Cupcakes & Coffee Breaks

This week, I was tasked with creating a birthday cake. But not just any birthday cake-- oh no-- a magical mermaid and unicorn birthday cake! Now, my experience with fondant is limited. And by limited, I mean, this was my first attempt at making fondant for any reason. I had taken the day off of work already, and thank God I did, because this took hours. Maybe it's just because I'm truly a beginner, but never again will I balk at the price of a professionally made cake. I used a few different recipes for the cake, frosting, and fondant. I wanted a bright pastel color scheme, so I used Neon Food Coloring . Perfect Buttercream Frosting by Chef in Training Milk and Cookies Cake , cake recipe only, using gluten free baking flour as a substitute, by Liv for Cake Marshmallow Fondant   by the Bearfoot Baker I needed about 3/4 of the whole marshmallow fondant recipe (or a little over the 1/2 batch), 2 rounds of the cake batter, and 3 ba...

To make this recipe non-gluten free, simply substitute an equivalent amount of flour for the gluten free flour called for in this recipe, and omit the xanthan gum. You will need: 6 maraschino cherries 10 ounces of crushed pineapple in juice 1/3 cup of brown sugar 1/4 cup of butter 1 & 1/3 cup of gluten free baking flour 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum 1/3 cup of shortening 1 cup of sugar 1/2 tsp salt 1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder 3/4 cup milk 1 egg Note that, instead of butter and brown sugar, you can also use caramel topping (usually an ice cream topping). If you choose that option, you may want to lightly grease your muffin pan.  For this recipe, there is really no way to use paper muffin cups, because the cupcakes are made upside down (hence the name "pineapple upside-down cake"), but you will  need to have both a muffin tin, and a regular baking pan that is roughly the same size available. Set the oven to 350 degrees. Split the butter among the muffin tins, and pop into the pr...

My husband's favorite cake is "Funfetti" and he also happens to have a love for brownies, so when I found this recipe for Cake Batter Blondies , I knew I had to try it. You can find the original recipe at the link, but my slightly modified version is below. Ingredients: 1 box of "Funfetti" cake mix, or a yellow cake mix with sprinkles added 1/2 cup of milk 1/4 cup of vegetable oil 1 egg (I ran out of eggs, so I used 1 small cup of applesauce as a substitute (about 1/4 cup) which worked) 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips (original recipe called for white chocolate chips, but I'm not a fan, so I used butterscotch as a delicious alternative) To make, mix all of the ingredients together and bake in a 9x9 inch pan for 30 mins at 350 degrees. Optionally, you can frost them, but honestly, these are dense bars of funfetti cake mix, so they are very sweet on their own. I left the frosting out of the recipe, and they were delicious!