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!!!

A Sweet Twist on the Wedding Cake

Nothing starts married life in a sweeter way than cupcakes dressed for the occasion! This new wave in wedding cake is something I can most certainly get on board with. And I did with my own wedding cake - or shall I say, wedding cupcakes!

This blog will be series, sprinkled throughout the next few months, leading up to my own nuptials! Now, let's figure out just how many different ways of we can work cupcakes into a wedding, shall we?!

I'm a fan of the 6 inch cake on top and cupcakes down the sides on each tier. Check out a few cool ideas I found online:


PINK!! Need I say more?



I love the way flowers look on each level and then a big crescendo at the top!


If you choose two wedding colors, coloring the icing makes a lovely contrast. It's so cheery!


YESSS! Instead of a 6 inch cake, how about a GIANT CUPCAKE?! Muhahahaa!!

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!

Happy Halloween!

Hey there, Cupcakers!! Looking for a sweet way to get your bake on?! Today is the day - Happy Halloween! Check out all of these week's Cupcakin' It Up blogs for good ideas and see how I executed some of them in yesterday's blog.

This morning, I found myself short on time, and I had to throw cupcakes together. With some sprinkles and left over candy, I was able to decorate these red velvet cupcakes in 10 minutes!

Red velvet is great for Halloween, not only because red velvet is a hot flavor these days but it's also a deep shade of (bloody?!) red! Perfect for this holiday, and, conveniently, Christmas too!

Whether you've been planning your cupcakes for weeks or just decided (maybe while reading this blog!) that you want to whip up a festive batch, making cute Halloween cupcakes is easy and always a crowd pleaser!

Pick Your Poison

BOO!! Three hours later, I bring you Cupcakin' It Up's own creations! It was easy-

INGREDIENTS:
yellow cake
green and yellow food dye
sugar cupcake toppers / bag of candy corn

And a little mix of poison and adorableness makes...











What you can't see here is the green dye that was blended into the batter to create that acidic feel of poison!! Muhahahaha!!

Happy Halloween!! More to come....

A Halloween Cupcake Patch

When my talented cousin sent me her festive, Harry Potter-themed creation (fresh from Canada!), it got me thinking about the endless possibilities of pumpkin patches and cupcakes...

It takes so little to make cupcakes so cute at Halloween! Lucky for us, Wilton has made it easy with their adorable sugar candy toppers (right).

If you can't find them at your local market or don't have time to pop into a Michael's or Party City, here are a few more ideas that can be easily accomplished with some orange pumpkin candies (found at any grocery store!) or even some green dye and coconut. Get inspired below!


The cutest little pumpkin tree that Halloween has seen!


Coconut+green dye


100% icing!

My plan is to combine the Wilton candies with the pumpkin candies in a little happy pumpkin patch. In terms of cake flavor, I'm thinking either carrot cake or pumpkin spice cake to round out the theme and color. I'll try to post these on Saturday, so stay tuned!

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!