Pumpkin Cupcakes

Plain buttercream icing, and yellow sugar-free cake mix (with chocolate chips added in batter). Used some pretzel stubs for the stems and fruit chews for the leaves.

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Blue Moon Cupcakes

Mmmm. What might be the most perfect fall cupcake. Very light frosting. I made some slight modifications from the recipe, but none really worth mentioning.  Except, that once I mixed the batter it looked kinda runny, so I added more flour. If you are thinking this is a good idea so you don't have runny cupcakes, you'd be wrong. It has enough baking powder to ensure it is nice and solid, yet moist. Learned this by making a batch of Blue Moon biscuits by accident :)

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Roll Tide Printables - Stripes

Here are some tailgate party printables for the University of Alabama on my Etsy shop. Below are danglers, straw flags, placecards, water bottle wraps, banners and cupcake toppers.

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Auburn Printables - Polka Dot

Here are some tailgate party printables for Auburn on my Etsy shop. Below are danglers, straw flags, placecards, water bottle wraps, banners and cupcake toppers.

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Auburn Printables - Striped

Here are some tailgate party printables for Auburn on my Etsy shop. Below are danglers, straw flags, placecards, water bottle wraps, banners and cupcake toppers.

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TROY Printables

I can smell football in the air!!! Here are some tailgate party printables for Troy Trojans on my Etsy shop. Below are danglers, straw flags, placecards, water bottle wraps, banners and cupcake toppers.

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Chocolate Buttercream Babycakes

I was finally able to master chocolate buttercream icing!  I tossed the recipes I had that said to add chocolate chips, or bakers chocolate, etc.  Could never get those stable enough.  I made regular buttercream and just added cocoa powder.  Then let the mixer whip it for about 8 minutes. Perfection!  I have no real recipe for buttercream icing - my kitchen is so hot it is hit or miss with how much sugar I have to add. I start with a stick of butter, 1 cup of powdered sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla and start whipping.  I add 1/2 cup powdered sugar at a time of until I reach desired consistency to be able to pipe. This time for every 1/2 cup of sugar I added, I also added a spoon of cocoa powder.

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Happy 4th Baby Cakes

Red velvet baby cakes for the 4th!

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Buttercream Cupcakes

I finally took my friend Mary's advice to make my buttercream better.  Before I was putting SO much powdered sugar (like 6 to 8 cups for 24 cupcakes!) to get it stable enough to pipe.  This time, I let the mixer whip on the highest setting for about 8 minutes with only about 3 cups of powdered sugar for 24 cupcakes, and sure enough, it was a good consistency to pipe, and I could actually taste the buttercream instead of pure sugar!

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Blackberry Cream Cheese Baby Cakes

I used blackberry jam (seedless), low-fat cream cheese and sugar.  When using jam, I've noticed that you use very little - it is a liquid and can be very runny.  I recommend blending your cream cheese and sugar together first, then adding your seedless jam one tablespoon at a time.  I used a whole block of cream cheese, probably eight to 10 cups of powdered sugar and probably 5 tablespoons of jam.  This iced 72 baby cakes with probably enough to ice 4 or 5 more.  This color is natural - no food coloring.  Just a little bit of jam makes this beautiful shade of purple.

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Cherry Vanilla Buttercream Baby Cakes

These little bites were delicious!  I think I like these even better than regular cupcakes because it is just enough icing and cake.  I've found that at most parties, people won't eat regular-sized cupcakes, but they will eat the tiny bites.

These are made with my regular buttercream recipe (which isn't really a recipe - I just start with a stick of low-fat butter, and add 1 tsp of vanilla and 2 cups of powdered sugar, and I keep adding sugar until I get a good piping consistency that won't melt) with cherry flavoring.  I baked them for 12 minutes (cake mix says 18 for regular cupcakes), and they turned out perfect.  I used one of my jumbo piping tips to ice them, and it took just about once squeeze per cupcake - super fast to ice.

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Stella & Dot Party Decorations

I had so much fun making these decorations for my Stella & Dot party!

Danglers using a circle punch and old Stella & Dot gift boxes

 Cupcake Toppers

Cupcake Toppers

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

These cupcakes are stuffed with cookie dough using my cupcake surprise tin, and have cookie dough as frosting sprinkled with chocolate chips. Delish!

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4th of July Printables

New printables on my Etsy shop!

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The Enemy

I have formally declared chocolate buttercream icing my enemy. I've made four batches from four different recipes and they either taste terrible or I can ever get the right consistency to pipe.

Today I made some using chocolate pudding, marshmallows and cool whip. Sounds yummy? It's not. I ended up with five quarts of chocolate goo that had a flour aftertaste (the recipe said to add flour to thicken). I had this goo all over my arms and clothes, and somehow MK ended up with a dab in her hair. Epic. Fail.

And I don't even like chocolate that much. Grrrr.

Despite my hatred, I made another batch that was still not a good consistency, but they turned out fairly tasty, albeit messy.

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BeBe Cakes

These triple-chocolate cupcakes were named after my mother-in-law who is a chocoholic. These consist of butter fudge chocolate cake, and chocolate buttercream icing (which is the most difficult thing for me to make for some reason). They are stuffed with Reese's Cups and some are stuffed with Hershey Kisses.

To stuff I used my cupcake surprise pan and I used a cupcake corer to core out the center, place a treat, and replace the core.

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Thin Mint Surprise Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

O. M. G. These cupcakes came out amazing.  Using a cupcake surprise tin (a muffin tin with a spike in the middle to hold a treat), I placed a Thin Mint on the spike and filled the rest of the muffin tin with yellow cake mix so the cake baked around the cookie. For the icing, I used low-fat cream cheese, powdered sugar and crumbled Thin Mints and voila!  I had to use a jumbo round piping tip as the icing was fairly thick, but they came out fine.  Omnomnom.

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Lemon Buttercream Cupcakes

I made these for a work event, and they were delightful!  I used buttercream icing (with low-fat butter) and lemon-flavored cupcake mix and topped with a Savannah Smile (100th anniversary Girl Scout cookie)

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Blueberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

I was in such a hurry after piping these to get them to church that I forgot to take a pic. I used blueberry jam (made with Splenda), low-fat cream cheese and confectioner sugar to make these little pieces of heaven. You could actually use as a bagel spread too. Just put in the fridge after mixing, and then again after piping.

Ices 25 cupcakes using jumbo tips (adjust as needed for regular piping tips):
4 oz Blueberry Preserves
1 8 oz block of low-fat cream cheese
6 cups powdered sugar*
1 tbsp meringue powder*

*I live in humid area and to make stable I use extra sugar and meringue powder.

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