My Cupcake Garden

It's spring time in my kitchen! You can really tell by all of the flowers popping up!! Thanks to a flower-shaped cupcake pan, I was easily able to create this delicious tribute to Spring. As you can see from the pan below, you can still use the normal-sized cupcake paper liner. The only part left exposed is the petals, so for safe-eating, I lined the petal part with butter for ease of removing them, without breaking the cake, from the pan.

Now, though they are delicious and adorable, they are also incredibly top-heavy, so its a balancing act to carry them without having them tip over. Always carry the fixer icing tube in your purse - haha! I sound like a crazy cupcake bag lady! So worth it, just for the reaction on their size and cuteness. Happy spring!

*Note: the icing used here is the Martha Stewart Vanilla recipe: 1 pound of powdered sugar, 3 sticks of butter (yes, 3!!), and 1/2 tsp of vanilla. I added a little extra powdered sugar to make it less oily...

Aloha, Easter!

Happy Easter Week!!

What better way to welcome the fluffy bunny to town than with a tray full of happily-colored cupcakes that are adorable, festive, and delicious! I received these images from a talented dynamic duo in Oahu who really know how to stir up some Spring creativity!! Shantel and Shaina cooked up a great addition to Easter Week here at Cupcakin' It Up!

It all started with cupcakespiration!! They used yellow cake and food dye to make it colorful. Want to recreate these tastebud-tickling treats in your own kitchen? Here's how -


Check it out!!


Easter-through and through, right down to the cake!


Colors to make your tummy hop with joy!


See how they texturized the icing to make each one unique and awesome!


Add a few sprinkles... and...


PRESTO! Easter perfection!!

Culinary school in their future?? I think so!! Bunny ears off to you girls! You know how to make Easter spring to life!

Mmmmm now I'm hungry.... :-)

*Note: Expect many puns on Easter words this week!! WHY? because it's EASTER WEEK, silly!

Babies a bloomin'!

Spring is all about new life popping up everywhere! So it seems a natural fit to tell you about a baby shower I cupcake catered for a family friend. She is having a girl, so naturally the only stipulation was for the cupcakes to be pink. And we all know how much I LOVE pink!

So with some quality Wilson's pink dye (found at Michaels), flower candies (found at Party City or Michaels), and sprinkles (found at Party City, a local grocery store, or - you'll never guess - Michaels!), I whipped up some appropriately girlie cupcakes.

100 mini cupcakes and 15 giant cupcakes later, I had a present for the new mama to delight the eye and tickle the taste buds! I did two shades of light pink vanilla frosting as well as a delicious milk chocolate frosting adorned in pink accessories. There were three kinds of cake: Butter Yellow, Devil's Food chocolate, and red velvet. The red velvet was paired with the traditional cream cheese frosting from Martha Stewart's Cupcake cookbook. And let me just say about Martha's icing - the woman LOVES butter probably as much as I love pink! Which is A LOT! But when I'm cupcake catering an event, I pull out all of the fatteningly delicious stops - no cutting corners. However, I will say that I can't taste a different in the cream cheese frosting that used original or 1/3 fat cream cheese. Why not be healthy if we can right? Although we are eating cupcakes...

The Jumbo cupcakes, were hollow in the middle and filled with frosting. I just used a sharp knife to hallow out a cone in the middle. Especially with the jumbo size that typically get a little overcooked on the edges, the icing filling really ensures a satisfying flavor that makes them a hit regardless.

At the end of the day, all I can go on is reactions from other guests. I will tell you that one five-year-old and her best friend tapped me on the leg to tell me that they ate 15 mini cupcakes (13 that they were sanctioned to have, 3 that they're mom didn't know about! Yes, I'm also aware that didn't add to fifteen haha! but they are five and were on an undoubtedly ridiculous sugar high!). Yikes!!

For the love of Spring and Sweet Things!

With Easter just a hippity hop away, I bet you're just bursting to get your cute cupcake on! Good thing I've scoured the internet for lots of bright ideas to get your creative oven warmed up!

From charming lady bugs nestled on delicately frosted cakes to coconut dyed in green coloring to make a bountiful garden, lets kick the week of sweet, right?!

Check out these creative ideas:


Got coconut?! It's fast, easy and tasty grass for an Easter egg hunt or a full garden.


With the right icing cap, you make this easy green grass for your guests that don't like coconut.


Look at this creative use of jellybeans!


And candy corns!!

Happy Spring!

Hello themed cupcake lovers! After some serious sugar-soul-searching (which is a cupcake connoisseur's way of pondering the meaning of all things cupcake!), I am ready to celebrate the beginning of Spring. Happy Spring! Happy flowers and fluffy bunnies and tiny chickies and Cadbury eggs and, and! Themed CUPCAKES!!

This Spring cupcakespiration is proof that the art of cute cupcake is, in fact, in the genes. My incredibly creative mother produced these deliciously adorable treats. Using the sugar Easter candies (found at Party City or Michael's) and colored coconut for grass, she created these festive treats. Aren't they adorable?! I wonder what else we will cook up here on Cupcakin' It Up! As always please email me your Springspirations at CupcakinItUp@gmail.com and I'll blog about it!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, friends!! This morning, I woke up with the urge to bake. The urge to create. The urge to spread some cupcakespiration! As you can see, I created a hodge-podge of some of the inspired designs that I have features in early October - the Owls, made of Oreo eyes and chocolate chip pupils; mummies with white bandages and yellow faces, orange pumpkins, green frankensteins, and some creepy crawlers!

*Hint: at your local target, you can find "sluggy gummies" to use instead of just drawing them like I did.

This is the first year that I don't have any particular plans, and have set up my cupcake tree in the hopes of getting some trick 'r treaters in my building. Or someone to come over and eat my cupcakes!

Have a spooktacular, cupcakefull night!

Pumpkin Spice and everything nice!

I found this recipe for Spiced Vanilla Icing in Fine Cooking Magazine and was immediately intrigued. They paired it with buttermilk cake - but I put it with a spice cake to give it a fall holiday flair. Here's the original recipe:

9 oz. (2 1/2 cups) confectioner's sugar
3 tbs. buttermilk, more as needed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp of table salt

Now, let me preface my critique by saying that I sold out of my dozen spiced cupcakes and received rave reviews about their flavor. That being said, I was skeptical about adding salt to icing - upon a highly scientific spoon test, I was not impressed. In fact, I almost scrapped the entire batch of cupcakes all together. However, no one commented on the salt, and if anything, it seemed to contrast the spice cake in an interesting way.

If I could make a couple of simple amendments to the recipe, I would say that instead of a 1/4 tsp. of salt, I would do a small pinch of salt. Additionally, I would say do the 3 tbs of buttermilk and use just regular milk to add more moisture if you need it. Otherwise, the buttermilk makes it too thick.

Whether it's a unique Halloween treat or a house warming Thanksgiving present, this spiced recipe really mixes up the typical autumn dessert into something people of all ages can enjoy!