Valentines Cupcakes

photo courtesy of hlkljgk

Valentines cupcakes are the perfect way to let your loved one's know you care! Everyone loves a sweet and tasty treat! February 14th is one of my favorite days of the year for this reason. Decorating cupcakes is one of my top five things I love to do, and Valentines cupcakes allow me to go crazy. The possibilities are endless, if you keep just three things in mind: chocolate, love, and the color red.
For Valentines cupcakes, I almost always use red velvet cupcakes as a base or chocolate cupcakes. I like to use a white frosting, like buttercream, cream cheese, or boiled (all of which you can find recipes for right here, on my site). If you really don't like chocolate, though, vanilla cupcakes with just a hint of red food dye make for a perfect base, as well.
White frostings also allow you to add a hint of red food dye for a festive and pink frosting.

Here are some tips for decorating your Valentine's Day cupcakes:
1. Candy/sugar hearts - everyone loves hearts on valentines day. Pink, red and white hearts are a perfect way to top off your cupcakes.
2. Think Pink - pink, white, and red sprinkles, pink frosting, pink, pink, pink!
3. Fruit - I know, I know. I always talk about food dyes. But I try to remind you all that food dye can be very hazardous to your health. Once in a while won't kill you, but if you can avoid it then why not? So what are other ways to make pink frosting? Crushed raspberries will add a nice touch. Cherries also work. Or you could always use white frosting and use fruit as a garnish.

So without further adieu, I'm going to give you some excellent Valentine's Day cupcakes decorating ideas that do not involve food dye or food coloring.

Black forest cupcakes - Chocolate cupcakes with boiled frosting and chocolate dipped cherries. These are simple to make, elegant, and delicious. Take dark red cherries and in a double boiler melt some dark chocolate (or milk if you prefer). Dip your cherries in the melted chocolate halfway, and when they cool and dry place them a top your cupcake. For a little extra garnish, sprinkle some cocoa powder. You could also put cherries in the chocolate batter (no pits!!!!) if you want to bake them into your cupcakes. It will be delicious. If you don't like cherries, you could use strawberries instead to top off your Valentine's Day cupcakes. I like to leave the stem on. Cut the strawberries long ways in half. Dip one half in melted chocolate and place them on the cupcakes flat side down.

Jelly cupcakes - Valentine's Day cupcakes are all about reds and pinks. Any preservative in that color will work. Strawberry, raspberry, or whatever else you've got is fine! These can be made in a number of ways depending on what you're looking for.
Method 1 - Use a chocolate or vanilla base. Bake your cupcakes and let them cool completely. Before you frost them, take a small paring knife or a melon baller. Scoop out from the top center of the cupcake about an inche in diameter and length. If you are using a paring knife, make sure your cuts are clean and round. Fill the whole with whichever jelly you choose. For a stuffed cupcake (paring knife) replace the piece of cupcake you had removed and then frost. For the melon baller, Fill the round whole entireley with jelly. Then, instead of frosting just sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.
Method 2 - Bake your cupcakes and let them cool. Frost as normal using any white frosting. Be generous with the frosting! From the center of the frosting with the back of a spoon create a wide and shallow well. Fill the well with jelly and there you have cute and food dye-free Valentines cupcakes.

I hope you have a great day, filled with love and romance, and enjoy your Valentines cupcakes!

Christmas Cupcakes

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, and none is complete without a batch of homemade Christmas cupcakes. Decorating cupcakes for Christmas is one of my favorite things to do. I love the Christmas colors and there are so many wonderful themes to choose from for you Christmas cupcakes! Just thinking about it, I don't know how I would cover all of my ideas in just one post, so this might be a 2 part post.
First let's cover what we all know and love - Christmas colors. If you're unsure how to decorate and frost cupcakes for Xmas, you can't go wring with red, white, and green. My favorite Christmas cupcakes, and the ones that always get the biggest smile, are my winter themed ones. Let's get started.

