Flower Garden Birthday Cake

We just celebrated my sweet Tatum's 4th birthday.

This was the Flower Garden cake to top off her Fancy Four Affair.

Each birthday I try to make a special cake for my kids.  Though I love baking, cake decorating is not  my forte!

I found this fun idea in one of my favorite books, What's New, Cupcake? by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  I love this book because the ideas are fairly simple and the results are so impressive.  Here is how I made it, following the instruction from the book.

Supplies:
Yeah, this one had TONS of items on ingredient list.  However, that is mostly due to the fact that I chose to make a variety of flowers for my flower garden.  Here is basically what you'd need...
- Cupcakes (I'd go with homemade for a firmer cake to stick the flowers into, though not necessary.)
- Green Cupcake Liners (though again, not necessary)
- Tray, for your Flower Garden to sit in
- Pretzels, sticks
- Cookies (sturdy, flat and round work best), one for each flower
- White Chocolate Chips, about 1 cup
- Frosting
- Green Food Coloring
- Assorted Candies for Flowers, I used M&Ms, Mike & Ikes, Jelly Bellies, Gummy Lifesavers
- Assorted Green Candies for Leaves
- Assorted Green Candies to fill in around the cupcakes (optional)
- Marshmallows (for flower petals), I used mini and a medium-sized variety in mine
- Sugar Sprinkles (assorted colors), for the marshmallow flowers

... I added some cute butterfly picks that I found at Hobby Lobby, that I thought were a nice touch.

Directions:
1) Make your marshmallow petals.
Do this by cutting them on the diagonal as shown below.  Set them aside so they can regain their shape.

Choose some colored sugar sprinkles, and place them in a small dish.

Take each of your cut marshmallow petals, and press the cut side into the colored sprinkles until it is nicely coated.  I used two different sizes of marshmallows, and opted to use colored sprinkles to match the color of the marshmallow.  I really liked how the medium-sized marshmallows looked on the finished flowers.

2)  Create your flowers!

Line your cookies up on a try.  I had 20 cupcakes to decorate, so I chose 20 cookies.  I also found it helpful to pre-sort my candies by color so I could quickly grab what I needed before my chocolate had set.  Once I had everything ready....

... I put 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips in a ziplock bag.  Place THE OPEN BAG in the microwave for 10 second intervals, mushing the chocolate in between each, until it is completely melted (may take about a minute).  Remove the air from the bag, and seal it.

Snip about 1/4" from the corner of your bag, and you are ready to pipe your chocolate!

See what I'm doing here?  Not a good idea.  I thought the chocolate would take longer to set than it did.  My recommendation would be to work on 2 or 3 AT THE MOST at a time.  One at a time might be a little too runny to easily decorate without your candies slipping out of place.

Pipe chocolate onto your cookie, and decorate it to your liking with your assorted candies and prepared marshmallow petals.  After a bit my chocolate was getting too "cool" and hard to work with.  I just popped it back in the microwave for 10 seconds, and we were back in business.

Here are my finished flowers.  Perhaps you can select some favorites from mine and copy them rather than experiment until you find one you like.

Note: I made the flowers the night before the party.  Cover them and hide them from the kids... :)

4) Prepare your cupcakes.
I know... I cheated.  I used store-bought frosting and added green food coloring to make it a nice, grassy green.

I frosted each cupcake, added some green sugar sprinkles to the top, and placed them on the tray.

Next, I filled in the gaps with all of the green candies I had stolen from my flower candy supply.

5)  Add your stems to the flowers.
The original instructions didn't call for this, but I happened to have some green candy melts on hand.  I chose to dip my pretzel sticks in the green candy melts.  I did this for two reasons.... 1, because I thought they would look nicer... and 2, because sticking a pretzel in a moist cupcake will cause the pretzel to get all soggy. Ick!

I melted my candy melts as directed on the package, rolled each pretzel stick in each, and let them set on a piece of wax paper.

Next, I melted another 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips in a small glass dish, as directed on the package (in the microwave for 30 second intervals).  I found that it worked best to lay the flowers upside-down, roll the end of the pretzel in the white chocolate, and rest it in place on the back of the flowers.  I then added white chocolate over top of that to make sure it was nice and "glued" into place.  You may have to hold the pretzel in place for a bit to allow it to set... or find a crafty way to rest it in place while you work on the next.

