This week I made 52 pumpkin muffins and 5 mini loaves. I used these as gifts for the teachers at school.

My friend Heather posted a picture of her spiced cupcakes on facebook and I thought of you all.  She was kind enough to share the recipe with us.    These would be really cute as a dessert for Thanksgiving.

Spiced Cake:

• 3 cups cake flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put cupcake liners in cupcake pans. In a small mixing bowl whisk together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon, ground ginger. Cream the butter, sugar and salt in an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk alternately. Bake approximately 18 minutes (or until toothpick comes out clean). Let cool completely.

In the meantime take 24 caramel candies ( the ones you can buy in a bag for a dollar) and pinch one end, and forming into a pie shape. Set aside.

Buttercream icing:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup shortening
• Pinch salt ( I like popcorn salter.. it is finer and dissolves easier)
• 6 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Beat the butter, shortening and salt together until creamy with an electric mixer. Add half the confectioners’ sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Combine the vanilla extract and heavy cream. Gradually beat in the remaining confectioners’ sugar alternating with the cream mixture until it is all incorporated and the frosting is light and fluffy.

Buy some premade fondant if you aren’t used to working with it . . . it is much easier! You can purchase it at any craft store or Walmart.

Roll the fondant out, use confectioners sugar to keep it from sticking. Place the caramels on the fondant and cut to size. Pinch the fondant onto the candy.

Ice the cupcakes, place the caramels onto them pushing down slightly. Then just add a “dollop” of buttercream to the top to complete the pumpkin pie look.

Thanks Heather for sharing!

images (c) Heather Waldron

We had a birthday party yesterday for my two youngest. Both of their birthdays are in July and because they are still young, we have a joint party for them.  Now that we have a pool, it seemed like a good idea to have a swim party.  With that came the luau theme. 

You all know that I’m not about to go out and pay $50 for a cake, so each year I surf the internet looking for easy ideas that I can do myself.  I found ideas for a beach theme, flipflops, palm trees, pineapples, and more.  These teddy bear cupcakes drew my attention though.  They looked kid friendly and fun. 

For these cupcakes I cheated a bit. I didn’t make homemade icing. I simply bought the vanilla icing in a can and added a few drops of blue food coloring. I found the food coloring made the icing a little runny, so I put it in the freezer for a few minutes.

For these, I put icing on the cupcakes and used crushed graham crackers for the sand. Also used were miniature Teddy Graham crackers, fruit roll ups for beach towels and rafts, tiny paper umbrellas (found these at Hobby Lobby), sour gummy Lifesavers for tubes, and Lemon Heads for beach balls. You could use gum balls instead for the beach balls, but I already had the Lemon Heads.

Here are a few more pictures. Sorry for the poor quality.  I was in a hurry because the party was starting.

Other luau cake ideas:

Luau Party Cupcake with umbrella
Shark and Beach Cupcakes from Martha Stewart
Palm Trees/Beach cupcakes from Cake Central
Palm Trees, Pineapples, and Flower cupcakes
Hawaiian Luau cupcakes/cake
Flip Flop Cake from Better Homes and Gardens
Flip Flop Cake from Better Crocker

Enjoy!

images (c) Karen Weideman