1. Winter Christmas Cupcakes or Easy Snowman Cupcakes
For this you will need: cupcakes, white icing, sugar or coconut flakes, marshmallows, pretzel sticks, chocolate covered peanut cups, chocolate sprinkles, fruit roll up for the scarf, and orange or red gummy fish.
These Christmas Cupcakes are so simple to make, I've been doing it since I was a child! First you must choose your cupcake base. Red velvet cupcakes are always a great option for Christmas, seeing as they're red, but any cupcake base can work and you should be able to find a great deal of recipes on my site! After you bake your Christmas cupcakes base, you should wait for them to cool. For these cupcakes, I use any white frosting. You can choose from buttercream frosting, boiled frosting, or cream cheese frosting. For this purpose I'll go with buttercream. Frost your cupcakes so that they have a flat top. I usually use two marshmallows for the snowman but if you want to use three, that will work two. I place one in the center of my cupcake. Thank I dab some frosting on it. Then I cut off about a quarter of the second marshmallow and place the 3/4 piece ontop of the first. I dab some frosting on the top and place a small peanut butter cup. If it's too big, cut it in half! For the snowman's scarf, take a fruit rollup and cut a thin strip. It should be about four or five inches long. Wrap it around the snowmans neck and secure one end over the other with some frosting. Now wet a toothpick and stick your snowman three times for buttons and twice for eyes and a few more times for a smile. That is where you will put the sprinkles. For the nose simply cut off the end of a gummy fish. Last, sprinkle some sugar over it, or coconut flakes, for a fresh snow look. These Christmas cupcakes are sure to be a hit with everyone!

2. Christmas Cupcakes - Christmas Trees!
This decorating idea is a little more complicated than the first one but the end result is really wonderful and you can play around with these Christmas cupcakes making them as festive as you want.
What you need: Cupcakes, Waffle cones, White frosting, small candies, pastry bag with a star tip.
For this recipe I would go with vanilla cupcakes or chocolate cupcakes, but any cupcake will do. I prefer chocolate. Bake your cupcakes and wait for them to cool. For the frosting you can either keep it white or put some green food dye in it. I would keep it white, but to each his own. When the cupcakes have cooled, put a flat layer of frosting on top of each cupcake. I like cream cheese frosting for these. Now take a waffle cone and place it upside down on top of the cupcake. Fill your pastry bag with frosting squeeze out small stars all around the cone. It gives the appearence of a snow covered Christmas tree! If you want you can leave it as so. Or you can go ahead and decorate your tree however you like.

That's all I have for now, but I promise in the next two weeks I'll be right back here with two more cupcake decorating ideas for your Christmas Cupcakes!

Halloween Cupcakes

image courtesy of clevercupcakes

Hi everyone! I'm back after taking a long vacation with new recipes and ideas and decorating!
Before I get started on Halloween Cupcakes, I've gotten a lot of emails requesting cupcake recipes. I'm thrilled that everyone loves cupcakes so much, though about 50% of the recipes requested by email I already have posted on this site. So if I don't respond to your email, it's only because the recipe is already posted here!

Enough of that, let's talk Halloween! Halloween is probably one of my top three favorite holidays since I was a child. As a youngster, I loved dressing up and trick or treating. As a young adult I enjoyed dressing up and dancing, and as an adult I so much enjoy dressing up, giving out treats, and baking for the holiday. One of my favorite Halloween treats are Halloween cupcakes. They're so delicious and you can have unlimited fun decorating them.

A great base for your Halloween cupcakes is either a vanilla or a deep chocolate base. Chocolate cupcakes are good if you want to use white frosting (or orange) (or a swirl!) and vanilla cupcakes are good for a white base with orange and chocolate frosting or good if you want to add some orange food dye for an orange base. Either way, I would say keep your base simple because you're going to go crazy decorating Halloween cupcakes! If you do want to be more adventurous though, a great alternative is pumpkin cupcakes. They're very festive and perfect for the season.

