The last few weeks of a school term is generally an extremely busy time for us... Which is probably one reason that I haven't posted yet this month. I've also just recovered from having the flu last week, and, well, potentially it could also be because my husband and I have been preparing and getting organised for an upcoming holiday!! We've been married for 10 years, and going on our first overseas adventure to celebrate! ... Without our children!
So, with the stress and exhaustion of organising the various things we've needed to do for that, mixed with life in general & three kids, I sadly haven't had much time to bake any cupcakes, not to mention blog about them (actually, the only thing I've been creative with recently is in ways to entice the kids into going to bed a bit earlier)!
This week has started extremely well*, and today I felt the motivation (and that I'd tidied up the house enough) to bake! ... Not only did I bake and decorate cupcakes, I went a bit mad and baked some banana & blueberry muffins as well, which were delicious.
But, back to the cupcakes! I figured in excitement and preparation for our holiday, it would be appropriate to base them on where we're going for our anniversary...
Which is... AMERICA!
And while we're in America, we'll be staying at... DISNEY WORLD!
< insert squeal of excitement >
So. While I was at our local cake shop a couple of weeks ago, I purchased a few of those tiny little toothpick flags. American sones, because at least I knew (at the time), that even if I just did plain icing slapped onto some cupcakes with those flags on top - they'd still be themed!
... But then as I had these chocolate cupcakes made, and started thinking hard while preparing what I'd be using to decorate them, I came up with Mickey & Minnie Mouse (to represent Disney World, of course). They were incredibly easy but quite effective and (well, at least I thought) CUTE... They were also a lot easier than I imagined they would be! I used chocolate melts (unmelted), red fondant, and white fudge frosting. I used a circle cookie cutter to cut the fondant, and then cut that circle in half, and pressed them onto the cakes. I didn't even need/use icing!
Here's photos, step-by-step of what I did to make them:
Sure, they're missing some faces, but you can still tell what they are!
And then I remembered... I still had those little toothpick American flags, so needed to use them somehow! So, with some blue & white buttercream icing, and a small star piping nozzle, I made some "Oh my gosh, we're actually going to America!" cupcakes to go with the Mickey & Minnie Mouse cupcakes.
And here's a shot of them together:
And potentially a slightly more 'artistic' photo of them all together:
The countdown has been on for a long time for this holiday, and though at the time it feels like aaaaages, it's really gone by quickly, and one more day (no matter how slow or fast it feels) is one more day closer to seeing** Mickey & Minnie Mouse in the flesh***!!
* I think that I am one of those rare people who like Winter... I do enjoy 'daylight savings' as well, but when you have a 3 year old who (when it's nap time) claims "No, it's not dark yet", then you can imagine the excitement when it's now dark at 6pm, instead of 8pm!! ... And also, as part of me recently trying to lose a bit of weight before our holiday by squeezing some exercise into the days, I've been waking up at 6-6:30am to go for a walk or a jog... Again - I'm excited when I can now see where I'm going because the sun is up when I get up!
** N.B. Not tasting, which we've just done...
*** "Flesh" = Fur.
I was reminded of two previous posts while making these Disney World/America cupcakes... First, my daughter's Disney party last year; and second, when we had a couple of friends of ours from overseas stay with us and were 'on vacation'... :)
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