Back to School Cupcakes

Looly started first grade yesterday. First Grade! Since Bean and Roo still have a week of summer vacation to go, the three of us made her a special treat while she was away at school.

Yes, I totally ripped this off of Pinterest. The idea is straight from FamilyFun Magazine, but we modified it a bit according to what we had on hand.

First we made egg-free, nut-free chocolate cupcakes from our trusty Divvies Cookbook.

Then we licked the beaters - one of the best benefits of egg-free baking!

While the cupcakes cooled we made a quick trip to the grocery store for chocolate covered graham crackers. Keebler Deluxe Grahams are nut-free, egg-free and the perfect size for little cupcake blackboards.

Then the real fun began. Bean and Roo used strawberry and green apple Laffy Taffy to roll tiny red and green apples with stems while I piped school-related messages in white frosting onto the chocolate covered graham crackers. Then we frosted the cupcakes in bright blue and school bus yellow.

Together we placed the blackboards and apples on the frosted cupcakes and topped them off with a tiny piped line of white chalk.

Many of you know that artistry is not my strong suit but these were well within even my shaky abilities. Looly loved her cupcakes and asked for them again next year. I said sure but warned her that next year, the math problems are going to get harder.

JoMo's Zucchini Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

My mom, aka JoMo or Nana, has been making this cake since before I was born. A site to behold, isn't it? It was the much anticipated payoff for hours spent weeding our massive vegetable garden and tolerating the plethora of beets it produced. Now, every year as soon as the zucchini harvest starts rolling into the farmers market, I get the craving.

Most of the time I strive for Roo-safe baking. It's not always easy due to his egg allergy. The texture on this baby is so perfect, however, that I couldn't bring myself to use Egg Replacer, which made the whole ordeal scandalously indulgent. Roo helped grate zucchini and mixed in non-egg ingredients but he couldn't eat the finished product. Luckily I had plenty of Divvies Choco-lot Brownie Cookies in the freezer.

Of course you could forgo the frosting and bake this in bread pans for a more traditional breakfast style quick bread but don't do it! The voluptuous curves, thick dribble of cream cheese icing weeping down the sides, and a sprinkling of citrus zest elevate this humble quick bread to an entirely different plane.

JoMo's Zucchini Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 and 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups raw, unpeeled, grated zucchini
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
3 cups flour, sifted

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl beat the eggs until foamy. Gradually beat in oil and sugar. Add grated zucchini, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix well. Gradually blend in flour, mixing well after each addition.

2. Pour batter into a greased 3-quart Bundt pan and bake for one hour or until the cake tests done and begins to leave the sides of the pan. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife and turn onto a cake rack to cool.

For the Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. lemon zest, divided
3 cups powdered sugar

1. Beat the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, and 1tsp. lemon zest in a large bowl. Gradually mix in powdered sugar stopping at your desired consistency. For zucchini cake I like to keep the frosting thick but just little runny so it will drip down the sides.
2. When the cake is completely cool, spoon icing on top, letting it ooze and drip down the sides. Sprinkle with remaining lemon zest.

Cake Pops and Art Cupcakes

Looly turned six last week. Six!

Between her school celebration cake pops, chocolate dipped pretzel rods for Roo to take to school so he could participate in the 2 additional school birthday celebrations of the week, and Looly's actual birthday party cupcakes, I was a dipping, frosting, sprinkling fool.

Cake pops are the ideal kid assisted treat. There's plenty of measuring, pouring and mixing, but more importantly, there's cake smashing and mauling, both skills my children excel at. And, they're made of cake. And frosting.

I'm not going to provide a cake pop recipe here because you can really use any cake, frosting, or candy coating you like. The process is what matters. If you want more information, I highly recommend Cake Pops: Tips, Tricks, and Recipes For More than 40 Irresistible Mini Treats by Bakerella.

Carrot cake pops with cream cheese frosting are magical but more often than not, I end up using Cherrybrook Farms cake mix (vanilla or chocolate) because it's nut-free, egg-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, ridiculously easy, and tastes pretty good. There is a wide world beyond allergy-free vanilla and chocolate but I make a lot of cake pops for preschoolers with allergies so...

5 Steps to Cake Pops

1. Bake a cake. Any cake. Cool it. Crumble it into a bowl.
2. Mix in some frosting (homemade, store bought, whatever) until it resembles a sticky cookie dough. Chill for an hour or two.
3. Roll cake-frosting concoction into balls. Chill again for an hour.
4. Melt candy melts or candy coating. Dip lollipop sticks into candy coating and insert about 3/4 of the way into cake pops. Chill again.
5. Finally, dip cake pops into melted candy coating and add sprinkles or decorations before the coating sets. If you want them to stand up like lollipops, use a styrofoam block or cake pop stand to hold them once they are dipped.

After we ate all the cake pops, it was time for artsy cupcakes for Looly's baking-themed art party at Magical Minds art studio. I totally ripped this idea off Pinterest, and I believe All You magazine is the original source, but how freakin' cute are these "paint" cupcakes?

Just be sure to use gel food coloring. The colors become much more vibrant than with liquid.

Band of Pipers

We had quite a bit of leftover frosting from our spring cupcakes so I let the munchkins loose with piping bags on some wax paper.  Check out their handiwork. 

Looly's first rosettes!

Overall, not bad technique for their first try. Next time I'll test their skills on an actual cake.