McCormick St. Patrick’s Day Giveaway (closed)

Can you believe we are already gearing up for St. Patrick’s day?! I can’t. But I can say I am so excited to announce a new giveaway. A McCormick Giveaway!

Last October, McCormick was kind enough to send me and 2 of my readers a fun Halloween kit, full of baking supplies. It was such a fun giveaway and the box was filled with so many great baking items. I just couldn’t resist another opportunity to partner with McCormick again!

 McCormick has agreed to give 3 of my lucky readers a fun gift set just in time for the holiday of luck!! This box if filled with lots of ingredients for the perfect St. Patrick’s Day treat!

The McCormick gift set includes:

1. Vanilla flavoring
2. Green food coloring
3. Peppermint Extract
4. Two packages of St. Patrick’s Day cupcake liners
5. Over 10 St. Patrick’s Day baking recipes

The giveaway is simple. Once you complete the following items, you will be entered to win. A winner will be announced on Monday the 12th and your prize will ship that afternoon! Ready for the rules?

McCormick St. Patrick’s  Baking Kit Giveaway Rules:

You must leave a comment on this blog post for every entry you submit

Mandatory:

Go the McCormick Facebook Page and tell them Stay Calm Cupcake sent you!

Extra Entries:

Follow my facebook page and leave a comment

Subscribe to my blog (on the top right hand side of the blog)

Follow me on Twitter and retweet about the contest. Use the tweet “@StayCalmCupcake is giving away a McCormick Halloween Kit!

Next week I will be featuring lots of yummy St. Patrick’s Day treats. So make sure  you stop back by and get some inspirtaion for making yummy green treats of your own!

Have a great weekend. Stay Sweet!

xo, Jill

Orange Halloween Cupcakes

Hello, Hello!

Hope everyone is making it through the week. Tomorrow is Friday!! Yay! Friday is wonderful all on it’s own, but tomorrow is even more exciting because I get to announce the WINNER of the fabulous McCormick Halloween Giveaway. You’ve entered, right?? Ok, good! I wouldn’t want you to miss out on this awesome gift basket of baking goodies.

I bought some really fun cupcake liners this week and thought they were perfect for  Halloween inspired cupcakes. I wanted to share some photos with you of my simple, but very yummy Orange Cream Cupcakes. My decorating style is simple and classic. I think a perfect frosting swirl and the right amount of sprinkles go a long way. What’s your decorating style? More elaborate, or simple and classic?

Enjoy the photos 🙂

I love the funky orange cupcake liner!

Orange Cream Cupcake with Vanilla Frosting - Dyed Orange for Halloween, of course!

Looking for a great Orange Cream Recipe? Check it out here! Stay Sweet, xoxo

Candy Corn Cupcakes

What makes a pumpkin smile? Candy Corn of course!!

As promised, today is all about candy corn cupcakes!! If you haven’t already, make sure you enter to win an awesome McCormick Halloween Treat Basket. Find out more details on the prize and how to enter here.

Candy Corns have been, and always will be, the quintessential fall candy. I’m not sure what I like best about them….the bright fall colors, the taste of pure sugar, or the fact that they are perfect for decorating cupcakes with!

Today’s Recipe and Decorating ideas are super easy and perfect to do with your little ones at home. I love this recipe because you bake candy corn right into the cupcake! They come out gooey and delicious – not to mention they look so festive!

Candy Corn Cupcake

For this cupcake, I use a traditional vanilla cake recipe. If you want to make this even easier, you can use a box mix.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Vanilla Cake Batter (or Box mix)
• Vanilla Frosting (or Can Frosting)
• 2 ½ cups of candy corn
• McCormick Yellow Food Coloring
• McCormick Red Food Coloring
• Fall colored sprinkles
• Cupcake Liners
• Piping Bag
• Start Tip for frosting

Ok, now that we have all of our necessary ingredients, let’s get started.

1. Start by chopping up 1 cup of candy corn. I did this with a knife, but a food processor would work well too. You want medium size chunks.
2. Pour the chopped candy corn into the vanilla cake batter
3. Measure out 3 tbs of fall sprinkles. Pour sprinkles into the cake batter.
4. Mix the candy corn and sprinkles thoroughly into the cake batter
5. Pour cupcake batter into your cupcake liners and bake for 15-18 minutes or until the tops of your cupcakes are slightly brown.
6. Let cool for 20-30 minutes.

Chooped Candy Corn

Candy Corns Baked Right In the Batter!

Let’s makes some frosting while we are waiting for our cupcakes to cool.

