Weekend Cooking; Cupcakes!

Yesterday was the big birthday party.  Each year a lot of thought goes into what to do for birthday parties at our house.  When our older two were younger we had kite-flying parties, bowling parties, coffee shop soirees, and sleepovers.  Groovy Girl takes it to a whole new level, naturally.  Her themes have ranged from a penguin party (everyone wore black and white), a tie-dye party, a fairy garden party, and an art-themed party with a scavenger hunt downtown.  This year she wanted it outside (this was NO surprise as all her parties are outside) and she wanted to bike, have a scavenger hunt, and do a craft.  She called it an outdoor craft party.

This year's scavenger hunt was in a nature area that all 5 girls biked to and instead of collecting the items from her dad's long list they snapped a photo of it with her tablet.  She turned the photos into a quick little slide show so they could "prove" they found the items.  Everyone worked together to find the items and within an hour they rode their bikes back to me, waiting at the picnic shelter.  We had pigs-in-a-blanket, salt & vinegar potato chips, grapes, and carrots.

{Groovy Girl is in the tutu!}

Their craft was button-making as my husband has a button-maker!  They were able to pull objects from the area or magazines to create one-of-a-kind buttons.  Each of them made 2-3 buttons and then we ate cupcakes.

I made the chocolate cupcakes from this Martha Stewart recipe.  They were very easy and I would use this recipe again.  Groovy Girl picked out a lemonade frosting from her So Sweet cookbook.  We didn't like it even before we put it on the cupcakes because we didn't know what else to do.  She was frosting them Saturday morning right before the party.  I want to try the recipe again with much less shortening and more marshmallow fluff.

As it was the frosting tasted like plastic with that weird shortening aftertaste.  NOT what we were looking for; plastic tasting lemonade.  She did decorate them nicely with lemon zest and a tiny straw end poking out like they could drink it-which, of course, a few of them tried to do.  We have a few remaining cupcakes from the dozen and I plan to knock off the frosting, dollop some of the real whipped cream leftover from her pancake birthday breakfast and enjoy the cupcakes anyway.

In case you want to give it a go:

lemonade filling  {73-74, Sur La Table's So Sweet)

1 1/2 cups vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups marshmallow cream
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp lemon oil (I didn't use)
1 tsp lemon juice (I used about a Tablespoon instead)
1 package (.23 oz) lemonade drink mix (optional) (we used it)

Place the shortening and the cream in the bowl of a stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment.  Cream them together on medium speed for 4 minutes.  Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl.  Place the powdered sugar in the bowl, starting on low speed to incorporate.  Increase the speed to medium and beat for an additional 4 minutes.  Add the lemon ingredients and beat 4 more minutes.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme.  Click over and read other food-related posts.


Happy Sunday!