I transferred these to the fridge to allow them to completely set, about 5 minutes.  Set these aside, and add to your cupcakes right before you are ready to display your cake.

6) Arrange your flower garden.
I used green fruit slice candies for the leaves.  They were a little thick, so I cut them in half.  They were a perfect shape, I thought.

Place a flower into each cupcake.  Add a leaf or two to the base.  I rested my leaves in the frosting at an angle on most.  I also added some cute little butterfly picks.  Isn't it pretty?

We added flowers directly onto our extra cupcakes.  Charlotte had fun designing some of these.

And the finished display...

I thought it looked so pretty on the table!

A couple of thoughts...

*   The candy flowers were very heavy.  Little, if any, of the pretzel stem was left showing, as I had to insert them fairly deep to support the weight of the flowers.  I am not sure if there would be a better option.... perhaps a thicker pretzel?

*   Next time I may use green food coloring in the cake as well....

Happy Birthday Tater-Bug!!

Birthday Party Inspirations

My two girls will be having birthdays within the next few months.

We're looking a 4 and 8!

We have had so much fun planning themed parties in the past and I'm getting ready to put some ideas together for this year.  Here are some of the amazing ideas I've come across while surfing the web.  AMAZING.... that's all I can say.

I'll be pulling my inspiration from these....

Got a children's birthday party that you are proud of?  

Ava's Birthday Bake Shop

by Our Daily Obsessions

Campout Party

at Moore Minutes

Enchanted Fairy Party

by Its Always a Party at the Parkers

Art Party

by Sweet Craft Cakes

UP Movie Party

by Wendy Updegraff

April Showers Birthday Party

at Crossing the Bugger-Dixon Line

Fancy Nancy Party

at It's Always a Party at the Parkers

All of these wonderful "inspirations" get an A++ from Sun Scholars!

You can grab the button below and add it to your blog!

Thanks for sharing these amazing parties.

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Now... time to start planning!

Sunflower Cupcakes

One of our family traditions is to celebrate our children's half birthdays.  We don't go all out as we would for the actual, big day, though we do make a special cake and sing "Happy Half Birthday".  This weekend we are celebrating my daughter's 7 1/2 birthday.  She had requested these Sunflower Cupcakes I had made for her birthday a couple of years ago.  I was so happy with these, and thought it would be fun to make them again.

Aren't they cute?  Let me again stress... I love to cook and bake, though I am not an expert in this department.  I had made these with the instructions found in the amazing cupcake book, Hello Cupcake, by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  They were so easy to make, even for a wanna-be pastry queen like myself!

This time, however, I had to do from memory.  I wasn't as happy with the end result as I was in the image above, but they did turn out cute.  The main problem, I believe, was that I chose the wrong frosting for the flowers this time.  I made buttercream frosting from scratch.  Perhaps not the best choice?  Or... perhaps I was too eager and made it from butter not fully at room temperature, so it didn't turn out nice and smooth like it should?  Ack... you tell me!  Oh well... the kids won't care.

My ingredients this time:

-  Chocolate Cake Mix (prepared 18 cupcakes)

-  Oreo Cookies

-  Mini Oreo Cookies

-  Store-Bought Buttercream Frosting

-  Chocolate Chips

-  Red M&M's

-  Food Coloring (Red, Yellow and Green... not shown)

-  Piping Bag and Leaf Tip (though the first time I made these I used a Ziploc bag that I had cut the end off of... worked perfectly fine.

-  Frosting for the Flowers (I prepared butter cream from scratch... not sure if that was the best choice)

** This time I believe I made smaller cupcakes (so less room for flowers on top), and omitted the green leaves from fruit roll-ups.  They were a pain to mess with, I thought.

Another note - Do not do these too far ahead of time.  I found that the frosting caused the Oreo cookies to get soggy when left to sit for too long.

Directions:

1)  Prepare your cupcakes, and let them completely cool.

2)  Make your lady bugs!  I melted some chocolate chips in a glass dish, 30 seconds at a time on medium heat, stirring well in between.  Then, using a toothpick, I carefully drew the chocolate onto the M&M's.

 

 3)  Color some frosting green to be used as the base of your cupcakes.  This is where I used the store-bought frosting.

4)  Generously frost your cupcake tops.

