One of my best girl friends from college had her baby shower this past weekend, and I was so excited to have the opportunity to make the dessert! The theme was “Owls” and was perfect being in the fall season. I decided on Mama Owl Cupcakes and Acorn cookies because of the presentation. For the chocolate cupcakes I used Martha Stewarts, “Chocolate Cupcakes” recipe.
For the vanilla cupcakes I utilized Betty Crocker Vanilla cake box for time purposes, and Betty Crocker’s Vanilla Whipped Frosting. I had purchased some neon food coloring, and was able to blend some blues and green to reach the desired blue hue. Here’s a list of topping materials I bought to decorate the Mama Owl:
- Circus Peanuts- cut to mold her beak and talons
- Junior Mints- for the pupil of her eyes
- Jelly Rings- for her eye color
- Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers- these were super hard to find since they are a seasonal item. The only place I could locate them was at Schnucks grocery store. These were cut for eyebrows and layered for wing depth
- Sweetened coconut (1 cup used for texturized front of her chest)
- Mini chocolate chips- used to give speckled chest
- Long Pretzel Rods for tree branches at the end of her feet
- White board to place her on-purchased from Hy-Vee bakery
- 3 plastic cupcake containers to transport cupcakes, highly recommended to assemble at location J
The cupcakes were a big hit, and the Acorn cookies were also really popular. Ingredient wise the Acorn cookies were really simple to assemble. There are close to 70 mini Nutter Butter cookies in a package, so make sure to allocate back some time back because you will have to do it in batches.
Acorn Cookies:
- Package of mini Nutter Butter cookies
- Dark Chocolate Hershey Kisses
- Caramel Hershey Kisses
- Mini chocolate chips
- Almond Bark (melted) to “glue” the cookies, kisses and mini chocolate chip together
Enjoy!
October 30th marked my Grandfathers 90th birthday. Sadly, this great man passed away last January. In honer of his birthday I made my Grandmother one of her favorite cakes. German Chocolate Cake, this is a layered chocolate cake from the United States that is filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. The name of the cake comes from the creator of the baking chocolate used in the recipe. Sam German developed the dark backing chocolate for the American Baker's Chocolate Company in 1852. The cake recipe was created by Mrs. George Clay in 1957 and then was distributed by various news papers through out the United States. The cake became so popular that it increased Baker's Chocolate sales by 73%.
