It pos­ted last week about a site I was going to follow for ideas on Hallo­ween Big Top Cup­ca­kes, but my crea­tive “spi­rit” pre­vai­led as it always does.  Take a look below at what I made — a HUGE, DELICIOUS, GOULISH Big Top Cup­cake in honor of Hallo­ween. Enjoy!

This hallo­ween, I am plan­ning on baking a whole slough of Big Top Cup­ca­kes.  Usually, I only bake one at a time, but seeing that hallo­ween is one of my favo­rite times of the year, I like to go over­board!  I found a great web­site for cup­cake reci­pes — AllThingsCupcake.com — and I pos­ted some sam­ples of what I intend on baking this weekend.

I will follow up and show ever­yone my Big Top Cup­cake ren­di­tion, but for now, enjoy this deli­cious ideas!

Have a Happy Halloween!

Being the ulti­mate cup­cake con­nois­seur, I would like to remind ever­yone that this Sun­day is Natio­nal Cup­cake Day!  What will you do to cele­brate?  I will be con­ti­nuing the tra­di­tion of baking cup­ca­kes, but this year I have the oppor­tu­nity to use the Big Top Cup­cake.  In the past the cup­ca­kes tur­ned out disas­trous because I tried to make them big­ger than “ave­rage” but since I got the Big Top Cup­cake, BIG is “ave­rage”.  I tend to bake on a whim and create my own reci­pes as I go so I will post my crea­tion when I am done.  Have a great wee­kend and enjoy your cupcakes!

I think it may be time to move down to Boca.  On Satur­day they baked the big­gest Cup­cake ever recor­ded weighing in at 1500 lbs!  How did they do it?  With the Big Top Cup­cake of course!

What it took to make the world”s lar­gest cupcake:

• 240 pounds of eggs
• 225 pounds of sugar
• 510 pounds of flour
• 225 pounds of baking pow­der, oil, vani­lla, cocoa, salt, milk and water
• 350 pounds of icing
• 24 hours of baking time
• 5 bakers
• An oven 10 feet wide x 10 feet high

Read more about it here.  Take a look at this AMAZING pic­ture and tell me what you think.  How long would it take you to eat that?

While taking a break from baking huge cup­ca­kes with, you gues­sed it, the Big Top Cup­cake, I dis­co­ve­red the true value in the pro­duct.  When I orde­red the Big Top Cup­cake, it came with the idea guide, Big Top Cup­cake mold, and a set of 3d ani­mal coo­kie cut­ters.  I had never tried the coo­kie cut­ters before, but they sure did come in handy when I had to bake coo­kies for my grand daugh­ters first day of school.

She always liked dino­saurs gro­wing up, so I used that along with 6 other molds that ship­ped with the Big Top Cup­cake.   I was happy with the qua­lity of the coo­kie cut­ters while my grand­daugh­ter was happy to take a bit out of a t-rex!  I pos­ted a pic­ture of the 3d coo­kie cut­ters below.  Last I chec­ked, the free coo­kie cut­ters were still being offe­red on the order website.

With the sum­mer pas­sing and fall star­ting up, I will be baking a lot more.  I will be sure to keep you all upda­ted on deli­cious reci­pes and inno­va­tive ways to bake treats!

Do you know any Big Top Cup­cake eating gol­fers?  I sure do!  To cele­brate the best part of the sea­son to golf, I deci­ded to whip up some Golf Course cup­ca­kes with my Big Top Cup­cake.  They taste great and are easy to make!   Just follow the recipe below (I got it online!).

Ingre­dients (Makes 24)

• Yellow But­ter­milk Cup­ca­kes (make with the Big Top Cup­cake of course!)
• Swiss Merin­gue But­terc­ream for Cupcakes
• 1 to 2 cups green san­ding sugar
• 18 round white candies
• 1/2 cup graham crac­ker crumbs (3 to 4 sheets finely ground in a food processor)

Direc­tions

First, using an off­set spa­tula, spread each cup­cake with a smooth layer of but­terc­ream fros­ting (mmmm!). Next, pour the green san­ding sugar into a small or medium bowl. Dip the tops of fros­ted cup­ca­kes in the sugar, and then sprin­kle more on top to coat them completely.

