Where to start, where to start…
Well… I figured before I dive headfirst into this thing, I should probably take a little test run with a first post to make sure I can figure out how to use all this modern technology and whatnot. Since I’ve never had a reason to photograph my food before, I don’t exactly have a brimming archive of delicious pictures to share with you. Thank goodness for holiday adorableness and the always handy camera phone… I managed to scrounge something up.
Over Christmas (yes, I realize that was over a month ago), Nick and I had the pleasure of staying at his Aunt Diane and Uncle Mark’s house in Hanford, California. I doubt very many of you have ever been to Hanford, but you can take my word for it, there’s not a whole lot to do there. Unless you happen to like guns (which I don’t), and then you can go shoot your heart out (not literally, please) all day long. So Nick was in heaven, and left me and his sister Meghan to amuse ourselves. What are two wannabe housewife girls to do with several free hours and holidays looming just days away? Bake, of course!
Meghan had seen these adorable cupcakes in a bakery and decided that it was imperative that we recreate them. I agreed.
So how did we make these wintery cuties? First we baked cupcakes from a box. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could use scratch made cupcakes, but we were really going for looks over taste on this one. The box says it makes 20-24 cupcakes, but we ended up with a lot less. Technical issues with the oven, and maybe a snack here or there… really the important part is that we ended up with more than two.
While the cakes are baking and cooling, you can make the hats, eyes and noses. To make these you’ll need marshmallows, orange chocolate disks and dark chocolate disks. You need to get the waxy chocolate disks that you buy at a craft store (Michael’s, JoAnn Fabrics…). Regular chocolate wont hold its shape well enough. Melt the dark chocolate disks, then dip the marshmallows in it. We used toothpicks in the tops to make it easier. Lay the mallows down on a piece of wax paper and swirl them around to create the brim. For the noses, melt the orange chocolate and put it in a squeeze bottle (also available at craft stores, right next to the disks). Pipe the chocolate onto wax paper into carrot shapes. Do the same for the eyes with the dark chocolate. Then let everything cool and set.
Once the cupcakes have cooled, it’s time to frost them. Under normal circumstances, for one box of cake you’d typically use one can of frosting. Well, that’s just not fun, and plus we didn’t want flat snowmen. So we used 3, yes, THREE, cans of frosting. We put them in the mixer with a whole bunch of powdered sugar to stiffen it up a bit, then put it in a piping bag and created our heads. Add a hat, eyes and nose and you’ve got yourself a little army (or navy) of Frosty’s!
They’re best stored in the fridge since the frosting heads are so big they are prone to slumping if they get too warm.
These cupcakes were so cute, I kept looking at the pictures for weeks afterwards and laughing. I know everyone is sick of snow and Christmas may be quite a ways away, but I thought I should share anyways because you can’t look at these guys and not smile!
Both my baking skills and phone camera quality have come a long way since 2007 when I made these birthday cupcakes for my friend Deb…
Cheers!
Yay! Congrats on getting the blog going! Miss you xoxoxox