5)  Place an Oreo on each cupcake.

6)  Prepare your sunflower petal frosting.  Color it yellow, divide a portion of that into a smaller bowl to add some red... so you end up with an orange frosting as well. 

7)  Place your frostings into your piping bag (or a Ziploc bag).  If using a piping bag, select the tip for making leaves (it has a 'v' cut end).  Otherwise, you can cut a small 'v' out of the corner of your Ziploc bag.  I tried to place the orange on one side, and the yellow on the other so that it blended as I piped.

Another note... I found that the frosting would warm up after being held for a while, and the results weren't as nice.  I'd recommend using smaller portions of frosting at a time to avoid this.  You'll get nicer petals in the end.

 8)  Begin piping petals around the lower perimeter of each Oreo Cookie.  You might want to practice forming your leaves before getting started.

9)  Add a second row of petals above the first.  It looks best if you can add these between the petals on the first row.  I found that this time, I was inserting the tip into the "stuffed" part of the Oreo for my second row of petals.  If you notice the finished picture above, I may have done my first row here and the second row on top of the cookie.  Do whatever you think looks best.

10)  Add your Mini Oreos.  You'll likely have room for two of these on a regular cupcake.  I opted for one this time.

11)  Repeat Steps 8 and 9 for the Mini Oreos.

12)  Use a little frosting to secure your little lady bugs.

And.... Your cupcakes are complete!  Enjoy!!!

Wesley's Volcano Birthday Cake

My little guy is turning 6 in a couple of days.  My dad had always made our birthday cakes - always different, always unique... and I've tried to do the same for our children.  So, we began searching images of birthday cakes online to get some ideas for Wesley's cake this year.  Let me start by saying, I enjoy baking and cooking, but I am by no means a pro in this department.  So what I've done here I'd have to say anyone can do.  I was pretty happy with the results.

I found a volcano cake posted by a "Wicked Stopmom"... ha ha.. HERE.  I admit, I pretty much tried to replicate what she had created.

Here's how I did it...

Ingredients:
- 1 White Cake, prepared in a 9x13" pan
- 1 Chocolate Cake, prepared in three round pans
-  Chocolate Frosting
-  Vanilla Frosting
-  1-2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
-  4 Wooden Scewers (to give support to the stacked cakes)
-  10-15 Chocolate Filled Chocolate Cookies
- 1-2 cups White Chocolate Chips or White Candy Melts
-  Food Coloring: Red and Yellow, or Orange
-  Pirouette Wafer Cookies, from Pepperidge Farm (or similar)
-  Parsley Sprigs, or similar, for trees
-  Candles

Directions:

1)  I took a short-cut... I used two box mixes.

One in chocolate, separated in three bowls of different sizes, and one white cake in a regular 9x13" pan.

2)  I transferred the white cake onto a platter and covered with vanilla frosting.

3)  I then stacked the three chocolate cakes, placing chocolate frosting in between each layer.

4)  I placed 4 wooden skewers through the middle of the cakes to help secure them.

5)  I covered the vanilla frosting with graham cracker crumbs.

6)  I used a knife to shave the edges of the chocolate cake to make it a little more volcano-like.

7)  I took a container of chocolate frosting (again, store-bought) and  put it in a bowl with chocolate filled Oreo cookies.  I used my spoon to break up the cookies, and mix them with the frosting.

8)  I covered the volcano with the chocolate frosting mixture.  A little tricky, but I was able to make it work.

9)  The lava - I melted white chocolate chips in the microwave, added some red food coloring, and realized the chocolate got all chunky and dry.  So I added some cream (half and half) and mixed until it was smooth again.

10)  I poured the chocolate lava over top of the volcano and let it drip down the sides.

11)  I added the Pirouette Pepperidge Farm cookies for tree trunks, the dinosaurs, and had to write "Happy Birthday Wes" over top some left over cookies since the frosting would not stick to the graham crackers (oops).  It did the trick.

12)  We stuck some sprigs of parsley into the cookies to make trees.

13)  And of course, we had to add a bunch of candles to the top of our volcano!  I was so excited about the sparkler candles that I found at Wal-Mart, but they were a disappointment.  As you can see... there is little sparkler action happening here.  We also added a #6 candle down below.

 That is that!  Happy Birthday Wesley!!!