The Luau Cupcakes {Chocolate Ganache, Hummingbird, & Chocolate Samoa)

These were the cupcakes I made for my daughter’s luau themed birthday party a few weeks ago.

Since it was a luau, I tried to stick with Hawaiian flavors and ingredients, hence the coconut, macadamias, and pineapple.

From left to right,

  1. Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting and Fondant Flower;
  2. Hummingbird Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing and Pineapple Flower (adapted from Martha Stewart); and
  3. Chocolate Samoa Cupcake with Coconut Pecan Frosting and Fondant Flower (adapted from this recipe)

Here they were just before we sang happy birthday. Cupcake stand is from Target. Ruffled Baking Cups are from Wilton.

Samoas Inspired Cupcakes {Coconut, Caramel, & Chocolatey Goodness}

I found the recipe for this cupcake and knew I had to try it–Samoas Girl Scout Cookies are my favorite. The brown sugar cupcake recipe is excellent, as is the caramel filling (I made my own salted caramel sauce) and chocolate ganache. The coconut topping got a little too firm (I think I added too much toasted coconut–next time I’ll try a little less to keep it more runny).

I decorated some of the cupcakes with piped ganache (while it was still a little warm and liquid). The others were topped with a red fondant flower.

Notice the flour and sugar canisters in the background. I bought them from Williams Sonoma (wide mouth glass canisters) and added Stampin’ UP! Decor Elements to the front (retired Hostess set of 4–flour, sugar, coffee, and tea).

As you can see from the picture above, I formed the coconut topping into a patty and topped the cupcake. Below, I made the patty a little bigger, which was overkill in my opinion–and I really love coconut! If the topping was runnier, it would have definitely been easier to eat.

This was a test run. Now I know what I’d like to change next time I make them. My daughter’s 4th birthday party is a luau theme and this is one of the cupcakes I planned on making.

Yes, that’s right, I said ONE Of the cupcakes. Coconut is one of those ingredients people either love or hate. I’ll have a safe choice too–it will definitely involve chocolate!

Fondant Covered Car Cake {Boy’s 1st Birthday}

This is my first attempt at fondant so please don’t be too harsh! I am happy with the way it looks, even though I know there are mistakes and seams and uneven edges all over. The idea for the cake came from this picture.

Since this was a practice run, to get familiar with the fondant, I didn’t make it very detailed. In fact, it’s going to have another 12″ layer of cake on the bottom, making it 3 tiers. Plus, I’m going to add clouds, more road around the bottom layer, and pipe green “grass” along all the flat surfaces.

The truck at the top is cute but it might be too large in scale for the cake. Here is a smaller car (don’t mind the freakish clowns driving). My daughter doesn’t have many toy cars so I was scraping the bottom of the toy bin for these!

The topper was made using a wooden skewer and Dots candies. I made the little medallion on top using My Digital Studio, printed on white paper, punching it out with a 1 3/4″ Circle Punch. Then, I adhered it to another piece of card stock (also punched with the 1 3/4″ Circle) to make it stronger. I used Sticky Tape all over the back of the circle and then gathered Real Red 5/8″ Grosgrain Ribbon along the edges, sticking it to the Sticky Tape. To finish it off, I glued another circle of card stock on the back with Sticky Tape again.

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