Holiday Rum Cupcakes

Merry Christmas eve!!  This year I decided to make rum cupcakes decorated with white chocolate snowflakes for Christmas.  Trust me these cupcakes were so easy to make!

Cake Ingredients:
1 Box Yellow Cake mix
1 cup Dark Rum
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
3 eggs

Frosting Ingredients:
1 stick Unsalted butter, softened
4 cups Powered Sugar
4 tbsps Milk
2 tsp Dark Rum

Place all cake ingredients in a large bowl and mix according to the directions on the box.  Then pour batter into lined muffin pans. This recipe makes about 17 cupcakes.
For the frosting place all ingredients in a large bowl beat on medium speed until combined.  Next separate frosting in half.  Then add a few drops of red food coloring to one half and green food coloring to the other half, mix well.  Next fill 2 frosting bags, one with the red and one with the green frosting.  Then place both into a third frosting bag with a piping tip, I used my favorite the Wilton 1M star tip. 

Then pipe the frosting on top of the cupcakes as you normally would.

To decorate these cupcakes I made white chocolate snowflakes.  I used white chocolate melts that you can find in most craft stores.  Once the chocolate is melted place in a ziploc bag then use scissors to snip the corner off.  Then pipe the chocolate into the molds.  Use a toothpick to make sure the whole mold is evenly filled.  Refrigerate until solid, then carefully pop them out of the mold.  Below is the mold I used, I only filled the bottom of the mold because I didn't want the backgrounds.

 

Happy Holidays!!

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Merry (early) Christmas!!   I am sharing with you my favorite cupcakes and one of my favorite recipes.  I made them for a work party last year and everyone went crazy for them!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcake Ingredients:
1 box Dark Chocolate Cake mix
1 cup buttermilk (in place of water)
1 tsp  Mint Extract
Oil called for on box
Eggs called for on box + 1
Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels

Materials:
2 cans Green Vanilla Frosting (Around the holidays you can find it)
Mint Truffle Hersey Kisses You can substitute with regular Hershey Kisses
Wilton Light Bulb Sprinkles*
Cupcake and Mini-cupcake liners

*Note: These Light Bulb sprinkles are currently unavailable.  You used to be able to find them in stores this time of year.  These are my favorites, but clearly some substitutions are needed!  Here are a few below, any colorful sprinkles may work as a good substitution.
Here are a couple of options:
A Red, White and Green light bulb sprinkle set: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=F1EF0301-92EA-11C7-96FEB9A05A3E4D1C
Christmas Light Candies: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=CAB4995A-A6BA-207B-2DBF42F1675D3B20&fid=AE791991-B433-1DA2-BE03952D8F4E9050

Recipe:
Place all cake ingredients except for the morsels in a large bowl.  Mix according to the directions on the box. Once cake is mixed stir in about 1 cup of morsels.  Then pour batter into lined muffin and mini muffin pans.  Make sure to make an equal amount, I got about 18 of each.  Since you don't need the mini-cupcake liners then you can choose to grease the pan instead.

Assembly:
I am still kicking myself for not taking more pictures while I was making these!  Here is a diagram of the "tree".

Place the unwrapped mini-cupcake upside down on top of the cupcake, next place the unwrapped Hershey kiss on top.

Frosting
You will need a piping bag with a small star tip.  Place frosting in bag.  Starting at the bottom of the "tree" and moving around the whole cupcake.  Squeeze the bag against the cupcake and drag to make each branch.  I wish I had a video tutorial for this!

Decorating
Now is the fun part!  Time to trim the tree. Take whatever sprinkles you choose and place on the tree one by one.  Yes it is slow, but the result is worth it.

Merry Christmas to you and your family!  If you're ambitious enough to make these, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Tornado Cupcakes

What is better for a 9 year old obsessed with Tornadoes birthday than a Tornado made of cupcakes?!

This is what inspired my latest creation!

 

Cupcake Ingredients:

Betty Crocker Party Rainbow Chip (Or any flavor cupcake of your choice!)

1 cup Water

1/2 cup Vegetable Oil

3 eggs

Vanilla Frosting Ingredients: 

8 cups confectioners sugar 

1 stick butter, softened 

8 tbsps milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Materials:

Poster board

Toothpicks

Wilton Color Mist Black (I found mine at a craft store, or you can buy it online)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.   Mix all cake ingredients in a large bowl.  Mix with a hand mixer on low speed for ~30s to combine.  Then beat at medium speed for ~2min, scraping the sides of the bowl as you go.  Fill cupcake liners with 1/4cup batter (This makes 21 cupcakes, which turned out to be the perfect amount for the Tornado!).  Bake for 20 min until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Line cupcakes up on the poster board:

 

Once the cupcakes are where you want them, secure them with a toothpick inserted into the posterboard and the bottom of each cupcake.  I cut the toothpicks in half and it worked great.

Next combine all frosting ingredients in a bowl, beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  I used a stand mixer to make the frosting.  I piped the frosting on using my Wilton 1 M Star tip.  I started at the top left and went row by row until I got to the bottom.  Of course you could use a frosting knife, but that would take longer, and I liked the texture created by the tip.

Next use the Wilton Color Mist Black to color the tornado.  (Make sure to place paper around the cupcakes to protect your work surface!)

I have seen some mixed reviews of the color mist spray online, but I had no issues.   It worked perfectly! 


Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more!