Star Wars Lightsaber Cupcakes

This week I was making some Star Wars themed cupcakes with lightsabers on top. My friend told me I could play with the flavors so I did :) 

I made another Darth Vader cake (see pervious posts for full tutorial). It was a Ghiradelli chocolate cake with salted buttercream frosting!!!!

Then some graham cracker cupcakes (I just substituted 1/2c flour with graham crackers) topped with marshmallow frosting and chocolate ganache. 

And this is a blackberry lemonade cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting! Yummy!!!

Then I made some fondant lightsabers for the toppers :) I also covered them in pearl dust so they shimmer...a very important detail! Lol!  

They looked great on top! The "Dark Side" cupcakes are the blackberry lemonade. And the "Light Side" cupcakes are the s'more flavor. 

Very happy with the overall affect :) they look very tasty! 

Mario Piranha Plant Cake Pop

Cake Pops...oh glorious cake pops! 

I have NEVER made them before so I was looking forward to the challenge. I read a bunch of blog/recipes/tips online and kind of figured out what worked for me.

I started with my favorite red velvet cake recipe -- and crumbed it completely. I added just a little frosting (probably 1/4-1/2 c.) until it started to resemble a dough. 

Using a #50 ice cream scoop, I made over two dozen round balls of dough. 

I set them in a pan lined with wax paper, and set them in the freezer for a minute while I melted a little chocolate. I covered the ends of the sticks with chocolate and pushed them about 1in into the center of the cake pop. I put them back in the freezer for an hour so they could really set up. (I was too busy to take pictures of this step. Sorry!)

While those were freezing I made the decorations out of fondant. Using a rose leaf cutter, I was able to get the mouth shapes all the same.  

I simply added a rope of fondant around for the lips/teeth.

And to make the dots, I used tip#12 as a cutter. It worked wonderfully. 

I dipped them in red candy melts, and placed the fondant decorations on while it was still wet. 

The cake pop decoration stand from JoAnn's (for like $4) was TOTALLY worth it! Made things so much easier! 

Then I made some green leaves using gum paste, and attached them using the same red candy melts. 

They turned out AMAZING!!!! Better than I ever thought! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!! Yay! :)

Drop Flower Chocolate Cake

My mother in laws birthday was yesterday, so I decided to whip her up a quick cake. She is on a gluten-free diet and (thanks to Betty Crocker) I was able to make her one!

I know she loves chocolate, so I made a devils food cake, with PB/chocolate filling and chocolate frosting. I used a 6in pan, and did three layers to achieve the height that I wanted. 

Those kind of cakes, though absolutely delicious, are not always the prettiest. So, to make it a little more special I started to added some royal icing drop flowers (that had been sprayed with a pearl glitter spray)....

...lots of them! Allowing them to cascade over the sides.

 I also added some green leaves...

....a chocolate pearl border...

...and a happy birthday message on the cardboard.

It was absolutely delicious! I was super impressed with the Betty Crocker gluten-free cake mix! It's awesome! Yay for finally allowing many people to make yummy cakes at home again! Love them for that!!! 

I was really happy with the end result (and so was my MIL)! It looked gorgeous and tasted even better. And didn't take me any time at all! Gotta love the easy, show stopping cakes! :)