Graduation Cap Cupcakes

So easy, but they turned out very fun. I made mini cupcakes. Frosted with pink and white (her color choice, obviously you could use school colors). Then I used sour DOTS for the cap and Starbursts cut in half lengthwise for the top and pull and peel licorice cut at the end and attached with a dot of frosting...DONE! I did almost a hundred to fill the cupcake tree and they were a big hit at the party.

Chicken Little Cupcakes

Chicken Little is a cute story about a chicken who thinks the sky is falling because an acorn fell from a tree and hit his head. So, I made chicken cupcakes and acorn treats.

For the acorns, use a donut hole and dip one end in melted chocolate. You could actually use anything you like such as frosting, carmel topping or peanut butter because you are then going to dip that into toffee bits. And, again, you could even use finely chopped nuts. Then, add a small piece of pretzel for the stem. Cute, huh?! These were a big hit at the party!

For the chickens, I used my own cake recipe to make mini cupcakes. I didn't use wrappers because you will be frosting the entire cupcake. For the 'feet' I cut orange jelly candies in half. Honestly, they didn't work very well and if I make these again I would just use orange tic-tacs. I frosted the whole thing with white frosting and rolled it in yellow tinted coconut. Then, piped chocolate frosting eyes and added a peanut for the beak and cinnamon candies for the top.

2 Cookies = 1 Cupcake

Okay, I may be the last to discover this, but I realized that if I use my cookie scoop to fill the muffin pans that 1 scoop fills a mini muffin perfectly and 2 scoops fills a regular muffin perfectly!! Who knew? All this time, I tried spoons, measuring cups, etc. just to make a huge mess. Hope this helps someone like me that has never realized this before!

Shamrock Cupcakes

These were made for St. Patrick's Day the same way I made the heart cupcakes except I used 3 marbles as shown in the picture below. Only fill up the cups 1/2 way because you will be condensing the space! Also bake them for a shorter amount of time and check them because they will cook faster than normal. After frosting (I used green frosting and green sprinkles) you can add a green licorice for the stem! Enjoy!

Heart Cupcakes

This is our yearly Valentine's Day tradition! We like to make these cakes in the shape of hearts and the kids get to decorate them! This year we even colored the white cake pink--just for fun!

Here is a brief explanation on how to do this WITHOUT a purchased heart pan!

First, make your favorite cupcake recipe. Fill paper cup liners 2/3 full with batter. Then, place a marble to the side of each cup, like this:






Then, bake as you normally would and remove the cupcakes from the pan--they baked in the shape of the heart. Sometimes, they don't turn out perfectly heart-like, but I make them look that way with the frosting! Have fun with it!

Microphone Cupcakes

To celebrate the American Idol Finale, we made these cupcakes in a cone. Actually , we didn't bake the cake in the cone because we needed it to go higher. So, what we did was fill the bottom of the cup with M&M's for weight and then put frosting around the top of the cone for 'glue'. We placed the unwrapped cupcake on the top and frosted all the way around. Then we rolled it in a bowl of chocolate sprinkles. There you go--a microphone you can eat!

Easter Cupcakes

This is part of our Easter tradition. My mom used to make the cupcakes with the green coconut 'grass' on top with the jelly bean 'eggs' on top. She even added chenille stems for handles but I never seem to remember that! A few years ago I found a cute idea for bunny cupcakes so we do them both now! To make the bunnies, just frost in white with white coconut. Add mini marshmallows for the nose, M&M's for the eyes and nose. Then, cut a large marshmallow in half and immediatley dip the cut part in colored sugar to form the ears! EASY and so cute for Spring!

Koala Cupcakes

Obviously for a 15th birthday celebration, my daughter is way into koalas. So, I came across an idea to make koala cupcakes. It is just frosting covered in gray-tinted coconut, mini oreos for the ears, chocolate covered almonds for the nose and chocolate chips for the eyes. SUPER EASY. If I were to do it again, though, I would tint the frosting gray and barely put coconut on, like these: Koala Cupcakes .