Summer Cupcake Ideas

My co-worker, Tracy, sent me a link to Martha Stewart's summer cupcake collection. If you're feeling inspired to make pretty cupcakes, here are some recipes to help you. Even if cupcakes aren't your thing, I highly recommend just taking a peek at the pictures. I'm going to have to come up with a reason to make the corn-on-the-cob cupcakes...they're way too cute. I've included the bug cupcake recipe too, but CLICK HERE to see the entire batch!

CORN-ON-THE COB CUPCAKES

This cupcake capitalizes on summer's quintessential farm-stand find: corn! Use jelly beans to create these creative confections. This wonderfully whimsical cupcake recipe is courtesy of Karen Tack and can be found in her dessert cookbook "Hello, Cupcake!"

Ingredients

• Vanilla Frosting
• Yellow liquid food coloring
• 24 Vanilla Cupcakes, baked in white paper liners
• 3 1/2 cups small yellow, cream, or white jelly beans, such as Jelly Belly
• 4 pieces yellow fruit chews, such as Laffy Taffys or Starbursts
• 1 tablespoon black decorating sugar
• 1 tablespoon white decorating sugar
• 8 sets of corn holders (optional)
  

Directions
1. Color the frosting pale yellow with food coloring.
2. Working with 3 cupcakes at a time, frost cupcakes with yellow frosting. Arrange 5 rows of jelly beans, close together, on each cupcake. Place the 3 cupcakes side by side on a corn dish or serving platter to resemble an ear of corn. Repeat process with remaining cupcakes, frosting, and jelly beans.
3. Cut the fruit chews into eight 1-inch squares. Soften the edges slightly by hand so that they look like melted butter. Place 1 square on top of each ear of corn. Sprinkle with sugars. Insert a corn holder in the end of each ear of corn, if using. Serve.


BUG CUPCAKES

A birthday cake needn't be large and layered. Clever slicing and colored icing transform simple cupcakes into real delights. Gumdrop heads and licorice antennae may be the first things picked off and popped into happy mouths. Finally, something from the insect world you don't have to grab out of children's curious hands.

Ingredients

• Cake
• Icing
• Cupcake liners
• 5 Small bowls
• 5 tints of food coloring
• Serrated knife
• Small offset spatula
• Gumdrops
• Licorice strings
• Pastry bags, couplers, and round tips

Directions
Prepare: 1 recipe One-Bowl Chocolate Cake in cupcake liners; and 1 recipe Swiss Meringue Buttercream or Simple Sugar Icing. Divide frosting into 5 small bowls, and tint each bowlful a different color with food coloring.

1. Use a serrated knife to cut the domed tops evenly off of each cooled cupcake. Cut each top in half.

2. Use a small offset spatula to evenly spread 1 1/2 tablespoons colored frosting over each flat cupcake top. Then position halved cupcake tops on top of frosted cupcakes, pressing gently to adhere wings to soft frosting. To make bugs, attach tops with the domed side up and points meeting just inside edge of cupcake and extending off the opposite side. To create butterflies, attach pieces, cut side up, with rounded edges in center of cupcake (domed shape will create angled wings). Refrigerate until frosting is firm and wings are secure, about 30 minutes.

3. Prepare gumdrop and licorice heads: Snip licorice strings on a diagonal into 1 1/2-inch lengths. Use a toothpick to make 2 holes in the top of each gumdrop on opposite sides. Insert the pointed end of a licorice strip into each hole to create antennae. Using extra frosting as glue, attach gumdrop head to cupcake.

4. Decorate wings as desired with assorted colored frostings: Place frosting in pastry bags fitted with couplers and round tips, and pipe over surface of wings. Alternatively, gently spread frosting with a small offset spatula over the surface of the wings as desired. For lots of frosting, spread each wing with a base coat of frosting first and pipe out decorations in a different color. For just a touch of frosting, pipe simple decorations onto the bare black wings.