Summer Cupcake Series Recap

The summer is drawing to a close. I know that in many areas schools have already started or are getting ready to start; and so, it seems like it is probably time for the Summer Cupcake Series to conclude as well. But before we say good-bye to summer, here’s one last look at the cupcakes from the last eight weeks:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes
Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes
Week III - Cupcake Cones
Week IV - Grass Cupcakes
Week V – Glazed Gluten Free Lemon Cupcakes
Week VI – Berry Pie Cupcakes from Oprah.com
Week VII – Aloha Cupcakes from Bakerella
Week VIII – S’mores Cupcakes from Annie’s Eats

I’d love to hear which one was your favorite, leave a comment and let me know!

I am sad to see summer go, it seemed to go by so much more quickly this year. However, I am looking forward to the crisp fall air and the return of football!

Summer Cupcake Series VIII

It is week VIII of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed the first seven weeks you can catch up with the links below:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes
Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes
Week III - Cupcake Cones
Week IV - Grass Cupcakes
Week V – Glazed Gluten Free Lemon Cupcakes
Week VI – Berry Pie Cupcakes from Oprah.com
Week VII – Aloha Cupcakes from Bakerella

Once again, this week’s post will highlight a great summer cupcake from one of my favorite bloggers – Annie’s Eats. Annie also LOVES cupcakes! She has tons of recipes on her blog (here’s the section dedicated to her cupcakes) and many are so perfect for summer. It was hard to choose just one to point you to today!

For many people, summer means camping and/or backyard fire pits with friends. And you can’t have a fire pit, whether it’s next to a tent or in your backyard, without s’mores.

We have some family friends that live on a large piece of property, at one end of their property is a creek and next to the creek is a fire pit. When I was growing we spent countless summer nights down there. The parents would chat by the fire and all of us kids would be roaming around, until of course it was time for s'mores and then we all gathered around the fire. Such wonderful memories!

We haven't had a fire pit by the creek in years and it's been even longer since I've been camping, but every time I think of S'mores (or S'mores Cupcakes) it takes me back.

Picture from Annie’s Eats.

Here is the URL to Annie’s S’mores Cupcakes: http://annies-eats.com/2009/11/16/smores-cupcakes/

I would love to try these out next time I find myself getting ready to go to a firepit evening.

Enjoy!

Summer Cupcake Series VII

It is week VII of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed the first six weeks you can catch up with the links below:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes
Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes
Week III - Cupcake Cones
Week IV - Grass Cupcakes
Week V – Glazed Gluten Free Lemon Cupcakes
Week VI – Berry Pie Cupcakes from Oprah.com

Following in the direction of last week’s post, I am pointing you over to one of my absolute favorite bloggers for the cutest Hawaiian cupcakes ever! Bakerella posted these cupcakes last week and I adore them! The ‘sand’ topping, the cute little 'Aloha' signs, and most impressive of all…the leis made out of individual fondant flowers.

Picture from Bakerella.com

I’m contemplating whether I have enough time to make these for an upcoming event. But considering how busy things have been over the last couple of weeks I should probably choose to make something that doesn’t involve hundreds of mini fondant flowers, just to be on the safe side.

I LOVE Bakerella, her creations are amazing and inspiring and she introduced me to Pioneer Woman (well to PW’s site, so it was more of a virtual introduction than a ‘Hey have you met Pioneer Woman? Pioneer Woman this is Chelle.’) This wouldn’t have really been possible anyway since neither one of them has any idea who I am. Although I did meet Pioneer Woman, but she also met 500 other people that night so it’s not likely she remembers me. Maybe I’ll get to meet Bakerella at a book signing just like I met Pioneer Woman, because guess what?

Bakerella has a book coming out next month!!! Woo Hoo! I can’t wait! You can learn about her book here. She hasn’t said yet, but I hope she does a booking signing tour. If not, maybe I’ll invite both of them to the wedding…I wonder if they would come or if they’d think I was crazy and get a restraining order???

Anyway…if you haven’t been to Bakerella’s site you must visit it ASAP.

You can find more pictures, decorating instructions, and the yummy recipe all at this URL: http://www.bakerella.com/lei-time/

Enjoy!

Summer Cupcake Series VI

It is week VI of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed the first five weeks you can catch up with the links below:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes
Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes
Week III - Cupcake Cones
Week IV - Grass Cupcakes
Week V – Glazed Gluten Free Lemon Cupcakes

This week we are taking a slight change in direction for the Summer Cupcake Series. I am out of pictures of past cupcakes I have made that are summer related and I didn’t have time to make any new summer inspired cupcakes this week.

So this week, I am going to point you over to Oprah.com to see these adorable Berry Pie Cupcakes from What’s New, Cupcake? By Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.

Picture via Oprah.com (link below)

A friend (obviously someone that knows my obsession with cupcakes) sent me the link to these a while back and I love them. I wish I had a summer picnic to make these for, they are so much fun!

The picture and recipe are both at this URL: http://www.oprah.com/food/Bake-Sale-Pie-Cupcakes

Enjoy!

Summer Cupcake Series V

It is week V of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed the first four weeks you can catch up with the links below:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes
Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes
Week III - Cupcake Cones
Week IV - Grass Cupcakes

There's nothing more summer than lemonade. Unfortunately I don't have a lemonade cupcake to share, but I have something close...Glazed Gluten-Free Lemon Cupcakes.