1. Take the vanilla frosting, whether it is canned or homemade, and divide it into 3 bowls.
2. In one bowl, use 3 drops of McCormick’s yellow food coloring and mix well – set aside
3. In one bowl use 3 drops of McCormick’s yellow food coloring and one drop of McCormick’s red food coloring. Combine well until you get the perfect color orange.
4. Using a spatula or spoon, spoon some yellow frosting into the left side of your piping bag. Fill the other side with orange frosting, and top with the remaining white frosting.
5. Swirl the frosting onto your cupcake and decorate with candy corn!

Be creative with your candy corn decorations – possibilities are endless!

Hope you and family enjoy this fun fall recipe. Let me know how your candy corn cupcakes turn out!

Stay Sweet. Xoxo

McCormick Halloween Giveaway

Happy Monday!

This weeks blog postings are going to be all about Halloween inspired cupcakes! I have an exciting giveaway to announce and some fun tutorials coming your way! So let’s dig in!

I received a McCormick Halloween Baking Kit in the mail on Friday and have been anxious to tell you guys about it since I opened it! The sweet people at McCormick wanted me to review some of their products and then give one of my lucky readers a kit of their own! Pretty cool, huh?

To be entirely  honest, I have always loved McCormick food colorings and vanilla extract, so I was more than happy to review their products and share with you all. It seemed to be a great fit!

The McCormick Halloween Baking Kit came with the following items:

• McCormick Assorted Food Coloring
• McCormick Black Food Coloring
• McCormick Vanilla Extract
• Wilton Cupcake Liners
• Bright Orange Oven Mit
• Silicone Cookie Sheet
• A Mini Spatula
• A list of Halloween cupcake ideas
• And some yummy Candy Corn!

This kit has EVERYTHING you need to make some fantastic Halloween cupcakes!

My favorite is the McCormick black food coloring. It  is perfect for making scary Halloween cupcakes, like spider cupcakes, tombstone cupcakes, and even vampire cupcakes! Once Halloween is over though, you can still use the black food coloring for 100’s of other cupcake ideas. I like to use the black to outline some of my cupcake designs, or use it when making little eyeballs on character cupcakes.

The best thing about the McCormick black food coloring is that it actually turns the frosting black, rather than grey. So many black food colorings turn white frosting grey when you add it. With McCormick, you only have to use a few drops and you have perfect black frosting! I love that it is hassle free.

Before I give you some more great tips on how to use McCormick food colorings – let me tell you how you can win this awesome kit!

McCormick Halloween Baking Kit Giveaway Rules:

You must leave a comment on this blog post for every entry you submit

Mandatory:

Go the McCormick Facebook Page and tell them Stay Calm Cupcake sent you!

Extra Entries:

Follow my facebook page and leave a comment

Subscribe to my blog (on the top right hand side of the blog)

Follow me on Twitter and retweet about the contest. Use the tweet “@StayCalmCupcake is giving away a McCormick Halloween Kit!

It’s that easy! The giveaway ends on the 14th of this week and the winner will receive their kit by the following week. Just in time for Halloween.

Come back tomorrow because I’ll be sharing a great recipe for  Candy Corn Cupcakes! Have fun submitting your entries for the contest, I look forward to announcing the winner on the 14^th!

Free Cupcakes!

Happy Saturday! A big welcome to some of my new readers that are following the Blog Crawl! Thanks for joining us in this fun event! Today, my shop is being featured on several blogs and to celebrate, I am giving away FREE cupcakes! Read below for details on how to win a “Cupcake Love” Cupcake kit from my Etsy shop. Have a wonderful day ~ Stay Sweet!

Hi! For those of you who are new to my blog, my name is Jill. I am the cupcake obsessed mastermind behind “Stay Calm, Cupcake Shop”. Thanks so much for joining in on this fun “Shop til you Drop” blog Crawl. Let me tell you a little bit about myself then I’ll share a fun giveaway with you!

 About Me:

I am passionate about creating inventive, delicious, and entirely homemade cupcakes for all of my customers. I opened my shop in 2010 with the hopes of sharing my baking talent with others and making a few extra bucks along the way. To my delight, my Etsy shop has turned into a much greater business venture than I ever anticipated. Thanks to the support of my wonderful fans and customers, I recently made it to my 105^th sale! I feel so blessed to be able to do what I love and share my passion with other sweet treat enthusiasts!

My dream is to one day soon open up a store front and have my own cupcake truck. In my world, a sweet little cupcake can fix almost any situation. Just add a little frosting and a gloomy day is turned sunny again. Stay Calm Cupcake Shop was born out of the simply philosophy that all of us need to slow down a little bit and enjoy the sweeter things life has to offer. I truly love what I do and am looking forward to where the sweet smell of sugar takes me!

