Cupcake FAIL: A Cupcake Only A Mother Could Love

The urge stuck me, one sleepy Saturday afternoon. I was trolling the Internet for some Spring cupcakespiration to blog about when I spotted them. So innocent, so unassuming. Little did I know they would soon become my nemeses.

They were a baby chick, a baby sheep, and a kitten to be exact. Sound harmless to you? Yeah, just wait.

*Note: images depicted to the right and left were the cupcakespiration - NOT what I created.

You see, I'm charged with the most sacred sister-in-law baby shower duty of providing enough sugar to propel the baby games into action! More importantly, I had to practice my craft so that come the day of the event, I'll know I have a winner.

Thank the good Martha Stewart that I did a trial run! Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you today, an original Cupcakin It Up FAIL. Prepare yourself for a serious barn-raising stinker that would make even the hungriest Wilbur strangle himself in Charlotte's Web.

It all started very promising...


Ironically, the above icing was the best I've ever made! Such a shame... my secret?
No milk, all butter!! I used:

About 1/2+ a box of confectioner's sugar
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla
1.5 sticks of butter

Then I iced the entire cupcake (yellow-dyed icing for the chickies and white icing for the sheep).


I dyed the coconut yellow for the chicken feathers and borrowed a chocolate almond from my snacks and a couple of chocolate chips from my baking cupboard.

Still thinking this looks promising? Yeah, me too... and yet...

This little turd hatched before my eyes - he sorta looks like Chicken Little but on crack.



Ok, so at this point, I'm feeling just a little disheartened. It doesn't look anything like the picture. In fact, if anything, this belongs on an episode of the Twilight Zone.

But I forge on and prepare the baby sheep...


I pulled out a handful of marshmallows, chocolate chips, and even some red icing for accents. "This is going to be adorable and delicious," I think to myself. It will totally make up for the swamp thing that is likely hailing its mothership as I ice.

Or will it?!...

Wrong again! And I thought the last one was extraterrestrial - run Little Bow Peep, RUN!! Bring the garlic and the crucifix! This is not a drill!


Note how I valiantly try to make the eyes less creepy by giving it pupils. FAIL.

Ok, so maybe you're thinking to yourself, "Cheryl, this one isn't SO bad," - well, hi mom, thanks for still loving me!! To the rest of you, I apologize that you had to witness this cupcaketastrify!

And still I march on... I don't even bother to photograph the creepy cat I wind up making. It will undoubtedly appear in some kind of cautionary tale about what lives under your bed. But check out the whole demented family here:



And that, kids, is how you turn cute and cuddly farm animals scary, creepy creatures ;)

Cupcakin' It Up for a Good Cause

Nothing brings people together like red velvet, funfetti, candy hearts, and sprinkles! Cupcakin' It Up and friends at Hall & Partners visited a PATH shelter to decorate cupcakes with kids and families.

We came armed with 200+ cupcakes (baked by many volunteers from the Hall & Partners office). Flavors included funfetti, vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, and strawberry. Good thing our helpers were so artistically equipped to help!

Check out some of the creations below! They even taught this cupcaketeer a thing or two -

First up, is the collection of our finest creations! The pink plates really made them pop.


Toppings included M&M's, cinnamon red hots, candy hearts, marshmallow hearts, and sprinkles of every color.

My personal favorite is the one on the right - unorthodox in its green, my helper added only green candy hearts and sprinkled circles throughout to add some pink and purple as well.

I also love the way she made a cupcake flower out of M&M's!

Next is an explosion of sprinkles, M&M's, and gummy heart candies on top of pink and chocolate icing. I love the way this executes - it's so festive!


Check out this icing innovation to the right!

I never realized that this texture could be accomplished so easily. My helper told me to spread the icing thinly and then take the knife and gently tease out little tufts on top.

If you unearth some cake in the process? My helper says, "no problem! Just smooth it back and start again."

Sprinkle some colored sugar or sprinkles on top for added color and texture!

This fun evening activity is easy to replicate with local in-need children in your community. I suggest having your group of volunteers each back 1-2 batches of cupcakes. Then check CVS for best candy prices (I bought my gummies, cinnamon candies, marshmallows, and heart candies there). Icing can be purchased for a dollar at Ralphs around this holiday. Even my Red Velvet cake mix was a dollar! It's a minimal price for making someone's day - and spreading the cupcake love!

Wedding cupcakes turned Celebration cupcakes!

So maybe your thoughts are not overrun with cake tasting, venue scouting, and experimental Sephora make-up purchases that make you look a little like a crazy person. Need I remind you that you can make any gathering, holiday, or celebration into an excuse to make and display cupcakes?!

Check out this truly awesome cupcakespiration from reader, Jennifer. I love the pink, black, and white colors on the tiered display - the pink-coloring in the cake totally makes this! Sure, I want to adopt this for my wedding, but this could easily be a birthday display or even a girl’s night-in delicacy!

Jennifer’s brother-in-law built the tiers. But if you don’t have a handy cupcake-display-making-enthusiast around, you could accomplish a similar effect with some white-painted boxes of varying sizes, doilies, ribbon, glitter (of course!), and hot glue.

Making a smaller batch? Check out Jennifer’s Wilton tree, purchased at Michael’s and her adorable sunflower cupcakes perfect to welcome Spring!

Great work, Jennifer! Mmmm… now I’m hungry!!!

