Is It a Cupcake, Or a Cake? Both!

I love cupcake cakes. They combine the best of both worlds, like the easy single serve-ability from the cupcakes and a large decorating surface like a sheet cake. You can arrange the cupcakes into a super cute shape (like this golf course cupcake cake) or just as a sheet like I did with this Bronco's cake. All you need is a dozen cupcakes (or more, depending on what you want to arrange or how many you're feeding) of your favorite flavor, a batch of buttercream frosting, and some food coloring! Yay!
Find a board and cover it in foil, or go to WalMart and get yourself one of those cake boards. Before decorating, lay out the cupcakes in the design you want. This is the time to move them around, before they're 'glued' down. Once you have the design down, dab some frosting on the bottom of each cupcake liner and use that to 'glue' the cupcake to the board. Slap a generous amount of frosting on top of the cupcakes and start spreading it smooth. Pipe a border with a large star tip and voila! You have a blank slate for a cupcake cake!

No plates necessary!

For this Bronco's birthday cake I did the above, but before piping on the border I airbrushed the surface a lovely Bronco's blue and hand drew on the Bronco's logo. I outlined the horse in black and filled in with the white and orange. After piping on the celebratory well wishes, the border went on, along with some confetti sprinkles, and bingo! a fabulous cake!

Willy Nilly Silly Ol' Bear

Well, I guess since Big Bear shared the story of the birthday cake he made me, I might as well tell you about the one I made for him last year. Not this year's cake, oh no, that one was a hot mess and there is no photographic evidence of it. Thank goodness he's such a good sport about it. Anyway, Le Big Bear is a big fan of Winnie the Pooh. Knowing this I set out to make him an unforgettable birthday cake and I think I succeeded pretty darn well. Now, we all know that I can't draw. Like, at all. But I figured out an ingenious way to draw Winnie on the cake with some balloons and the hubs, well, he loved it.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of what the cake was and how I made it. You all can probably already figure out that it was a box mix. But to make the bear I went on Google and searched for a decent picture of Winnie the Pooh. Once I found on that I was happy with I sized it to fit on a 1/8 sheet cake (half of a 9x13 cake roughly). I printed it out and cut out the image VERRRRRRY carefully. At this point, the cake is frosted with the final layer of buttercream, but none of the edge piping, words, or anything else were on there yet. I laid the image on the cake and made sure that I would have enough room for balloons and a message. As you can see, there was just barely room. I traced around the edge of the cut out image with a toothpick. You don't want to go super duper deep into the frosting, but deep enough that when you lift off the paper you will still see the outline. Once the outline was finished I lifted up the cut out and drew with a toothpick all of the lines that are in the black color just how they looked in the printed picture. Next step is to take a small piping/writing tip and fill in the toothpick lines with your outline color. Keep the printed picture handy for reference. After the outline is done, fill in with the appropriate colors. Voila! It looks like I really can draw!

More Fun than a Barrel of Monkeys!

Happy monkeys!

I loved playing the barrel of monkeys game when I was a little kid. I'm sure my mom loved it too, a cheap and easy way to keep us entertained for hours with those little plastic monkeys. But even better than monkeys you can play with are .... you guessed it, monkeys you can eat! I made these super fun and super duper cute monkeys for a birthday party and they sure were a hit. I was even able to personalize a few to look like some of the party guests. These are really easy to make, your favorite cake mix, easy to find candies, and pre-made frosting.

For the crazy monkey cupcakes you will need:

24 cupcakes (any flavor, but banana sure is fun!)
24 peanut butter sandwich cookies cut in half (I used Nutter Butters)
48 mini chocolate candies (I used mini -M&Ms)

Angry monkey!

24 vanilla wafer cookies, cut off the top 1/3
Black gel frosting
Red gel frosting
2 cans chocolate frosting

Once the cupcakes are made and cooled, frost the tops with a thin to medium layer of chocolate frosting. Reserve some frosting for hair and other features. Press two mini candies into the frosting, letter side down for the eyes. Gently press two halves of the peanut butter cookies on either side of the eyes for the ears. If the ears hang off the sides of the cupcake too much they will fall off, so make sure to squeeze them in close to the eyes. Press the vanilla wafer cookies into the frosting, rounded side up with the cut flat side closest to the eyes.

Crazy monkey!

Use the black gel frosting for pupils on the chocolate candies, eyebrows/eyelashes, and nostrils. Use the red gel frosting for the mouths. With a pastry bag and a small star tip, or a plastic bag with the corner cut out, pipe the remaining chocolate frosting for hair above the eyes, mustaches above the nostrils, or even a little beard under the mouth.


These cupcakes are great for birthdays of all ages, because, let's face it, who doesn't love monkeys?
What was your favorite birthday cake, dear readers?