Candy Heart Cupcakes

Once again a www.pinterest.com post inspired me to create a cupcake design.

I saw this pin and thought it would be cute to make on a cupcake.  Unfortunately all our candy canes from Christmas have been eaten so we improvised.
Adison had chosen some sour punch straws last week as a treat.

So we iced a cupcake and then cut a sour punch straw in half and bent it into a heart shape.




Then we filled the center of the heart with sprinkles.

Then we tried different sprinkles in the center of a pink cupcake.

Both were cute and tasted great, but we liked the first design best.

Love Heart Cookies on Cupcakes

Writing neatly is not something I’m good at and neither is writing in icing.  I’ve seen such cute love message cookies that I thought I’d have a go making them.

As you can see my piping isn’t very neat, but the overall impression is still cute. I rough iced the heart shaped cookies and then piped the words using a #5 tip from Wilton.


I had some cupcakes left over from making the butterflies so I tried putting the cookie on the cupcakes.

They looked really pretty and children always love the combination of cookies and cupcakes together.

As you can see below, even if each cupcake or cookie isn’t perfect, when you put them all together to display, the overall impression is great.

Butterfly Hearts

If you’ve read my posting about how to make the stained glass cookies, you’ll know I said I was saving the middle for another project…well here it is.

I love butterflies as children can really use their imaginations and decorate with lots of candy and sprinkles, and they still look like butterflies.  With some other animal shapes, once a child (or me) has iced them, it can be hard to tell what animal it is.

So here is how to create a butterfly out of two heart cookies.  Firstly rough ice the cookies. Any pale color icing is a good background for the sprinkles or candy.  I used pink as it makes it more Valentines.

Then rough ice a cupcake in a different color icing, so that the butterfly stands out against the background.

Talking of backgrounds, sorry that the backgrounds on the photos keeps changing, I’m still learning which work best.

Then press the two hearts into the icing.  You can press quite firmly as the hearts need to be stuck well to the icing.  As you can see my icing really is rough.  I used to spend ages trying to get it smooth, but with buttercream it’s very hard.  You can use a very hot knife which makes it a bit smoother, but I find that people don’t usually care about the details, they just care about the overall impression and the taste of the cupcake.  That is especially true for children.

When you see these amazing websites with awesome, perfect creations, what they never show you are the designs that didn’t work.  I’m still at the experimenting stage and I will show you all the things that go wrong because a lot of them are funny.

My first thought for the butterfly’s body was a starburst (or opal fruit in England).  I rubbed it between my fingers to soften it and then rolled it flat.

It looked OK until I tried to add eyes, and then it all went wrong.  These eyes are from Wilton (available at Joann or any craft store), but they tend to make everything look like a Simpson’s character.

Then I tried M&M’s which was even worse, and now my husband has just pointed out that the starburst looks like a severed finger.

Then because I’d been using the sour patch straws this morning I tried one of them.  It was a bit better but I still didn’t like it.

So I reverted to my usual mini M&M’s and cut the sour patch straws in half for antennae. It was simple and much more effective.

Then I added some heart shaped sprinkles to finish it off.  I could have got all fancy and made patterns with candy or piping, except I had to get my son from preschool and I ran out of time. 

I’d made the icing last week (it will keep for about 3 weeks in a sealed container in the fridge) and baked and froze the cupcakes earlier in the week.   They will keep for about a month in the freezer; after that they get a bit of a musty taste to them.  I made the cookie 3 days ago and kept them in an airtight tin. They only keep about 4 days before they go soggy and they don’t freeze well.
So I had 30 minutes this morning to play about and this is what I created.  I never have time to spend hours decorating something so anything you see on this blog can be created in about 10-15 minutes.  I dream about the day when I can spend hours creating some masterpiece, but I don’t think it will ever happen, life always gets in the way.
Here is a slightly different butterfly.  There were no failed attempts for this one, I just made a quick and easy design in the 5 minutes I had available.

Valentine’s Spiders?

