Friday, October 18, 2013

October Birthday

My baby, Andrew, has an October birthday and for the past 2 years his birthday request has been to decorate the house for Halloween and make cupcakes to go with the theme.

Last year we made a cupcake cake in the shape of a ghost, using the idea from Family Fun Magazine.
 
And we made cute bats from the same magazine out of toliet paper rolls, poster board, and paint.
We this year, of course Andrew wanted to decorate again... and fortunately for us the bats survived the move so we were able to hang them again. But I needed to do something new this year. So we decorated his bedroom door. I found some giant googly eyes at Target in the $1 section, used painters tape, construction paper, and streamers and made a face!
His cupcakes this year were kind of a strange mix.  I really wanted to make this apple cinnamon cupcakes recipe I found. And my plan was to make vanilla frosting and color it to make it look like candy corns on top. Well because I bake in the middle of the night, when I run out of vanilla extract I'm pretty much out of luck (I needed these done by the morning). So I improvised, went to google and found a Candy Corn Frosting recipe. (It was so loud to make as I ran a cup of candy corns through my blender! I know my neighbors hated me.)  The cupcake was amazing, the frosting was amazing... I maybe won't combine them again though. Too many different flavors in one cupcake!
By the way.... Great pinterest find.... if you wrap your icing in plastic wrap after making it, you can store it easily or have an easier time putting it into the bag (because I for one always make a mess when I load the bag full of icing!)
I would have made pumpkin spice cupcakes, but I made those the week before for my friend's daughter's birthday party! So we needed a change.... plus it worked out because I'm not sure candy corn frosting and pumpkin spice cupcakes would work out so great. (Pictured below is a Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Vanilla cream cheese frosting topped with a candy acorn)
 
Needless to say.. He had a VERY happy birthday!