100 Cupcakes!

It is Charli's birthday this week and we are having two different family parties for her, which means lots of cupcakes.  Then Z had a scouting event and I said I would make cupcakes for it, which brought my grand total of cupcakes baked in 1 week to 100!  Here are some of the cupcakes.  I don't use any fancy recipe, just a box mix and then my favorite buttercream icing recipe (see below), and for the chocolate frosting, I used a store bought can.  I got this really great cupcake frosting kit from the Prepared Pantry here in Rigby for only $3 and I LOVE IT!

 Ladybug cupcakes made from M&Ms and Airheads

 And a few with mini oreos for adults who don't care for Airheads on their cupcake

 Cookies and Cream cupcakes for the scout leaders

 Chocolate with sprinkles



 And grasshopper cupcakes with the scout emblem made from chocolate!

 Here's how I made the scout logo. First, I printed the scout logo (copying and pasting it in Microsoft Word until I filled the page).  I taped it to my counter with a piece of wax paper taped over top.  Next, I melted 2 cups of chocolate chips in the microwave and put them in a durable zip lock bag.  I barely snipped the corner of the bag and used the bag to pipe over the designs on the paper.  Next, I put the wax paper in the fridge for several hours until the chocolate had set.  I removed the emblems with a spatula and placed them on top of the cupcakes!  I love how they turned out.

The whole time I kept thinking, there is no way that this is going to work and it kept working.  I couldn't believe how awesome they turned out!

BUTTERCREAM ICING

Ingredients:

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp milk

4 cups powdered sugar (about 1 lb)

Directions:

Cream butter and shortening with electric mixer.  Add vanilla.  Gradually add sugar one cup at a time beating well on medium speed.

*For mint frosting add 1/4 tsp of peppermint extract and 10 drops of green food coloring.  These are so good with devil's food cake mix!  I haven't tried it, but I am sure you could also flavor the frosting any way you like with any other extract, maybe I'll try strawberry next.