Maggie turned 5.
It feels like it should be a crime to grow up so fast. Am I the only mom that wants to freeze time?
Last year all she wanted was Shaun the Sheep cupcakes, but her speech delay has improved so much that this year she actually had several requests for her party.
1. Cinderella themed
2. A long list of boy and girl guests
3. Cinderella cupcakes with glass "swippas"
All three wishes were granted.
We ended up having a Cinderella Ball. With actual dancing and turning our house into a ballroom kind of ball. It was the real deal. It was basically kid prom and it was amazing. I have lots of photos to sort through but while I work on that, how about I show you her third wish?
Cinderella Cupcakes With Glass Slippers!
My dear friend Amy helped me make them. She's pretty amazing when it comes to cupcakes and cute treats. She can do anything. Check out her blog, Indulge With Me when you have time because you will get lost over there for days. These cupcakes were nothing for her, she tackles much more difficult tasks but they were exactly what Maggie wanted so in my mind these were her best work.
I created the slippers from melted almond bark and a candy shoe mold. I purchased my mold at a local candy supply store for $1.99. If you don't have one near you, you can find the same one on Amazon HERE and HERE. If you've never used a candy mold before the process is simple.
First you melt your chocolate, melting candy chips or in this case almond bark. There are several ways to melt them but I just took a few pieces and placed them in a Ziploc bag. I then microwaved them in 15 second increments, squishing the bag between each increment, until the almond bark was good and melted. I then cut off a tip of the baggie and squished the melted bark into the mold. The chocolate settles nicely into the mold and to get a nice clean back I scrape the mold with the back of a butter knife to get any excess chocolate off.
The cupcakes themselves are just boxed white cake. Amy has tricks to make boxed cake incredible on her blog but for these were were going super simple because the kids are only interested in the frosting anyways. Amy stirred the heck out the the batter which gave it a really light nice texture. Much better than how mine usually turn out. The frosting was made with a combination of butter and cream cheese and the dye was 10 drops of neon blue. Maggie approved the color as Cinderella's so we stopped there.
To frost, Amy used a large star tip and gave each one a nice swirl. If you have never frosted a cupcake using a pastry bag before you are missing out because it is the simplest, fastes, cleanest and prettiest way to do it. I got THIS set a long time ago and I use it all the time.
Once the frosting was on, we topped the big ones with some glittery sprinkles and a slipper and the mini cupcakes were decorated with sugar pearls.
The cupcakes really were SO simple to make and made my little princess' dreams come true.
Happy Birthday Maggie!