You can find recipes on this site for all of your cupcake recipe needs and frosting recipe needs. Just look at the links on the right under labels!

Now lets get to the point: Halloween cupcake ideas. Before I start, most Halloween cupcakes will have a flat frosting, meaning no fancy swirls or peaks.

1. Pumpkin face decoration: This is by far my favorite Halloween cupcakes decoration. It's traditional and works every time. For this you will need to use vanilla frosting or pumpkin frosting. If you're using vanilla you need to use food dye to make an orange frosting, this can be accomplished by combining red and yellow. Lay a flat layer of the frosting on your Halloween cupcakes. Now you'll need a pastry bag with a small tip and fill it with chocolate frosting. Use the chocolate frosting to make the pumpkin face. Triangles for eyes and a toothy grin should do the trick!

2. Ghost cupcakes: These are fun and easy to decorate! These Halloween cupcakes are simple. I would use a chocolate cupcake for your base, or a orange vanilla or pumpkin base. Simply place a white, flat layer of frosting on the cupcake. Then take a marshmallow and place it on top of the frosting. You can frost the marshmallow for a more textured and ghost shaped Halloween cupcake or you can leave it bare. Now you'll need candy coated sesame seeds, or something similar and place it on the ghosts for the eyes! Viola! Perfect ghost cupcakes!

3. Candy corn cupcakes: These, too, are great Halloween cupcakes. They're easy to make and fun to eat. (They don't actually have candy corn in them). You will need chocolate cupcakes for this, and vanilla icing in white, yellow, and orange. You will also need a flat icing spatula for this one. First with your spatula plop down the white icing in the center of the cupcake. Pat it down in the center to push the edges out a little. Wipe off your spatula. Then take a smaller plop of orange frosting and plop it in the center of the white frosting. Pat it down in the center to push the edges out, but not quite as far as the white. Repeat this process with the yellow frosting but again with a smaller plop. Now take the spatula and carefully swirl these frosting together into a peak. You will apply slight pressure on the edge of the spatula and start from the outside of the frosting and work your way in and up!

4. Graveyard cupcakes: Again, a great treat and a perfect Halloween cupcakes. You will need chocolate frosting, green sprinkles and milano cookies cut in half. First put down a flat layer of chocolate frosting onto your cupcakes. Then sprinkle some green sprinkles over it, this is your grass. Take a pastry bag with a small tip and write things on the milano cookies such as "R.I.P" or put a cross. Now take the milano cookie and place it on the cupcakes, pushing it into the Halloween cupcakes slightly so that it will stay upright.

This should give you a great start in getting ready for Halloween!
These Halloween cupcakes ideas are sure to impress and you'll have so much fun baking and decorating them. Enjoy your Halloween and come back for more cupcake recipes and ideas.

Cream Cheese Frosting

image courtesy of elana's pantry
No cupcake is complete without frosting, and one of the most popular frosting is cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting is versatile and easy to prepare. It's often seen on red velvet cupcakes and carrot cupcakes, and zucchini cupcakes but gives a nice tang to chocolate cupcakes, too!
It's soft and creamy which makes it a fun consistency to decorate cupcakes with. It's easy to swoop and swirl around the top of your cupcakes. Basic cream cheese frosting can be altered with flavoring such as vanilla and maple to add some extra pizazz, but alone it holds a lot of character.

Here's a great recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting from my own personal collection!

8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter
12 oz cream cheese
3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract



Make sure all of your ingredients are room temperature. In a mixing bowl, mix butter on medium speed until light and creamy. Add cream cheese and mix until fluffy. Slowly add the sugar, one cup at a time. Continue to mix. Finally, add the vanilla extract to the mixture and mix until it has a creamy consistency.

You can store this frosting for up to three days in the refrigerator in an airtight container. When you are ready to use it simply mix it with an electric mixer until it becomes smooth.

