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

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!