Martha's Pumpkins

Bitty Spice Cake Bundt Pumpkins, covered with orange fondant.

Man!  I love my brother-in-law's camera!

All the super nice pics are either from his camera or Uncle Fred.  

Someday . . .

 

 Many years ago (maybe 10 or more) I purchased a mini bundt pan because I wanted to make Martha Stewart's mini pumpkins.  So this year, for the first time, I made them.  Yes, I had the pan for all those years and never used it.  Upon completion of this wonderous project, I gave my pan away.  Realized it was simply too much work and no one really wanted to eat them because they were "too pretty."  

Kind of miss my pan now and the potential it held.  :(

My neice, Ellie, molding the fondant into the pan.  We let the fondant dry (not for long enough though - I was too impatient).  Then we covered the already made spice cakes.  The spice cakes had been baked in that pan too.  I visualized cupping the cakes with a little orange "shell" but it was actually more difficult than that.

In the background: I also made Martha's pecan tassies.  Yummy little buggars.  

Much better fresh, though.  Once they've been sitting out for a while,
they get quite dry and not worth eating.

Creepy Critters

Super, super fun cupcakes to make! I made them for Joe's company Halloween party and displayed them on these cute little papers. 24 cupcakes total.

By far the most fun cupcakes I've made. Jayden usually likes to help me with the cupcakes I make but is limited with things he can do. These cupcakes kept him busy!

The fun started with our trip to the candy store in the mall. A tiny little shop giving Maci easy access to much of the candy while she sat in her stroller. Oh boy!

We took our Martha Stewart cupcake cookbook for ideas, of course.



Here's a pic of some of the cupcakes ready for transport. There were two trays of cupcakes and they were ALL different.

Here's my cutie trying to do the face of the "one-eye-closed-one-eye-open creature.

First order of business was setting up the designs. I squished ink onto a cup (with the same radius as the cupcake tops) and inked up a piece of paper. I could have traced the cup opening but I thought this was easier and the majestic Martha Stewart would be proud.

So here's our designs. Some of the elements wouldn't stick very well, of course.

I took a picture of this batter because it was interesting to me. I made a vegan cupcake (usually there's butter and eggs). The mixture was so liquidy; I'm not sure one can see how juicy this stuff was. I was worried that they wouldn't turn out but they were just fine.

After they cooked, we topped them with fondant of different colors. The ones in this picture had brown fondant but there were different colors as well. Because the fondant needs to be wet in order to have the candies stick to it, we used a small bowl of water and a little brush to wet them down. A normal person would use a small paintbrush but I'm too cool for that so I used a small brush that I purchased 2 decades ago for flute cleaning. I never cleaned my flute with it so I've been using it in my kitchen for the last 13 years. Cool beans. Music stores have the most awesome tools for cleaning little things. I've purchased several from there. Little brushes for straws, etc. Love them.

I totally recommend making these with kids!

Independence Day!!

These are just basic vanilla cupcakes.  I decided to fill them with a marshmallowy filling.  I found the recipe for the filling somewhere.  It's just regular frosting and marshmallow creme.  Yuck.  Don't like canned frosting.   I suppose I could have made my own but was not energized enough to do it.  

 I filled the cupcakes at home with a piping back.  I didn't have the right kind of tip but it still worked.  

Because the filling was marshmallow, it oozed out a little so we covered the top with more cheap, white frosting and rolled the edges in red sanding sugar.  

 My assistant bakers, Ellie & Ashlyn.  

We topped the cupcakes with super fun umbrellas in patriotic designs.  There were also some flag and stars candies that we bought and put on top.  Not the most creative or clean cut design but still very colorful and fun.