Dipped S'mores Cupcakes - Oh My!

If you know me, you know I have a love affair with S'mores. I may go camping as much as I do just as an excuse to have them. The toasted marshmallows, the sweet chocolate and crunch of graham crackers. Oh my!

And you will also I know that I loooove cupcakes, but not such a fan of cake. Go figure.

This past week I made dipped s'more cupcakes that had my family and friends in tears of joy.
Want to make them?

This is not completely original, so I'm going to send you where you need to go for the recipes and give you the steps, ok?

1. Bake lots and lots of mini cupcakes (These are a big mouthful - eating a normal size cupcake would be crazy! Trust me on the mini size.) I used Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe. And it is soo perfect! This made several dozen mini cupcakes. Bake and cool.

2. While it's cooling you can make the toasted marshmallow butter cream frosting. Don't use fluff - gag. Make it from scratch and you will be amazed by the difference! I used Cookie and Cups recipe. Now I won't lie - this is a messy endeavor, but way worth it! Frost the cupcakes high and mighty with a star tip.

3. Place frosted cupcakes in the freezer for 1 hour. While they are freezing, smash a few graham crackers. Take out the week's frustration on them with a mallet!

4. Now you will need 2 bags of Wilton's candy melts in the S'more flavor. I am not a fan of artificial flavor, it usually fails horribly. However these are so good - I could eat the bag of wafers all by myself. You need to slowly melt these either in the microwave or double boiler.

5.Take out your cupcakes, dip the tops in the melt and sprinkle crushed graham crackers on top. Allow to rest on the counter for a few minutes and you will see them magically harden.

6. Eat allll the S'more cupcakes!!!

Yummy! Hope you try these <3 p="">

Easter Cupcakes!

Mmm... Easter treats by far are my absolute favorite! I love the colors, I love chocolate and honestly I do enjoy nibbling the ears off milk chocolate bunnies. I've been searching Pinterest for some cupcakes to knock my socks off. I love single serving desserts -- helps me with portion control and it's really easy to ship the rest off with my husband to work the next day.

As I was searching on Pinterest, I mentioned these Cadbury Egg Cupcakes to my hubby and he was literally drooling before I could finish my sentence. He's a Cadbury Egg maniac! Well my short search was over, I don't think I would be allowed to make anything else. These amazing creations were created by Pizzazzerie - head on over for the recipe.

Now what color to decorate them with?? 

Our Brave Party!

Somehow our sweet Kiddo turned 5 this past week and ended up having three, yes three parties! Today was her last party - a Merida Brave themed celebration. I've tried hard to reign back the amount of work I put into these parties, but some things are just too fun! Here are some highlights..

Archery target cupcakes - chocolate of course!

 Mason jars full of little chocolate bears - just like the triplets..

Carrot and celery "arrows" with ranch dip dressing.. We also bought a ton of pizza from Costco. You can order in advance and have them baked. Easy, peasy!

Slightly spooky witch lime pineapple punch..
(OK, so where's the spooky part of this punch? Ugh. Apparently you can't store dry ice for long in a normal freezer. My best attempts to prepare in advance backfired on me bad this time. The ice had completely dissipated by this morning.. so the punch was not too spooky..oh, well!)

My husband gave me pink and purple tulips the day Kiddo was born; we have to have them present at each birthday of course.

A really easy rag  plaid wreath..

Blue wisps filled our home leading our lads and lasses to the festivities..

We were blessed with a gorgeous day of sun.. and so the kids spent most of the day playing on our swing set and running around..

And a gorgeous day requires an impromptu picnic.. There is nothing Kiddo loves more than laying on a blanket in the sun.. I honestly couldn't have planned this, I was thrilled this day was full of so much relaxed fun.

I've decided to NOT plan too many games and activities for toddler parties. They just want to play- that's all. I did however spend the last couple of nights making this Brave archery target pinata. Jam packed with over 7 pounds of candy. Sorry parents!

With so much candy, even our littles had bags overflowing with sugar..

Kiddo with one of her sweet friends..

And the favors for the party? Again, I tried to scale back but had to make a few fun things. An easy tartan sash with Celtic pin. Simple brown bags stamped with the same Celtic sign to hold all their candy. The stamp did not take long to carve and I love adding a few handmade touches.

It was really such a fun day. The parents were relaxed, the kiddos were happy and the sun was shining. I couldn't ask for more!

If you would like tutorials or in depth information on anything, please drop me a line!