cupcakes!

 feels like forever since i've posted; i've been so crazy busy the past few weeks with the end of school and my youngest daughter's high school graduation and her softball team's state tournament run.  we lost in the quarterfinals but what a great run it was!  her school graduates early for around here, late may, while the state tournament is still in full swing, so she actually graduated thursday night and had to play in a game on friday.  the seven seniors on the team had to leave their 'all night' grad party by 1am so they could get a good night's sleep and be ready for the bus to the game at 11:30 am.  it was a nearly two hour ride with traffic and we lost. oh well, you win some you lose some.  it's been a great pleasure being able to watch her play varsity for the past four years and i'm looking forward to four more in college.  she makes me so proud.

so what else have i been doing? well, the mister bought me a silhouette cameo for mother's day and i've been playing around with that - nothing photo worthy yet, but i haven't really put my nose to the grindstone on it yet with all the craziness that is life here lately.

i do plan to make some cute wave topped cupcake wrappers for these bad boys:

orange creamsicle cupcakes with swirled orange vanilla buttercream frosting and some gumpaste star fish and a rolled fondant topper that i embossed with a cuttlebug embossing folder.

these are for a graduation party tomorrow for my daughter's best friend in the whole wide world, and her parents have been so great to my daughter that the least i could do was make 3 dozen standard size cupcakes, 4 dozen sugar cookies and 2 dozen mini cupcakes, right?

the graduate is going to roger williams university in the fall to study marine biology and she asked if i could do a fish type theme. oh yes i can!

i made a bunch of tropical fish, seahorses and dolphins from gumpaste and i've never worked with that medium before.  i was channeling my mother in law, who, years ago made the most gorgeous wedding cakes ever; including mine!  i'm not sure i have the patience for gumpaste flowers, but the fish were fun.

i also made my own rolled fondant, mostly because i refused to pay $11.99 for 4 tiny packages of wilton, when i could make my own for like $3.  marshmallows, water, confectionery sugar.  and muscles.  whoa boy, after kneading it for what seemed like 3 days, i totally was ready to spend $11.99!   oh, ps? i have like six pounds of rolled fondant left over.  everyone's getting a fondant cupcake for the next year!

oh, so you wanna see the fish you say?

earl grey tea cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.  the buttercream is like silk and the ear grey cake is to die for!  i personally love earl grey tea cupcakes with lavender buttercream, but to be honest, i think the lavender is an odd taste (to me, almost like sage or fresh oregano). i love it together, but not a crowd pleaser!

 please pay no attention to my cruddy sheet pan; olive oil does that to them. yeah, that and lack of anal retention regarding scrubbing!  they'll look purdier when i put them on a cupcake tower tomorrow.

one more photo of the fish? sure!

the color scheme presented a bit of an issue, since the requested cupcakes were:  orange creamsicle, earl grey tea and salted caramel chocolate.  the latter are mini cupcakes and are awaiting frosting, which is setting up in the fridge as i type.  i've been at these cupcakes since 2pm today, so i think i'll wait to frost them til the morning.  i covered pepperidge farm pretzel goldfish with chocolate and will place those atop to carry along the fish theme.

updated to add the salted caramel chocolate cupcakes and wrappers, here.

and lastly, the sugar cookies...with royal icing

and now i'm kinda sick of sugar, butter and chocolate.  anyone else get that way after baking?

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