This should give you excellent frosting to top your cupcakes with! If you want to alter it to make it Maple Cream Cheese Frosting, simply add maple extract instead of vanilla. You can also play around with this cream cheese frosting by adding a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon. This will spice things up and tastes great on pumpkin cupcakes (Halloween!) or on apple spice cupcakes. Cream cheese frosting tastes great with most every cupcake though I wouldn't recommend topping off vanilla cupcakes with this frosting.

Though this recipe seems easy, it's still produces a very elegant frosting. The best frosting recipes, in my opinion, are easy to make because frosting shouldn't be too complex. Cream cheese frosting is easy to make, save the complexities for the cupcakes.

Other great ideas for your cream cheese frosting is to add some mini chocolate chips to it. Also, I have before experiment with using whipped heavy cream in place of half of the butter and this yields a delicious whipped cream cheese frosting. You can also add some shredded coconut on top of the cream cheese frosting. Finely chopped up mango also adds to this traditional recipe.

Since cream cheese frosting has cream cheese in it, make sure you store it in the refrigerator and don't leave it out too long. Also, don't leave it in the sun for too long because it will melt and become very messy. Aside from that, have fun! Experiment and enjoy your cupcakes, whatever they may be.

This cream cheese frosting recipe is the last one you will ever need.

Good luck and come back soon for more cupcake recipes and frosting recipes!

4th of July Cupcakes

photo credit: bakingbites.com

With summer right around the corner, my favorite holiday is just about to hit. The 4th of July will yield many barbecues and other festivities and none is complete without some special 4th of July cupcakes!
Here are some great ideas for 4th of July cupcakes and frosting and decorating.

4th of July cupcakes take 1. If you're a naturalist like me, then you hate food dye. This makes baking and decorating 4th of July cupcakes difficult since we all know that you can't have 4th of July cupcakes that don't represent the red, white, and blue. This is why I'm starting off here, because if you can avoid chemically enhanced cupcakes then you should. For these 4th of July cupcakes you can use either a chocolate cupcakes, a vanilla cupcake, or a red velvet cupcake (using beet juice of course!). If you want to make these 4th of July cupcakes with vanilla cupcakes but you want the cake to be red, you can add a little beet juice in place of water. Beet juice is strong so careful!
For 4th of July cupcake I like to use vanilla frosting. That will be your white in your red, white and blue. 4th of July cupcakes should be festive, so use a vanilla frosting, cream cheese frosting, or boiled frosting and lather up those cupcakes! Now you may be wondering where your red and blue come in if you're not going to use food dye. Luckily the 4th of July is in the summer and fruit and summer go hand in hand. Decorate your 4th of July cupcakes with blueberries and raspberries. Or decorate your 4th of July cupcakes with strawberries instead of raspberries. Voila! If you want red icing, use beets! You will have marvelous natural 4th of July cupcakes that everyone will enjoy. A nice way to decorate is to make a swirl or circle of blueberries and stick a strawberry with the top cut off faced down on the top of your 4th of July cupcakes. What would really make an amazing 4th of July cupcake would be chocolate covered strawberries.
Enjoy!

4th of July cupcakes take2: Now that we've covered our natural 4th of July cupcakes, lets get down to the nitty gritty. The simple truth is, if you want blue 4th of July cupcakes, use a yellow cake and blue food dye, you want red, use a red food dye. Plain and simple. The same goes for the icing that you'll be covering your 4th of July cupcakes in. I like to keep things simple with a yellow or white 4th of July cupcakes topped with white frosting or chocolate frosting and then red, white, and blue sprinkles. If you're feeling really festive, your 4th of July cupcakes can adorn an American flag make out of sprinkles. You can also create different color frosting to top your 4th of July cupcakes and do a swirl or a patter atop your 4th of July cupcakes. They'll look really cute. Experiment! 4th of July cupcakes should be crazy and explosive, not safe and refined.

No matter how you decorate your 4th of July cupcakes, I assure you people will love them. 4th of July cupcakes will make your holiday extra special.

Come back soon for more cupcake recipes!

Love,
The Cupcake Gal