic wrap and shoved down the center of a chocolate cake "dress". I used my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl for the dress shape (which worked out great). I did need to add a little cake to build her dress up around her waist. There is something slightly wrong with icing a naked barbie wrapped up in plastic wrap!

And you get a Princess Belle cake with some little mini princesses to celebrate my princess turning 6! If you can't be totally into princesses when you are six, then I don't know when you can!

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all too! There was just too much going on this weekend, between May the 4th be With You (aka Star Wars Day), the Kentucky Derby, AND Cinco de Mayo, I could not prep enough to get everything I wanted done and posts ready, so you get princesses today instead! Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Star Wars Treats Round Up!

So guess what day it almost is??? May the 4th Be With You or as all Star Wars fans know Star Wars Day! I'm trying to get my act together for a new post to celebrate, but in the meantime here are some of my favorite Star Wars inspired sweets.

One of the most viewed posts I have to date, a fun mash-up of PEEPS and Star Wars aka PEEPS Trooper Pops. These are not the PEEPS you are looking for. Find the post here.

Wampa's anyone?? And instead of them eating you, you can eat them (in cupcake form of course!). Find them here.

And I love how Star Wars just keeps going and going and going. They've even inspired the Origami Yoda book series (which my kid LOVES!). Find some Origami Yoda candy pops here.

To celebrate my oldest's birthday one year we did a bunch of Star Wars character cupcakes (General Ackbar is my fav, but Lando is a close second!). Find them here (including how to's) as well as more on the Star Wars party here.

One year we also did some gingerbread Star Wars characters! Find them here.

I have to say my kids really liked the Star Wars dudes in traditional gingerbread man form better than the real characters!

And of course my biggest kid really started the love of Star Wars around here, so he got some simple lightsaber cupcakes one year. Find them here.

Are you celebrating May the 4th Be With You?!! I hope so. My kids love the movies, cartoon series, books, all the stuff, it's never ending! They even made some pics so we can put them up tomorrow. We have the Star Wars Thumb Doodles book and have been hard at work creating their master pieces! (PS I highly recommend this if you have some Star Wars ~~freaks~~ fans around your house!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Superman Whoopie Pies!

So it's whoopie pie time! Or as my kids call them "wumpie pies"! Every year the hubster requests whoopie pies for his birthday instead of birthday cake. Last year we did "devil dog" inspired whoopie pies and another year it was planet shaped whoopie pies. I've also done some designed whoopie pies here, where you "decorate" the whoopie pie cakes before baking. (I always love how this looks in the finished cake!)

For this year's birthday whoopie pies, I decided to use this technique and make some superhero inspired pies for the birthday boy. The recipe is straight off the Marshmallow Fluff site. It's the very first whoopie recipe I ever used and it's simple and everyone always loves them.

Put your batter in a zip lock bag, snip and end, and pipe your circle whoopie pie cakes. Make a separate batch of the whoopie pie batter and leave out the cocoa. I add the same amount of wheat flour to make up for not adding the cocoa. Once batter is mixed up, separate into 2 bowls and add your food coloring. Since I did Superman, I tinted half yellow and half red. Put each color into a zip lock bag, snip an end and "pipe" the Superman logo. Do the yellow background first.

Then add the "S" in the red batter. You can use whatever design you like. The batter is thick enough to keep the shape relatively well.

Bake at 350 for only about 7 minutes or so. Keep an eye on them as you don't want them to brown.

Add the scrumptious marshmallow fluff icing/filling, and assemble your pies. I also had some leftover tinted batter so made some mini vanilla whoopie pies too.

Even lettering works well with this technique, so I made a message for the birthday boy, who really is a kid at heart!

And you get some fun Superman Whoopie Pies to celebrate another year on this big blue ball.

In a world were there is such senseless violence such as the recent events in Boston this week and Newtown not so long ago, it really does give me comfort to know that my kids have a great role model in their dad. He really is our real Superman around here. Happy Birthday babe! You're amazeballs.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Birds on a Wire Graham Cracker Cookies...!

So guess what my new favorite food to work with is??! Graham Crackers! For Easter I posted these graham cracker bars and found these tasty crackers an awesome canvas to work on. And who doesn't like graham crackers??? I think it's a rule that you have to love them, I mean they give them to people in the hospital, so it must be loved by all, right??

My kids love the cinnamon flavored ones, but they also come in honey or chocolate flavored but even plain old graham crackers are awesome. PLUS for me they are a huge time saver because these could have also been done on sugar cookies, but that's an extra step and all that was needed for the base of these "cookies" was to tear open a new pack.

The birds on a wire idea came to me while I was staring at all the left over jelly beans we had from Easter, and we had A LOT! But I love all the fun colors they come in. I also saw these super cute M and M chicks from Sweet Simple Stuff, which inspired these birdies! And really this entire cookie is so easy to make:

Take your jelly beans and add a yellow or orange candy melt beak (add a little bit of candy wafer to a zip lock bag and microwave until just melted, snip an end and "pipe" on). You could also just melt the wafers in a microwave safe bowl and dip a fork or toothpick in to add the beak.
Use an edible food writer to add eyes

Break graham crackers into squares
For the sky background use blue and white candy melts mixed together
Add "wires" with some melted chocolate for the birds to sit on
Add your jelly bean birds while the candy melt is still wet
Pipe on some little bird feet
Add a candy melt border in white to make it pretty as a picture!

And you get some fun and colorful (not to mention super easy) "cookies" to welcome the birds back for spring. I love the look of the speckled jelly beans for the birdies! You could always use regular cookies for these or royal icing in place of the candy wafers, really, whatever you happen to have handy. For me I always have candy melt hanging around in a rainbow of colors.

Anyhoo, hope you like them and thanks as always for stopping by! The weather forecast is for warmer temps in the Northeast, so I'm hoping that means spring is here to stay.

Here are some other super cute candy birdie treats for you to enjoy!

Easter cupcakes with bird nests
Easy blue birdies
White chocolate candy filled chicks
Baby bird nest pretzels
M and M chicks

Sharing with these fun bloghops too!

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