Monster Themed Cupcakes

I always volunteer to make all the birthday cakes for my family, with the exception of my brother's cake. My sister-in-law always makes that one. Well, this year my nephew requested a "monster" cake. I had this brilliant idea of how to make a furry monster cake. It ended up being a lot more difficult to make, and the results were far below my original expectations. And, as usual, I was doing it late at night and at the last minute. He loved it though, and that's what counts.

He also requested that I make some monster themed cupcakes for birthday party at school. These turned out much better. I use the grass tip for the yellow icing. The arms were pretzel sticks. The eyes were white icing and sparkly piping gel. I used a triangle of strawberry fruit roll-up for the tongue. They turned out looking rather happy and totally unscary. He said that his friends LOVED them. Score one for Auntie!

Tie-Dye Giant Cupcake

While this giant cupcake is mentioned in one of my other posts, I feel that its awesomeness deserves a post all to itself. I made this cake for someone who was paying me. They told me the colors and gave me free rein with the design. I was excited to try something new but nervous that they wouldn’t like it, as always. I managed to take quite a few pictures throughout the process, however, I did not get one of the batter before it went into the oven.

Here’s a shot of the inside of the tie-dye cake. Pretty nifty, right!?!

 

After filling the cake layer and assembling the cake, I got to decorating. I decided to do a bunch of round dot-like decorating. After getting the cake covered, I decided that it needed that “something else” that in general I should almost NEVER add. For this cake, it ended up being drop strings. It looks okay on the bottom, but I liked the top part much better without the drop strings.

   

Plus, when designing a cake, one should always take into consideration how far the delivery distance is. If the distance is long, DO NOT make the decoration delicate and easily to ruin. This cake had a 30 mile commute, and I was a total wreck the entire time. It made it safely to the person who commissioned it, but then the box got angry and decided to flick the drop strings with the inner flap. This is why I do not bake for people all the time. Too much stress.

I have a few helpful hints about making a tie-dye cake. I just made one batch of cake batter. I divided it evenly (mostly) into two bowls and then added the food coloring. You don't need to be exact when you divide it out. It isn't supposed to be perfect. Next, you spoon the batter into the pan in a haphazard fashion so it looks all mixed up and wild once it is cooked. I’ve found that you have to be a little careful when adding the batter, or rather after you have added all the batter. If there is air in between the color sections, the cake won’t bake right. It will create bubbles or pockets and the cake will fall apart like a shoddy 3D puzzle. I found it best to tap the pan several times to help the cake batter settle and integrate. You can also try running a knife through the batter a few times, which also creates a swirled pattern in the batter. Just don’t use the knife too much or you might end up with “ick” instead of the separate colors.