Time for Free Stuff!!

I will be giving one lucky winner a “Cupcake Love” Cupcake Kit. This yummy kit includes 6 cupcakes of your flavor choice, a piping bag full of frosting, and a cute little pack of sprinkles. Simply pipe the frosting onto your cupcakes, finish with sprinkles, and enjoy! Perfect for any cupcake lover out there!

How to Enter:

Become a Fan of Stay Calm Cupcake on Facebook 

Follow Me on Twitter @StayCalmCupcake

Comment on my blog  and tell me you are following on Facebook and Twitter 

Thanks for entering and good luck!!

Stay Sweet ~ xoxo

Jill

Stay Calm Cupcake Shop!

 

Birthday Girl Loves Cupcakes!!

This month, I am sponsoring Hallie’s Birthday! She is turning 2 and we are celebrating all month long. Each week I am sending Hallie a new type of cupcake to try – at the end of the month, she will let us know her favorite flavor! Her favorite flavor will be on sale in my shop for the first week of June!

You can help celebrate! Head over to Polos, Pearls, and Pacifiers to see how you can get 15% off any order of cupcakes!

If you are interested in having Stay Calm Cupcake Shop sponsor a blog event for your little peanut, contact me at staycalmcupcake@yahoo.com

Stay Sweet xoxo

Jill

Mini Party Cupcakes

Miniature Party Bites!

I love these miniature little cupcakes for several reasons:

1) They are so darn easy  to make!!

2) They look beautiful and require little to no decorating skills

3) They add the perfect amount of “pazzaz” to any birthday party!

So let’s get started! For these cupcake you will need a miniature cupcake pan and miniature cupcake liners.

I chose to make a vanilla butter cake as my base – you can use whatever yummy recipe you feel comfortable with.

Vanilla Butter Cake:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. In measuring cup, mix milk and vanilla.
3. In large bowl, with mixer at medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until light and creamy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture alternately with milk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat just until smooth, scraping the bowl occasionally with a  spatula.
4. Pour batter into cupcake liners (I usually fill them close to the top of the liner that way they puff up nicely) and bake for about 18-20 minutes.
5. Let cool completely before frosting the cupcakes.

 

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting: 

• 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tbs of heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 tsp of lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp of orange juice
• Rainbow colored sanding sugar

1. With an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Mix on low until well blended.
2. Continue mixer on medium for another two minutes. 
3. Add vanilla and whipping cream, beating on medium for another minute.
4. Now here’s my secret…I add a little bit of lemon and orange juice to this frosting. This gives it a hint of fruity flavor that makes the mini cupcake even more fun! Kids love it too! Omit this step if you want a pure vanilla buttercream
5. Frosting should be light and fluffy.

Fill a piping bag with your frosting. Cut the tip off so there is a small hole. Pipe the frosting onto each cupcake – leaving only a dollop of frosting on each – do not worry about spreading out or piping in a design.

Pour your multi-colored sanding sugar onto a plate.

Dip each frosted cupcake into the sprinkles – smashing the frosting down around the top of the cupcake.

And there you have it – gorgeous, colorful, and delicious cupcakes that were super easy to make!! You’re cupcakes are going to be a hit at any party you bring them too. I just know it!

Stay sweet xoxo

Stay Calm Cupcake!

** Follow me on Twitter @ StayCalmCupcake – I only need 27 more followers and I will give away 2 free cupcake kits!! **

Cupcake Contest!

Hello again!

It’s about time I get some more readers (not that I’m unhappy with my current readers, I just wish there were more of you) So, I have decided to do a “give-away”. Afterall, who doesn’t LOVE free stuff?!? It’s a cupcake contest! You had to have seen that one coming 🙂

Send me a recipe and picture of the wackiest cupcake you can find – It can be one of your own recipes, or one  you found online. It must be a tested recipe though – reviews from people who have tried it will increase your chances of winning!

Send me and email with the following:

• Your Name
• The name of your recipe
• A picture of your recipe
• A quick description of your recipe
• And a link – if you found this recipe online

The winner will receive a fabulous assortment of cupcake goodies, including cupcake key toppers (my mom recently bought me some, and they are just too cute!!) cupcake liners, cupcake toppers, and some other fun cupcake suprises!

All entires must be recieved by August 14th – The winner will be announced on August 16th.

The winning recipe will be featured on my blog!

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Email all entries to jillian.fontaine@yahoo.com

Good Luck!!