Creamy Blueberry Filled Cupcakes
If you are looking for a light, creamy, not “too sweet” cupcake filled with a fruity surprise, then this cupcake is for you!
My baby turned 3 and we celebrated her day with cupcakes! She absolutely loves blueberries, so I wanted to incorporate blueberries into her birthday cake and cupcakes. I developed this creamy blueberry filling because I wanted a filling that retained some fresh whole blueberries. Everyone was pleasantly surprised when they took a bite, revealing the creamy blueberry filling. The fresh whipped cream frosting complimented the cupcakes nicely.
Fresh Blueberry Cream Filling
- 1 pint fresh blueberries
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring blueberries, water and sugar to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer. Some berries will split open and a sauce will form. Add heavy cream and whisk in cornstarch one tablespoon at a time. Whisk constantly for approximately 8 minutes until thickened. Remove from heat and cool. Chill before filling a cake or cupcakes.
A cupcake plunger make it easy to uniformly scoop out the center of each cupcake. Replacing it with a dollop of filling.
Hope you enjoyed!
A Fairy Tea Party
This had to be one of my favorite parties! My daughter turned 6 and she invited a few girls for a quaint fairy tea party. The weather really worked out because we held it out in our yard under the pergola (though the backup plan was to have it indoors) and the garden was just starting to bloom. The fairies must have stopped by to open the flowers just in time for this magical afternoon. Don’t forget to make a place setting for the fairies!
The preparations started the night before. My daughter was just ending her Kindergarten school year and has been very excited about writing. She left a note for the fairies by one of the many fairy houses in our backyard to “leave a sign that they were here to visit” and invited them to her party tomorrow. The fairies really did come to visit because when she checked the fairy house first thing in the morning, fairy dust was sprinkled at each fairy house in our yard with a few “gems” or polished glass stones. She sure anticipated her party after school!
I made the headbands for each girl that attended the party using small silk flowers, ribbon and a butterfly and I found the package of headbands at the dollar store.
Her guests were welcomed into the yard by a “Welcome to the Enchanted Fairy Garden” sign and a fairy house.
I made placemats for the girls out of white card stock with their name, butterfly stickers and a fairy quote “Like fairy dust gleams on butterfly wings, little girl dreams are made of magical things”. At the end of the party I put the placemat and menu in their goodie bag so they could bring them home.
The menu for the fairy tea party was as follows:
Tea Sandwiches
Flower Power Grilled Cheese
Butterfly Egg Salad Sandwich
Ham & Cheese Snail Pinwheels
Raisin Bread with Cream Cheese and Sliced Apple
Sliced Banana and Nutella Spread on Crackers
Fresh Fruit Fairy Wands
Desserts
Chocolate Dipped Fairy Berries
Rainbow Petits Fours
Magical Dragonfly Cupcakes
Beverages
Peach Herbal Tea
Pink Lemonade
I served proper English style tea for the girls using a herbal peach tea. All of the girls were willing to at least try it. I think it is important to try new things and it was ok if they didn’t care for it, we then served pink lemonade.
I thought this menu catered to most kid’s and I avoided peanut butter in case of food allergies. The biggest hit was the butterfly shaped grilled cheese sandwiches. I had the bread cut, buttered and the sandwiches prepared ahead of time. As I prepared the three tiered server, I put them on a hot griddle, flipped them and they were ready to serve.
The fresh fruit fairy wands were made using wooden skewers.
The dragonfly cupcakes really turned out beautiful. I dipped pretzels in melted blue chocolate wafers and pieced them together on wax paper. They perfectly stayed together to adorn the top of the cupcake. The devils food cupcakes were iced with pink cream cheese frosting.
Desserts are served! The petit fours were easily made using frozen pound cake cut into squares and dipped in different melting chocolates. These could be made a couple days in advance and kept in the fridge.
We played two games at the fairy tea party.
The first was an egg hunt in our yard and throughout the garden. The plastic eggs were filled with small items that the girls will use to build fairy houses to take home. Some items included, glass stones, buttons, pinecones, sea shells, etc. The winner had found the most eggs.
