April Foolin'!

My camera is broken right now, so I thought I would post some pictures from last year's April Fool's Day dinner.

First - dessert for dinner! "Ice Cream Sundaes" made from popcorn chicken, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a cherry tomato on top.
I really got Logan good on this one! He was so excited to have ice cream for dinner! Then he took a bite, got a confused look on his face and said, "This isn't ice cream! It's smashed potatoes!"
Next - veggies for dessert. This awesome cupcake idea is from the coolest cupcake book ever, Hello Cupcake! The "mixed veggies" are really green Runts candies and cut orange Starburst candies.
The "mashed potatoes" are just vanilla frosting with a yellow Starburst candy "butter" swimming in caramel sauce "gravy." For once, the kids didn't mind eating all their veggies!

Boston Cream Cupcakes

I made these for a birthday lunch for two of my friends. Yummy dense cupcakes filled with pastry cream, dipped in chocolate ganache, and topped with whipped cream and a cherry. This recipe is amazing! Well worth the effort!

Boston Cream Cupcakes From "The Best of America's Test Kitchen, The Year's Best Recipes, Equipment Reviews, and Tastings 2007"

Happy Birthday Linda and Suzan!

Beach Cupcakes

On my way to my son's end-of-year class beach party.These little cupcakes are so fun and easy to decorate with kids. All you need is frosting and graham cracker crumb sand......Fruit By The Foot beach towels......Teddy Grahams sunbathers...
(Icing swimsuits optional. ;-) )

...and a mini umbrella on top. (Thanks, Kimberly!)
Happy summer everybody!

Sunflower Cupcakes

We hosted a BBQ over the weekend in honor of some good friends who will be leaving us for Texas this week. I wanted to make a cake in the shape of Texas, but Hubby said I shouldn't go overboard, so we went with sunflowers instead. (They have sunflowers in Texas, right? They seemed bright and warm and sunny anyway.) I found the idea for these cupcakes in the book, Hello, Cupcake (cutest cupcakes ever!). I used chocolate cake for the dirt, green tinted buttercream for the grass, Oreos for the flower centers, and yellow tinted buttercream for the petals. In the book, they used red M&Ms for the ladybugs, but I didn't have any on hand. I tried to make my own with red candy melts but they turned out all globby, so I searched through my cupboards and luckily found half a box of Runts left over from my April Fool's Cupcakes. I loved the shape of the red Runts and thought they would make perfect ladybugs with some spots from melted chocolate chips.

You should have heard the chorus of "WOW"s from all the kids when I brought the cupcakes out. They LOVED them! These were very quick and easy. Give 'em a try!