Cupcakes for kids birthdays

     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

http://www.parenting.com/gallery/best-cupcake-recipes-for-kids?pnid=136815

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

Michaels printable coupon: Sun., March 6th, 2011-Sat. March 12th, 2011

http://dealspl.us/michaels-coupons/224549p

Printable Glade coupon

     Here is a printable Glade coupon from bzzagent! Click on the link below. They have a great site to try out products, read/add reviews, plus a whole lot more... Easy to sign-up! I recently signed up and became a BZZagent.  I received this coupon from them to share with my blog readers.  I am also waiting for a "spring cleaning solutions package" with SC Johnson products in it for my home.  Check out their website! http://www.bzzagent.com/

coupon link:
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?bt=vi&tqnm=ychleyj65351115&o=83203&c=SJ&p=LHdD5Eix

Family Fun Magazine craft

When I saw this in the March, 2011 issue of Family Fun magazine I thought it was such a great idea! Best magazine! The website does not provide a picture to go along with the directions... I took a photo of the page to go along with it. (I always find it more helpful to have a picture when doing a craft.)  You can color coordinate them to go with family celebrations, birthdays or even school functions.  If you didn't want to use the lamp-cord kit, just use a styrofoam ball and a good glue to use them as a hanging decoration.  Kids will have a lot of fun with this version...

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/cupcake-liner-lantern-992740/

Materials

12-inch-diameter paper lantern

Wide mixing bowl

170 standard-size pleated paper cupcake liners (match the colors of the lantern and the liners closely)

Paintbrush

Tacky glue (check the label to be sure it dries clear)

170 mini pleated paper cupcake liners

Lamp-cord kit and bulb (follow wattage guidelines for your lantern)


Instructions

Assemble the lantern according to the package directions, then set it upside down in the bowl. If you're using cupcake liners with color or pattern only on the outside, fl ip them inside out (speed up the process by keeping them stacked and turning a few at a time).

Working in batches of ten, brush the bottoms of the standard-size liners with a light, even layer of tacky glue (thin it with water, if needed).

Quicky press the cups onto the lantern, applying them in evenly spaced rows around the circumference. (Spacing out the rows allows the liners to expand as they dry.)

When the glue is dry, add more standard-size liners to fi ll in the gaps and let dry.

Brush glue on the bases of the mini liners and adhere them inside the standard-size ones. For an even fuller-looking lantern, such as the white one above, substitute standard-size "flowers" for some of the mini liners (see the instructions at right).

Flip the lantern and repeat the process on its top section. Plug in the lamp cord, hold the illuminated bulb inside the lantern, and check for bare spots. Fill them with mini or standard-size liners as needed.

When it's dry, hang the lantern following the instructions on the packaging of the lamp-cord kit.

Variations: TO MAKE FLOWERS Scrunch a standard-size liner toward its center, then press the bottom flat. Brush glue onto the flattened surface, then stick the flower in place.