The second game was played in between courses. I filled a tray with “tea party” items and covered it with a table cloth. Once I removed the cover, I explained the items to the girls and they had one minute to look things over. I then covered the tray and gave them paper to list out as many items as they could remember. For young writers, they did a great job!
After the girls finished up their dessert, I cleared the table to work on building a take-home fairy house. I found these little odd shaped boxes that I thought would be perfect to decorate. Prior to the party, my daughter and I filled a box with some natural items, clippings from the boxwood bushes, dried pressed flowers, sticks, pinecones and small stones. I purchased a small bag of moss, seashells and glass stones from the dollar store. Just a few paper plates with glue and the girls were ready to decorate their fairy houses. The houses are perfect to be kept in a dry place outside like a covered porch.
It appeared that the girls enjoyed their afternoon together and we were thankful for them coming to our fairy tea party. The goodie bags included a book on Fairy Houses and a fairy book mark – perfectly matching the Fairy Tea Party theme.
Lime Butterfly Cupcakes
A few days before Easter, I stopped at the Wilton Store and was able to sample a couple limited edition Candy Melts. I was totally blown away by the lime flavored melting wafers, so I purchased a bag even though I wasn’t sure what I would do with them (and I wasn’t sure if I could resist eating them on the way home!). Since I had extra pound cake batter when I made my Easter Lamb Cake, I made a dozen cupcakes. Now to figure out how to use the lime flavored Candy Melts.
The butterflies were so simple to make! I spread a large sheet of wax paper on my counter and piped the melted wafers into the shape of butterfly wings. Once the outline of the butterfly wings were piped onto the paper, I used a toothpick to drag some of the chocolate from the inside of the wing to the outside to make the design. Make a few extra matching wings in case a few break. Once the chocolate has set completely, then can gently be peeled off of the wax paper and carefully placed in the icing on an angle.
Beautiful!
You must try the lime flavored Candy Melts, but hurry since they are a limited edition!
Ballerina Cupcakes
My little ballerina turned 4 years old and we had a ballerina themed birthday party for her. This party theme was so pretty in pink, with a pink rosette ballerina birthday cake and matching cupcakes. I made these darling cupcake picks that looked like a leotard and tutu. The leotard was made out of two pieces (front and back) of white cardstock taped to a cake pop stick. The tutu part of the dress was made from ruffle lace trim, glued to the card stock leotard and embellished with a satin ribbon bow. So simple and beautiful. Once they were complete, I realized that these would make a beautiful centerpiece for a princess party or bridal shower. I displayed the cupcakes on a glass cake stand and elevated the birthday girl’s cupcake on an inverted champagne glass. The cupcake fit perfectly on the base of the stemware.
The cupcakes were filled with a surprise in the middle. Cupcake can be filled with many different things, but since the cake was filled with a strawberry pastry or cake filling, I thought I would change-up the cupcakes. The cupcakes had a whole strawberry inserted into the cupcake. Oh and were they a big hit with both the kids and adults!
The happy baker was so excited to use a new tool in my kitchen – a cupcake corer. This made the whole process so easy to scoop out a perfect chunk of cupcake to insert a whole strawberry. The cupcakes were then frosted with pink cream cheese icing using a large star-shaped decorator tip in a swirl rosette pattern.
Who wouldn’t want to sink their teeth into one of these?
A Cinderella Birthday
My little girl turned 3 and now she knows exactly what she wants…a Cinderella Birthday Cake! This is how I made a special Cinderella birthday party for my little princess.
The plan is to make a doll birthday cake, but I wanted to make another sweet treat that fit the Cinderella theme. I thought sugar cookies would be perfect, cut out and decorated beautifully. I had these cute little Wilton “princess” cookie cutters and used the princess crown and “glass slipper”. With 3 young kids, my surprise baking projects usually occur late at night. The first night I worked on baking the sugar cookies. Once they cooled, I stored them in plastic storage containers to keep them fresh.
