In my search to find the perfect cupcakes for my daughter's birthday party, I found great ideas along the way to share! The rainbow cupcakes below use the large confetti sprinkes. They also look amazing when decorating the flat cupcake cake from Wilton. I made it last year for a birthday. Do a search on my blog and take a look. Just type in "birthday cake, cupcake cake". Easy cake to decorate, but looks like it took a while... Those are the best ones to make!!!
RAINBOW CUPCAKES
By Betty Crocker's The Big Book of Cupcakes
MAKES: 12 cupcakes
PREP TIME: 40 Minutes
START TO FINISH: 1 Hour 40 Minutes
CUPCAKES:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon coconut extract
¾ cup canned coconut milk (not cream of coconut)
Yellow, green, red and blue liquid food color
FROSTING:
1 ½ cups unsalted butter or margarine, softened
6 cups powdered sugar
Dash salt
5 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon coconut extract
Multicolored candy sprinkles, if desired
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Place paper baking cup in each of 12 regular-size muffin cups.
2. In small bowl, mix flour and baking powder; set aside. In medium bowl, beat ½ cup butter and the granulated sugar with electric mixer on medium speed 2 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at time, beating well after each addition. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 teaspoon coconut extract. On low speed, alternately add flour mixture, ½ at a time, and coconut milk, ½ at a time, beating just until blended.
3. Measure about ¾ cup batter into each of 5 small bowls. For yellow, stir about 6 drops yellow food color into batter in first bowl. Tint second bowl green, with 6 drops green food color; third bowl red, with about 8 drops red food color; fourth bowl blue, with about 10 drops blue food color; and fifth bowl purple, with about 8 drops red food color and 3 drops blue food color.
4. Spoon scant tablespoon of yellow batter into each cup; smooth to edge of baking cup with back of spoon. Repeat with green, red, blue and purple batters (fill cups to ¾ full).
5. Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack to cool.
6. In large bowl, beat 1 ½ cups butter, the powdered sugar and salt with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in 4 tablespoons of the milk, ½ teaspoon
vanilla and ¼ teaspoon coconut extract. Add remaining milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, until frosting is smooth and spreadable. Beat until fluffy.
7. Pipe or frost about ¼ cup frosting onto each cupcake. Sprinkle with multicolored sprinkles.
HELLO KITTY CUPCAKES
http://www.squidoo.com/birthdaycakepictures
With this recipe you roll and flatten out the fondant to make Hello Kitty
OWL CUPCAKES
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/cakes-cupcakes/theme-cupcakes/night-owls-cupcakes-984215/
Ingredients
cupcakes
16-ounce can plus ½ cup of vanilla frosting
green food coloring
blue food coloring
purple food coloring
finely chopped sweetened coconut
chocolate sprinkles
chocolate wafer cookies
jellyrings
Junior Mints
mini chocolate chips
circus peanuts
M&M's
pretzel rods
Instructions
You'll need a 16-ounce can plus ½ cup of vanilla frosting. Spoon ½ cup into a ziplock bag (snip off a corner for piping), tint 1 cup with green food coloring, and reserve the rest.
From 2 cups finely chopped sweetened coconut, tint ½ cup blue, ½ cup purple, and reserve the rest.
Frost 10 cupcakes green and 8 white. Roll the edges of two of the white cupcakes in chocolate sprinkles.
Arrange the Mama Owl as shown at right. Use a serrated knife to halve 5 chocolate wafer cookies (we used Famous Chocolate Wafers) for the wings and trim the sides from another cookie for the brows. Make each eye from a whole cookie, piped-on frosting, a jelly ring and a Junior Mint. Sprinkle the white coconut over the chest and scatter with mini chocolate chips. Add pretzel-rod branches and trimmed circus peanuts for the beak and talons, as shown above.
Make each owlet's wings and beak with the same ingredients used for the Mama Owl. Add colored coconut and chocolate chips for the chest, smaller cookie pieces for the brows. Use jelly rings and brown M&M's for the eyes.
* The Wilton website never fails to give me the best selection of ideas to choose from! Check it out below.
http://www.wilton.com/idea/Cupcake-Stack-Cake
