Red, White, and Blue!

Is everyone ready for some fun 4^th of July Cupcake ideas?? Ok good, me too! I’ll start with my really fun, and really easy Red, White, and Blue Minis.

What you will need:

• Vanilla or White Cake Cupcake Batter. My favorite recipe is this one!
• Red and Blue food coloring
• Vanilla Frosting (Great Buttercream recipe here)
• White Mini Cupcake liners
• Festive Sprinkles
• 3 medium size bowls

Directions:

1. Split the cake batter into 3 different bowls
2. Dye one bowl of batter red, and one blue
3. Place your cupcake liners in your cupcake pan
4. Start by putting a small amount of red batter at the bottom of each cupcake liner
5. Follow that by putting the plain vanilla batter in each cupcake liner on top of the red
6. Finish with a small amount of blue batter in each liner
7. Bake according to direction in recipe
8. Once your cupcakes are completely cooled, frost them. Do not use too much frosting, a little dollop will work just fine
9. Pour your festive sprinkles on a plate – I like to combine a bunch of different types of sprinkles.
10. Turn your frosted cupcake upside down and dunk it in the sprinkles on the plate

It’s as easy as that! Absolutely the perfect size for kids to enjoy at a 4^th of July BBQ!

You can use the same technique to make Jumbo cupcakes too. Just use a bigger cupcake pan and more batter 🙂

Like the idea of cupcake jars?

Just layer the cake and frosting in a red white and blue pattern and voila – the perfect 4^th of July picnic dessert!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week and is ready for a relaxing holiday weekend.

Happy 4th of July my loves!

Stay Sweet,

Jill

Summer Flower Cupcakes

 

Summer Lovin'

Hello my loves! Today I am so excited to share a super fun recipe with you!

This weekend I was asked to cater a special “going away” luncheon. I decided to make summer flower cupcakes. They were so easy and the guests loved them! The set up and decorations were really fun too.

Let’s get started!

Summer Flower Cupcakes

Ingredients for the Cake

• 6 cups white flour sifted

• 2 tablespoons baking powder

• 1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened

• 3 cups granulated sugar

• 2 cups milk

• 2 tbs of Vanilla Extract

• 12 egg whites

Directions for the Cake

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Fill cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

2. Sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside.

3. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Set aside.

4. Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Set aside.

5. With mixer at slow speed, add flour mixture to butter mixture, alternately with milk.

6. Beat well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.

7. Gently fold egg whites into batter.

8. Pour into cupcake liners.

9. Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Bright Colored Marshmallows make these flowers POP!

Ingredients for the frosting and the decoration:

• One bag of mini, colored marshmallows

• 1 stick of unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 stick of salted butter (softened)
• 4 cups of powdered sugar (sifted)
• 3 tbs of half and half
• 1 tbs of vanilla

Directions

1. In your stand mixer, cream the butter on medium high until it turns white and fluffy (about 5 minutes)
2. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time- mixing on medium speed
3. Add the half and half and the  vanilla – mix well for 2 minutes or until well combined
4. If you want thicker buttercream – add more powdered sugar.

1. Once your frosting is finished, set aside
2. Cut the mini marshmallows is half, creating little petals
3. After your cupcakes have cooled completely, frost them. For best results, I used a piping bag to pie the frosting in a swirl on the cupcake. This gave the cupcakes a more polished look once the petals were placed on top.
4. Starting at the outside edge of the cupcake, place the petals all around. Do this for 3 layers. Finish by putting a different color marshmallow in the center. I used yellow.

***Important note: These cupcakes should not be left uncovered or refrigerated, it makes the marshmallow petals dry put and look shriveled up.

Perfect Little Flower Pots

For the display, I used some pots from the gardening section of my local grocery store, covered them with some ribbon, and placed Styrofoam inside of them. I covered the Styrofoam with some green “grass” and placed the cupcakes on skewers and stuck them into the pot. It turned out really cute and people were amazed at how creative the cupcakes were. The best part was, these cupcakes were one of the easiest things I have done in a while.

 

These cute cupcakes are a must for your next event! Let me know if you have any questions about the recipe.

 

Stay sweet!

xoxo, Jill

 

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

Cookies-N-Cream Cupcakes

Happy Monday! Well, as happy as a Monday could possibly be, I guess. I trust everyone had a fun Halloween filled with sweet candies, fun costumes, and lots of laughter.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes!

Since I don’t have any little ones, and I’m much to old to go Trick-or-Treating by myself, I didn’t get any candy this Halloween! In all fairness though, I could have bought myself a bag of treats from Target, but It just would not have been the same 🙂 So last night I whipped up a batch of Cookies and Cream Cupcakes! They were delicious! The absolute perfect late night snack. Here’s the recipe – I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Vanilla  Cupcake (adpted from a vanilla cake recipe on foodnetwork.com)

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 3 cups sifted cake flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• Regular or silver cupcake paper liners

** I add 2 tbs of lemon juice to this recipe. You can’t taste the lemon in the cupcake, it just improves the vanilla flavor. Make sure to not put more then 2 tbs though, or you’ll end up with lemon cake instead of vanilla

Make the Cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a mixer with a whip attachment, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to cream. Gradually add the vanilla and eggs and mix in well. Sift together the dry ingredients; then mix into the butter mixture alternating with the milk. Pour batter into cupcake paper-lined muffin tins filling them 3/4 full. Bake until puffed and firm in the center and light golden brown on top, about 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool.

Cookies and Cream Frosting

• 5 oreo cookies
• Marshmallow Whip Frosting (https://fontgirl.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/marshmallow-whip-and-mingle-monday/)
• Milk Chocolate Frosting (https://fontgirl.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/chocolate-caramel-cupcakes/)

Directions

1. Mix the Marhmallow and Milk Chocolate frostings together in a large mixing bowl.
2. Mix until the frosting is a light brown color.
3. Crumble the oreo cookies into very small pieces. I put my oreos in a zip-loc bag and rolled over them with a rolling pin. You don’t want large chunks, you want small crumbles.
4. Add the cookie crumbs to the frosting. Mix on medium speed until well combined
5. Place in piping bag and decorate your cupcakes!

This frosting is a great one to make if you have some leftover chocolate and vanilla frosting. While I used Marhmallow and Milk Chocolate frosting, you could easily use any kind of vanilla frosting and mix it in wth a choclate one.

** Don’t forget to enter my Stay Calm Cupcake Kit Giveaway!! TWO Winners will be announced on Nov. 8th https://fontgirl.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/619/

Until Next Time, Stay Sweet! xoxo