The following night I made lime flavored icing by mixing 1 C powdered sugar, the juice from half of a fresh lime and 1-2 tsp of milk until the right consistency is reached. Only one or two drops of blue food coloring were added to this batch of icing. I carefully outlined the shoes and let them dry overnight, then piped icing into bow shapes on a sheet of wax paper and placed a candy in the center. Since I had some left over blue icing, I wrote a Happy 3rd Birthday message on a few crown shaped cookies. I figured that I could make these into cookie pops if I place two cookies around a pop stick held in place with icing.
The next day I made another batch of white icing and filled in the surface of the shoe using the flow technique.
Pink princess crowns! Some outlined with icing and some filled with white sprinkles.
Two days before the party, I started working on the Cinderella doll cake. Instead of using a cake doll pick, I used a Disney Princess Cinderella Ballerina doll. This doll worked perfect for many reasons. First, she already has a painted corset-like leotard in blue and her hair is in a updo. I added a thin piece of ribbon to create her blue headband. Then I removed the tutu and wrapped her from the waist down in plastic wrap, since this part will be in the cake. I also cut two thin strips of plastic wrap to wind around the arm joints because I planned on piping icing to make puffy sleeves for her dress. The plastic wrap not only keeps the cake clean, it also makes her much easier to wash off because the best part…my little girl will be able to play with her Cinderella doll after her birthday.
I made the cake using the Wilton Classic Wonder Mold and one 9″ round pan. The round layer is needed to add extra height to the dress to ensure the doll is covered from the waist down. I made cake batter from two boxes of yellow cake mix, then filled the 9″ round pan first and then added the rest of the batter to the dress shaped pan. Per the directions for the Wonder Mold pan, it needs to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before cutting the extra cake off to make a level surface before dumping it to cool on a rack.
Once the cake was removed from the pan and cooling, I made chocolate instant pudding to use as a filling in between the two layers. This also gives the cake additional height and makes it a bit more yummy. Using a long sharp knife, I cut a cylinder shaped piece out of the center of the cake just large enough to fit the doll in tightly. Now she is ready to be decorated!
I placed one of each cookie into these cute little bags for my edible party favors.
I found a use for my cookie pops! I made a few cupcakes which held the cookie pops and three candles for the birthday girl.
She absolutely enjoyed her Cinderella birthday and she was quite the little princess on her special day!
Rapunzel Doll Cake
I have three little princesses of my own and I am gearing up for my 3 year olds birthday. She is requesting a Cinderella cake this year. I will be making this cake in a couple of weeks, so I thought I would look back at the cake I made last year and start pulling my ideas together. Hope you will come back and see Cinderella soon!
My oldest daughter was totally intrigued with the movie Tangled and the Princess Rapunzel (and still is, almost a year later). I decided to make her a Rapunzel doll cake for her 4th birthday. I bought the Wilton Classic Wonder Mold and knew that I would be making at least three doll cakes for each of my daughters some day. Instead of buying one of the Wilton doll picks. I decided to take a stab at using an actual Disney Princess Rapunzel doll (about the same height as Barbie)…because how else could I recreate Rapunzel’s long hair?
Another bonus…my daughter could play with her doll after her party. I removed the dress that the doll came with and tried to recreate the top of the dress using some cheap material I found at the dollar store and some ribbon. It took a little work stitching this together, but it worked and people didn’t even realize what I had done!
I made the cake using the Classic Wonder Mold and also made a 9″ inch round and a few cupcakes. I added a filling layer by adding some whip cream and fresh strawberries in between these two layers to make it even more yummy. This also strategically added enough height for the dress to cover the legs of the doll. I wrapped the doll in plastic wrap from the waist down, the part that would be inserted into the cake. I also wrapped Rapunzel’s hair with plastic wrap to ensure that it wouldn’t get messy when icing the cake. Using a long knife, I cut a narrow cylinder shape out of the center of the cake to insert the doll (enough width to hold the doll tightly and upright). I tinted my icing in two shades of lavender, trying to match it as close as I could to the top of her dress. In between the two shades of icing, I used lavender M&Ms.
A birthday cake needs candles! This is why I decorated 4 matching cupcakes to hold 4 candles for my birthday girl to blow out.
Here was my first princess cake!
partykitchen 