Sweet, Sweet Bunny

We're heading up to the cottage today for the Easter weekend.  My MIL will be hosting Easter dinner there, and she requested that I make SB's fave "Flat Potatoes."  I can't go anywhere without bringing a dessert item, too, so I made another of SB's faves - Bunny Cupcakes.

Just like with my Shamrock Cupcakes, these start with chocolate cupcakes and creamcheese frosting.  I cut regular sized marshmallows with scissors.  The pressure from the scissors will create pinched petal-like shapes.

Dip a cut side into some sanding sugar,

and add some jelly bean eyes under the ears.  Funny story - when I had assembled my decorations, CG walked through the kitchen and said, "Jelly Bellies!  Where are you hiding Jelly Bellies?"  He has a tough time identifying a dirty sock on the living room floor, but he can spot Jelly Bellies from across a room.

Add a pink m&m nose and some mini marshmallow cheeks.

We packed up a dozen for the cottage, and brought some others to a friend's house.

Thanks for popping in and cupcake decorating with me.

Shamrock Cupcakes & Food Pic Tips

I do a lot of stuff around here, that never makes it onto my blog.  Sometimes I have dead batteries in my camera, or pictures might languish on my memory card until they are no longer timely and relevant.  Who wants to see Halloween decor in November, right?  Well last year, I had made some Shamrock Cupcakes, took a few pictures, then didn't get the post written.

I thought to myself, "I can just save these for next year."  Except when I pulled up the pictures, I was horrified to see what really bad pictures I was taking last year.  I actually hesitated to show you these, but this blog is supposed to be documenting my life, and it seems my life includes some new photography skills.  Here's the apple tart, I posted about yesterday.  

It's well lit with the pic taken next to the living room window, and the background kind of falls away because I have the focal length shortened.  I'm taking pics in manual mode, now.  Notice the bamboo placemat underneath the plate.  That's for a bit of texture.

And here's last year's Shamrock Cupcakes.

No glamour shot by itself.  Just sitting on the plastic cupcake travel tray.  Bad indoor lighting with flash.  It's a jumbled mess.  What a difference a year makes.  I'm not a photography expert by any stretch of the imagination yet, but I'm learning, and it's nice to see how far I've come.  For more photography tips check out Emilie's blog.

Back to the cupcakes.  I baked my favorite chocolate cupcakes, but feel free to use boxed or whatever your favorite cupcake recipe is.  In a pinch, I like Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix. When they were cooled, I frosted them with some green buttercream frosting.

I took marshmallows and cut them into petals, using a toothpick to push in one side as I cut.

Cut marshmallows are very sticky, and you can dip them in colored sanding sugar to create flower petals, like in the cupcakes in my header, bunny ears for easter, or shamrock petals like for my shamrock cupcakes.

Thanks for popping in and cupcake decorating with me.  I'm linking this up to Cuisine Kathleen's St. Patrick's Day Blog Crawl.

Sugar Sheets

I'd like to start this post by saying that I try not to pay too much attention to the number of followers that I have, but it's hard not to notice when those numbers move.  It's hard not to wonder why I might lose followers when it happens.  Well, last night I lost a couple and I can only imagine they were 49ers fans.  I'm Sorry.  I did not mean to offend anyone with the cake I posted at the end of yesterday's post.  It was all done tongue-in-cheek and it was a great game.  And the cake was a huge hit in real life. 

I've shared how to make fondant here.  And the heavily NY biased crowd at the party we attended appreciated my depiction of a Justin Tuck sack.  But they also were impressed with the Giants logos adorning the sides of the cake.

It all started with a new to me Wilton product - Sugar Sheets.

I printed out multiple logos.

And used a clean exacto knife to cut out the letters.

They just pressed into the icing and stuck.

Thanks for popping in and trying out a new product with me.  I'm linking this up to Something Swanky's Sweet Treats Thursdays.