"D" for Dumbo!

D for Dumbo and DANNY!

I never thought that themed cupcakes would be so FUN! My dear friend Angie's son, Danny, turned 5 over the weekend and he desperately wanted to throw a circus birthday party to celebrate. This was SUCH a fantastic idea as Angie had sooo many good ideas to incorporate the theme into the party. There was a photo booth, moon bounce, different circus games, circus snacks like popcorn, cotton candy, and animal crackers, and finally, MY CIRCUS CUPCAKES!

A little bit of nostalgia: When you hear this theme, what do you immediately think of?? Elephants, trapezes, jugglers, rides, snacks like the previously mentioned, ALL kinds of other animals, etc. I never really thought about how fun circuses can really be and of course this brought back some childhood memories. Although my mom purposely avoided York Road during that infamous Maryland State Fair week in August, I still got the joy of attending the fair once I was old enough to walk on over, and the memories are still fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, this fair sometimes creates the image of trash, dirtiness, and carnie central, but that doesn't stop my imagination from remembering all the good scents and images that a circus brings.

Getting back on track, Angie was determined to tie everything into the circus theme of the party. Of course this meant that I was going to be making circus cupcakes. **By the way, this was my first, real cupcake order and I was so pumped**. It saddened me that my business cards didn't come in before the weekend began because I wasn't able to hand them out to the parents. This would have been the PERFECT opportunity to reel the mothers into my new home-based baking business, but it just wasn't possible. I made Office Depot pay for this though by giving me my cards for free once they came in yesterday!

Anyways, let's get to the cupcake making of this whole circus experience. Angie was kind enough to search for decorations she admired on the cupcakes and since it was my first order, I wanted it to be exactly what she wanted for her son. She came across a picture of a variety of circus cupcakes on Google and they were so interesting, I just couldn't resist. The batch that I saw had lions, other animals made from fondant, circus tents, popcorn, balloons, and other circus related items. I asked her if she had to choose three, which would she choose. Based on her executive decision, I made the red and white circus tents, popcorn, and balloon decorated cupcakes. These were so easy and pretty detailed at the same time. Since my Oreo-filled vanilla cupcakes were such a hit the last time, I made these, used a generic butter cream icing recipe, and decorated them accordingly! I LOVE piping icing so for the balloon cupcakes, I did them like so, added colorful sprinkles, and added the gumballs to represent balloons. The other two had spatula-spread butter cream and decorations to represent red and white tents and popcorn buckets.

How I improvised a tad: I have never used fondant before and since this was a last minute change to the tents (the fruit roll ups I was going to use for the stripes had writing on them), I decided to run to Michael's to buy sugar paper sheets. Red sugar paper worked miraculously by simply cutting them into triangles and sticking them on the butter cream. I also didn't feel like making more icing for a dollop in the center of the tents so I found chocolate morsels in my cupboard, melted a few, and made circles in the center. I cut plain printer paper for the flags and added a "D" for Dumbo and Danny! I also didn't have yellow food coloring but I did have yellow icing color which I used to represent butter on the marshmallows (popcorn).

What I need to work on: I need to work on putting a tad more batter into the cupcake liners before baking. I'm deathly afraid of putting too much and causing the cupcakes to overflow, but nicely domed cupcakes would have worked better for the tents. I need to get over my fear of overflow!!!!

New addition to the family: I bought a new cupcake stand at Michael's which fits 23 cupcakes and/or muffins, or any other circular dessert. I love my new addition to my baking business!!

All-in-all the cupcakes were a hit and the kids were SO surprised when they got to the cookie-filled center. It was sugar high central up in Angie's house!! At least they got to jump it off in the moon bounce :)