Today was my morning to have one on one ‘special time’ with my daughter, which also meant that she got to have candy as a treat.  She chose these sour straws.  I’d never seen them before, but she liked them and when she was eating on she said “we could make spider cupcakes out of these”.  As I’m on a roll with Valentine’s Day ideas, I thought why not make Valentine’s Day spiders.

It was also a good opportunity to show that a 3 year old can decorate cupcakes, with a bit of help.  First I rough iced the cupcake with white icing, but you could use any color.  Then she dipped the cupcake in some pink sugar as it’s her favorite.

I dipped it again, just to make sure it was well covered.

Then I cut the sour straws into 8 lengths and she stuck them into the spider’s body.

We added mini M&M eyes and a heart sprinkle for a mouth.  Then she decided that the spider needed some hearts on her back to make her look prettier, and she was done!

I decided to make a ‘boy’ spider using red sugar.

As you can see he looked no different from the girl, proving that anything I can ice, so can a 3 year old.

My Favorite Cake & Cupcake Recipe

This is my all time favorite cake recipe and can be made as a vanilla, chocolate or butterscotch cake.  I’ve never made it for anyone who hasn’t loved it.  It’s from Taste of Home (anyone who knows me, knows that Taste of Home is where all my good recipes come from).   If you compare the original recipe to mine you’ll see that I’ve made a couple of changes, but it’s basically the same.

Ingredients

• 1 package (18-1/4 ounces) vanilla or chocolate cake mix (depending on which flavor cake you are making)
• 1 package (3.9 ounces) instant vanilla or butterscotch or chocolate pudding mix (depending on which flavor cake you are making)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet white chocolate or butterscotch or chocolate chips (depending on which flavor cake you are making)

 

• For Vanilla cakes - use vanilla cake mix and white chocolate chips.
• For Butterscotch cakes - use vanilla cake mix and butterscotch chips
• For Chocolate cake - use any chocolate cake mix and chocolate chips

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, water and sugar. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Stir in chocolate chips if using chocolate chips (for other chips, see directions below).
• Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. Bundt pan. Bake at 350° for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.
• For cupcakes or mini cupcakes bake them for 12-18 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 
• For regular round cakes bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• If the cake is not quite cooked, the center will fall when it cools.  It almost tastes better if it’s slightly uncooked as it’s extra moist.
• If you are adding white chocolate or butterscotch chips I find that if I add them to the batter they fall to the bottom of the pan and burn.  I cook the cake for about 10 minutes and then scatter the chips on top.  They fall into the center of the cake.  For cupcakes bake for about 5 minutes and then scatter them on top.

 

• Whether you make this recipe as cupcakes or a cake, they freeze like a dream.  I put them in a ziploc bag and freeze them flat.  If you just need a few cupcakes, pull them out of the freezer, ice them when they are frozen and leave them at room temperature and they’ll be ready to eat in about 20 minutes.

My Favorite Roll Out Cookie Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar and then beat in the egg and vanilla.  In a separate bowl mix the baking powder and flour.  Add one cup at a time to the sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition.  The dough will be very stiff but blend the last of the flour in using your hand if necessary.  Split the dough into two portions and roll on a floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick.  Cut the cookies out and place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 6-8 minutes or until lightly browned. 

The lighter the cookies are, the more they taste like sugar cookies, but if you cook them a couple of minutes longer, so they are light brown rather than cream colored, they taste more like short bread.

This is a great recipe for making with children as the dough doesn’t need refrigerating, and because it’s so stiff it doesn’t stick as easily to the surface you roll on. You can also add food coloring to make the dough different colors or use whole wheat flour instead of plain flour to make them healthier.  They are slightly crunchier but still taste great and my kids can never tell the difference.

These cookie will keep for about 3-4 days in an air tight tin.  They go a bit soggy after that and they don’t freeze well.  They defrost all doughy and taste a bit strange.

These are just a few of the cookies I’ve made recently using this recipe.