Personally, I'm not a fan of lemon baked goods. However, I did like how these looked with the yellow cupcake liners, the glaze, and the lemon zest sprinkled on top. I made these with a gluten-free mix and a simple powdered sugar and milk glaze for a party that I hosted for my parents' anniversary a couple of years ago.

Summer Cupcake Series IV

It is week IV of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed the first three weeks you can catch up with the links below:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes
Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes
Week III - Cupcake Cones

I know you already saw these, but I couldn't leave them out of the Summer Cupcake Series - green grass is summer!

For the full posts on the grass cupcakes visit these previous posts:

Grass Cupcakes (also includes Extra Special Buttercream recipe)
Party Post: Adorable Ladybugs (includes pictures of the finished grass cupcakes)

The possibilities for grass cupcakes are endless! You can use them for sports cupcakes...baseball, football, golf, soccer, etc. You could make a little fondant blanket and picnic basket to put on top for a picnic cupcake. You could put flowers or bugs or animals in the grass. The list could go on and on. If you have other ideas, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Enjoy!

Summer Cupcake Series - III

It is week III of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed the first two weeks you can catch up with the links below:

Week I - Tropical Cupcakes

Week II - Watermelon Cupcakes

One of my favorite summer sounds is hearing the ice cream truck; it just doesn't seem like summer without ice cream. (I'm not a huge ice cream fan, but I do it enjoy it from time to time.)

In honor of ice cream as a long standing summer tradition, I wanted to share with you my Cupcake Cones.

I made these about 4 years ago for a friend's birthday.

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Cupcake Cones

1 box mix or recipe for your favorite cake

~24 ice cream cones (with a flat bottom so they can stand up)

2 cans or 1 recipe of your favorite icing

Your favorite ice cream toppings (sprinkles, nuts, coconut, etc.)

Make the cake batter according to mix instructions or recipe.

Place the cones in a cupcake pan (if they have a flat bottom they should stay standing, however if you're worried about moving the pan and having them fall you can scrunch up some foil and place them in each cup of the pan around the cone for extra support).

Fill each cone with batter about 1/3 to half full. Because most cones are skinnier on the bottom the cake should bake up to fill the top of the cone, but if you fill it too full the cake will bake over the sides of the cone (you can do a test cone first if you're worried about overflow).

Bake according to mix intstructions or recipe for cupcake times. Let cool.

Once the cupcakes are cool, you can start decorating. I filled a pastry bag with icing and I used a larger star tip to get the ice cream swirl effect, but you could use any size or shape tip you prefer. (You don't even have to use a pastry bag, you could just use a spatula to ice the cupcake cones. I just prefer the swirl look.)

On top of the icing, sprinkle on your favorite toppings. I just used colored sprinkles for half of mine and left the other half plain. But you really could use anything, whatever your favorite ice cream topping is, just sprinkle it on top of the icing (although, hot fudge might not work so well).

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These are great for parties for any age because they are so fun and festive. Plus with these you don't have to worry about the hot summer day melting away your dessert (unless it's so hot the icing melts, but then you probably should find some shade and get out of the sun anyway).

Enjoy!

Summer Cupcake Series - II

It is week II of the Summer Cupcake Series, if you missed week I, click here.

I don't think I have ever been to a 4th of July BBQ that did not have a big fresh watermelon sliced up in huge wedges. In case you don't want to lug a heavy watermelon to your 4th of July festivities this weekend, try these out instead.

Watermelon Cupcakes

I made these about 4 years ago for a 4th of July picnic. They are really pretty simple, I outlined the instructions below if you want to give them a try.

4th of July Picnic with Watermelon Cupcakes and 4th of July Cupcakes* (in the middle tray)

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Watermelon Cupcakes

1 box mix or recipe for your favorite white cake (or yellow, golden, vanilla, etc)

red food coloring

chocolate chips (as many as you want)

2 cans or 1 recipe for your favorite icing

green food coloring

white or light pink cupcake liners (you want the red cake to show through so pick something slightly transparent)

Take a white cake batter (or yellow, vanilla, golden, etc) and put a few drops of red food coloring into the batter until you get the color you want.

Mix in the chocolate chips. (I have heard that you can coat the chocolate chips in flour which helps them not sink to the bottom of the cake/cupcakes while baking; I didn't really have a problem with this but you can try this if you're worried about sinking chocolate chips.)

Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners and bake according to the mix or recipe instructions.

Mix the green food coloring into the icing until you get the shade of green you like.

After the cupcakes have cooled, frost with the green icing.

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*4th of July Cupcakes frosted white and topped with red, white and blue sprinkles and shimmery red, white and blue stream picks.


Enjoy!

Summer Cupcake Series - I

I was taking pictures of my various creations long before I had the blog. Recently I was going back through some of my old archives and I came across some fun cupcakes I made a while back that I wanted to share with you all. Quite a few were relevant to summer, so I'm starting a new series on the blog: Summer Cupcake Series. While the sun stays out and the weather stays warm I'll be posting pictures from cupcakes past and present. I hope you enjoy and find some inspiration for all those summer BBQs and picnics coming up!

For the first Summer Cupcake Series post, we'll start off with a couple of trays of simple tropical inspired cupcakes.

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Tropical Cupcake Decorations

1/3 of the cupcakes were frosted and then covered in shredded coconut

1/3 of the cupcakes were frosted with a swirl and then sprinkled with green sugar

1/6 of the cucpakes were frosted with a swirl and then sprinkled with pink sugar

1/6 of the cupackes were frosted with a swirl and then sprinkled with blue sugar

Cocktail umbrellas were placed in and around a few of the cupcakes to add a little extra tropical flair.

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