Christmas Wreath Cupcakes!

I love Christmas. Like, love, love, LOVE Christmas. So much so, that my friends and family affectionately refer to me as "The Christmas Nazi". I decorate our tree and I create our monstrous Christmas village in the living room - not that my mom and sister don't want to, I just don't let them. It's that bad. So it's no surprise that I also love all the fun Christmas-themed goodies I can make! However, my favorite one this year was a cheery Christmas wreath I came up with after my dad asked me to bake some cupcakes for the guys at Scottrade. 

Since this was such a last-minute request, I could have just baked a batch of regular cupcakes, topped them off with some icing and sprinkles, and have been done with it. But I'm a natural born perfectionist and overachiever so that was definitely not an option. I decided to bake a batch of red velvet cupcakes. I personally love (or at least, used to love ..) red velvet cupcakes. Strange, coming from someone who does not like chocolate (which is the epitome of strange in itself). But my red velvet cupcakes, I have to admit, are delicious! I follow a basic red velvet recipe, but throw in some pudding to give them extra moistness and flavor. Maybe I'll share the details of that recipe, but not today! ;)

I dug out a circular, gold cardboard .. thing .. from one of our cabinets. I don't know what it was used for or why we kept it but, hey, sometimes being a pack-rat can come in handy! I arranged the cupcakes on the board in a circular pattern with an empty hole in the middle (think doughnut .. or, ya know, just wreath). When I had made my obligatory trip to Publix earlier, I already had the wreath vision in my mind. However, I was planning on dying the icing green and decorating it with randomly placed, different colored M&M's. Unfortunately, my brilliant self saw a bag of "Christmas M&M's!" and bought it. I don't know why I thought it would have different colors, as opposed to red & green (ya know, "Christmas M&M's!" colors), but when I opened it I was highly disappointed. Plus, I don't (and can't) even eat chocolate, so the candy fiend in me was disappointed as well. Then my creativity kicked in and I thought of a solution!

I pulled out my handy dandy cookie gun - who wants to spread icing when you can pipe?! Oh, everyone but me. Whatever! I filled the canister with white icing (nope, no green dying) and began to pipe each cupcake with individual peaks of white icing. Once the tops of all the cupcakes were covered and there were no discernible holes in the wreath, I sprinkled sparkly green "cupcake pixie dust" (I love Tinkerbell, just let me call it that!) all over them. I then used every single green M&M in my "Christmas M&M's!" bag to spread all over my cupcakes and create the impression of a green wreath. With a series of red M&M's, I created a bow at the bottom of the wreath and scattered a few more red ones throughout the wreath to represent Christmas ornament balls.

 

Voila! Christmas wreath spectacular! My dad said everyone at the office LOVED them! I personally would have loved to see these big-shot men in their suits and ties giddily fumbling over these cute cupcakes :).

Proud To Be An American Cupcakes!

Everybody who knows me knows that I'm very Republican (a non-liberal teacher, told you I was special! ;p), but whether you're right-winged or left-winged, I think we can all meet in the middle and agree that we are truly blessed to live in this beautiful country. So, in honor of our independence, I decided to create an American flag made of cupcakes! Now, just like all the struggles our country has had to overcome to get to where it is today - this was no easy feat! I literally spent ALL morning making and decorating these! I decided to take them to my parents' shop to distribute to all the customers and they were a hit. Here's my long and arduous journey to celebrating my country through baking!

I actually baked the cupcakes the night before. I don't know where this spark of genius came from (as my brain is usually fried from studying), but I am grateful to it. I baked 24 cupcakes from scratch, following the Magnolia Bakery recipe for vanilla cupcakes (can be found here: http://www.kitchenlink.com/cookbooks/2005/0743246616_2.html). Yup, THE famous Magnolia Bakery in New York! Feel free to indulge yourselves :). Anyways, I thought it would be smooth sailing the next morning in terms of decorating. Boy, was I mistaken! I had everything all prepped and ready to go. 

I tried not to fill the cupcake liners all the way to the top so that they could come out as flat as possible; this made frosting them easier and ensured that the "flag" would be evenly frosted. As you can see, I used red food coloring, blue food coloring, white spice drops (my least favorite flavor - awesome, considering they were the only ones I didn't eat myself! I may not be able to consume dairy, but I am a candy FIEND!), and a cookie gun. I don't know if that's the right term for it, but my mom calls it a cookie gun and she's my inspiration so there! Anyways, it's the pink thing. It's made by Wilton; you fill the plastic canister with either cookie dough or, in this case, icing, and can adjust the tip for whatever design you want. Contrary to a lot of people, I actually enjoy piping frosting, so this was fun for me! Until I realized 2 containers of icing was not nearly enough. I had to run over to Publix and buy another 5 - yes, 5! The girl at the register (she thinks we're BFF, I guess since I always run over for baking supplies and she's usually the express checkout girl) even asked me, "What do you need 5 cans of icing for?!". To knit a sweater, duh. 

Okay, back to the actual creating a sweet stuff. I mixed the food coloring with the icings right in their containers. No specific reason, other than it made my life easier (and less messy!). The coloring is a little tricky, especially the red. You want to put enough so that you get the right color, but if you put too much your icing will have a strange taste to it. My red came out just a tad neon-y, so I guess I'll need to experiment with coloring a little more :(. I mixed the white icing with the food colorings using a toothpick and scooped as much as would fit into my handy dandy cookie gun. I arranged the 24 cupcakes onto a foiled cookie sheet in 4 rows of 6 cupcakes each. I began with the blue frosting because it was pretty integral to do so. I piped blue frosting onto the first 3 cupcakes of the top 2 rows and then filled in any empty space between the cupcakes with more piping (hence, the foil lining). I then piped the red stripes and finished with the white ones. I did all of the red before adding the white in order to measure it out evenly and since I had no need to mix the already white icing with any food coloring. Lastly, I arranged the white spice drops in the blue section to represent stars. I was actually going to roll them flat and cut them into little stars but, honestly, I just got lazy. 

About 3 hours later I was finished! Everyone loved them, no one wanted to be the first to grab a cupcake. As a matter of fact, I think my sister did the honors (figures!). 

God bless you America, you're beautiful.

Hi!

Hi, I'm Stefy! :)

I'm a 27 year-old (yes, 27! ::gasp::) graduate student. I'm currently quickly driving myself insane in my simultaneous pursuit of a Master's Degree in Education and my Florida teaching certification. As you have probably been able to figure out, I want to be a teacher! Specifically, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd graders. No, I have not lost my mind just yet - I simply adore kids! Basically, I'm a child at heart, I'm size-equivalent to them, and I have an eternal fairy-tale complex - we understand each other. This dedication to my education (and near-future career!) has led to the demise of my once crazy social life. Instead, I now spend my free time baking, cooking, and drawing. I always knew I had talent when it came to art, but the kitchen was a completely different story. I would roll my eyes at my mom and tell her that I'd have a maid when I got married. Almost as soon as I started grad school last Spring, I also started trying my hand in the kitchen and guess what?! I'm great at it! I love to cook new things, but baking is what really makes me happy. My family is always complaining that I'm trying to get them fat because I'm known to make up to 3 different types of treats each weekend! How am I soooo skinny, you ask? Well, I'm allergic to dairy :(. But it's okay, because as long as I can create things that will make other people smile, that tastes just as sweet to me! So enjoy my adventures and thanks for looking! :)