To create the put­ting greens, make flags: Cut out lengths (3 to 4 inches) from white rib­bon. Fold each length around one end of a woo­den ske­wer, and adhere fol­ded sides together with hot glue or double-sided tape. Cut rib­bon into a trian­gle shape, and plant the ske­wer into a cup­cake. Place a small white candy “ball” near the flag.

To create sand traps, spoon about 1 teas­poon graham-cracker crumbs in the cen­ter of each of 6 cup­ca­kes. With your thumb, make an inden­ta­tion in the middle of each pile of crumbs, shif­ting it to one side to form a stee­per side or to form an irre­gu­larly sha­ped trap. Refri­ge­rate 30 minu­tes to allow fros­ting to set.

Viola!  You have Big Top Golf Course cup­ca­kes for your favo­rite late-summer/early fall gol­fer.  MMMmmm!

I am star­ting to get more and more pic­tu­res of Big Top Cup­cake crea­tions in my email.  This Big Top Cup­cake is gigan­tic (as always!) and is sure to leave your mouth wate­ring.  This one was sent to me by a rea­der of the blog and it looks DELICIOUS!  I will try and get the recipe and repost.  For now, feast your eyes on this!

Baking in the sum­mer usually has its draw­backs, but I am almost cer­tain that with the Big Top Cup­cake, those will be limi­ted!  I have always been an air con­di­tio­ning girl, so when I bake some fresh Big Top Cup­ca­kes or other giant cho­co­late chip coo­kies and brow­nies, I”m quick to turn that dial!

This past wee­kend we baked colos­sal Big Top Cup­cakes with cho­co­late filling and vani­lla fros­ting.  We went a little out of our com­fort zone (vanila filling with cho­co­late fros­ting) but they tur­ned out deli­cious!  I am trying to figure out this “polling” thing but does anyone else like baking in the summer?

This past wee­kend my grand­daugh­ter, Elisa, came over a baked up some DELICIOUS Big Top Cup­ca­kes. It was her first time in the kitchen, and was very memo­ra­ble to say the least!

First, we used the Big Top Cup­cake mold to create GIGANTIC cup­ca­kes.  Elisa does not like filling in her cup­ca­kes, so we deci­ded to just make something spe­cial to put on top.  Ins­tead of using my deli­cious creamy vani­lla recipe, we searched online and found this coconut-chocolate chip recipe (soooo good!):

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsal­ted but­ter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup coco­nut milk pow­der (sif­ted, then measured)
• 1/4 teas­poon salt
• 1/2 teas­poon vani­lla extract
• 3 drops coco­nut fla­vo­ring or 1/2 teas­poon coco­nut extract
• 4 to 5 cups pow­de­red sugar (16 to 20 ounces)
• 4 tables­poons (or more) whole milk
• Fla­ked swee­te­ned coco­nut (optional)

The result?  A per­fect, COLOSSAL cupcake!

It was a great first expe­rience for Elisa using the Big Top Cup­cake.  Our cup­cake tur­ned out great and she was thri­lled to have baked her first with Grandma!

Sun­days are always my favo­rite. My daugh­ter and grandchil­dren come down from ups­tate to visit and always watch as I bake cup­ca­kes and coo­kies. Call me sen­ti­men­tal, but I always like the look on their faces when they see me bring my new crea­tion out of the oven to cool. 

This wee­kend will be dif­fe­rent– I will “pass the torch” and assist my oldest grand­daugh­ter (12 years old) in baking her first batch of coo­kies, and of course, my favo­rite, a Big Top Cup­cake! Have a great wee­kend everyone!