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Lack of short bread cookies, red and green sprinkles, and present-shaped cupcakes got you down? I'm familiar with these after Christmas baking blues and feel your pain! As a fellow cupcaketeer, I want you to know that I'm here for you with some wintery cupcakespiration to keep the holiday spirit alive and the oven warm!

Check out a few ideas for January:


Christmasy-looking trees aside, the aqua colored icing (easily achieved with Wilton food dye or adding a little bit of green to blue-dyed icing) and a touch of winter decorations are still appropriate for parties after Christmas!


No food dye handy? That's ok! Just tease the icing into lovely flowing waves and add some white decorations on top to achieve this elegant design.


In an entirely different direction, check out these frigid treats that will warm the belly!

Spooky Cupcakes

Happy Halloween Week! Yes, yes, I know I've been MIA since the summer, but work and studying have left me too exhausted to type or bake.... However, I intend to make it up to you in honor of my favorite cupcake holiday! Halloween is such a versatile holiday for cupcakes - you can go gory and spooky or cute and cuddly, AND no matter what you decide (or have laying around in your kitchen!), you will always sweeten somebody's day by baking them!

Today's Halloween cupcakespiration focuses on spooky cupcakes. I myself have three different events that I have to bake for this year and plan to make one batch of spookily disturbing cupcakes, using the Wilton sugar skull and cross bones (right, found at Michael's or Party City) and some festive skull muffin cups (left, also purchased at Michael's). My plan (that I will post to the blog on Friday for those of you who would like to get inspired for Halloween!) is to make yellow cake with green dye dripped down the center and acid-green-colored icing for the top. Will this detour tasters from eating them?! I hope not - but if it does, more for me!! MUHAHA!

Here are some more spooky designs I found from other sites that might give you more good ideas!


Eek! Spiders!! Some black licorice, chocolate sprinkles
and red M&Ms or red hots make these spooky treats easy!


For those skilled with an icing tip and black dye,
these really make a spooky statement!


Ok, so this is arguably adorable - but with some tick-tacks,
marshmellow, and white icing, this can be done.


Christmas come early?! So cute and so easy AND all done with icing!
Or get your Oreo on for the eyes!!

Thing to be wary of... making an eyeball cupcake - I find that seeing it in person is just weird looking. It looks like you tried to make a spider but failed (or maybe that's just my cupcakes! haha). Anyway, these are super cute options to spookify your baked goods!

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!

Fun Friday Find!

When people find out that I have a blog dedicated to cupcakes, they usually laugh and say "wow, you must really like them a lot." HECK YES, I do!! On many occasions when I divulge this obsession or "hobby" (for the faint of heart!) with others, they give me recommendations of things to check out or ask me if I've tried various techniques before. Well, I received a great recommendation from a co-worker to check out this site called CrazyAboutCupcakes.com by a cupcake author - Krystina Castella.

What a find! Krystina posts detailed baking tips for classics like Mint Chocolate Chip cupcakes to a full themed spread of "Tiki Cupcakes" with flavors that range from banana coconut to pina colada to seabreeze. Wondering what it takes to make the Seabreeze cupcake? Check it out:

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 granulated sugar
2 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup pink grapefruit juice
1/4 cup cranberry juice
Zest of 1 small grapefruit
3/4 cup chopped cranberries

How refreshing and creative!! Just thought I spread the cupcakespiration! Sprinkles off to you, Krystina!

Cupcakespiration!

I was thinking today that I haven't made cupcakes in a month now - SHOCKING, I know! Though I eat other people's cupcakes regularly ;-) But no cupcake design ideas come to mind, so this Friday, for those who are in the same boat as me, I thought I'd provide some cupcakespiration from other blogs and random images found on google that make me want to pick up my spatula and throw cookies to the wind!

(This one to the left is from Hello Cupcake - the authors of one of my favorite cupcake books to thumb through at Barnes and Noble!)


Enjoy some of these lovely, pretty cupcake designs:


Courtesy of Cupcakes Take the Cake


Courtesy of Cupcake Journal


Courtesy of Hello Cupcake


Courtesy of MyKite


Courtesy of a random Flickr account

Got a piece of culinary art of your own that you would like to share? Hit me up at cupcakinitup@gmail.com

Mini Me, You Complete Me!

Who doesn't love teenie tiny bundles of joy?... I am of course, referring to mini cupcakes! They have the unique ability to quench a cupcake craving for we cupcakeaholics in one bite. Besides, 5 of them equal one large cupcake = more variety and more icing! Not to mention they are completely adorable. Check out some particularly cute ones I found:


Look at the penguin and the fishy!! So cute!!
Courtesy of Sparklette


OREOS!! My favorite thing in life... now in bite-sized portions! Love it!
Courtesy of Parents.com


Spring has sprung - YUM!
Courtesy of Cupcakerie


AW! Pink + Monkeys = Love!
Courtesy of Blue Cupcake


Now this is my kind of Valentine!!
Courtesy of Hello, Cupcake


Adorable!
Courtesy of Cupcakes Take the Cake

And of course, some that I've discovered on my travels...


Make your own artful mini!
Cupcakes, Cupcakes of Glendale


Pink and chocolate - does it get any better?
Buttercake cupcakes at the Yelp! event

I can't tell you how many awesome cupcake / baking blogs I've come across from googling these images. Check out their links under the pictures for more cupcakespiration!

If you have any creations that you would like to share, hit me up at cupcakinitup@gmail.com