A Rainbow Brite Birthday Celebration

Princess Fierce turned six in September. She's claimed the DragonCon Parade as her own personal birthday parade since it always happens the Saturday before her birthday. Once again this year we headed down to watch. She chose to not dress as Darth Fairy again but instead wore her Julie Newmar Catwoman costume.

I'm not sure if it was the 25th anniversary of Dragon*Con, the 10th anniversary of the DC parade or the fabulous weather but this year the parade route was packed. I snapped this pic looking down Peachtree Street when we still had 45 minutes to wait until the parade started.

The parade met the demands of the large crowd delivering the longest and best Dragon*Con parade yet.

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Springtime Bird Nest Cupcakes

My friend next door planned an egg hunt Saturday for the neighborhood kids. I offered to bring cupcakes for everyone. My initial plan was to create cupakes with bunny bums on them. I had flattened over 50 mini marshmallows with the idea to color them into bunny feet.

But I wasn't impressed with the way the cupcake turned out. Perhaps it was my husband's words I kept hearing when he saw this...

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Mini Nutter Butter Cupcakes

Yesterday was my man's birthday. I had leftover cake batter after putting his birthday cake in the oven. Not enough to make cupcakes but just enough to make a few mini cupcakes.

I also had a bag of mini Nutter Butters in the pantry.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part Three, Peanut Butter Cupcake with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

I've got everything zooming along perfectly with the Peanut Butter Blossom Cupcakes for my friend. And I'm sure that one flavor cupcake would be enough to make her smile. But I just keep thinking I should do two different kinds. I ponder what else she likes other than peanut butter and I land on pumpkin. Hmmmm. I'm not a pumpkin fan in sweets but I think peanut butter and pumpkin could work together; I put them in a tasty soup why not a cupcake.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part Two, PB Blossom Cupcakes

The cookies were done now it was time to try and pull off baking them inside a cupcake for my friend. I follow Bake It in a Cake on facebook and I'm constantly fascinated by the creations. Before I ever discovered BIIAC I had already thought baking sweet surprises inside cupcakes sounded awesome. And I tried to create my own Buckeye Cupcake for my dad's birthday. I need to return to that creation and perfect it. I also have a dream in my head to create a cupcake with a truffle inside that is inspired off Baileys Coffee.

I digress. The task at hand is to bake my Peanut Butter Blossoms inside a vanilla cupcake. I used the cake and frosting recipe here. I didn't change a thing and I was very pleased with the result. Very.

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The Buckeye Cupcake: Phase One

Today's my dad's birthday. He's impossibly hard to buy for on a normal year but this year when he and my mom are working to downsize their home; he's even harder. While brainstorming things he liked my friend posted a link to a cupcake with a peanut butter truffle in the middle on my facebook page. An idea started to smolder. My dad loves buckeyes. He loves them so much it's the only thing he asks for from me at Christmas each year. What if I made a buckeye cupcake? I already have the Martha Stewart Marble Pound Cake with White Chocolate Glaze in the oven that he handpicked for his birthday. But I have a few hours still. I have all the ingredients to make buckeyes. I have a box of chocolate cake mix. Not ideal but maybe with some additions...

Since I was dealing with box mix I substituted whole milk for the water and added in some chocolate fudge sauce.

I froze the buckeye centers before dropping them in the batter. They were warm all the way through but not melted. Yum!

This idea needs some tweaking but phase one was a success. I'm thinking the next version needs to have a chocolate glaze on top, slightly smaller buckeye centers rolled in cocoa. Mmmmmmm....

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Baking Martha's Chocolate Cupcakes

I'm fascinated by Martha Stewart. Not so much to watch her show or venture into K-Mart and purchase things with her name on them. But I do have a few of her books. I've also had great success with her recipes. She's still my fail proof way to hard boil an egg. 

Ahhhhh. It's just so pretty.

Well, a few years ago I was gifted the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. It's orange hardcover stole my heart before I even gazed longingly at its beautiful, stylized photos of baked goods. While finger strolling through the book I mused how great it would be to bake everything in the entire book. Fast forward a few years and the book had only been used, um, *cough* once. Time to change things. I turned to my lovely facebook friends and family and spelled out my plans to bake the entire book, starting with randomly selected recipes by them. Woo! They page numbers trickled in.


It may take me years. But I plan to accomplish my goal, one baked treat at a time. And here's the tale of the first baked item: One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes.

One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut-Pecan Frosting

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