Kelly took cupcakes to school for her oh-so-important 3 and a half, yet sadly not 3 and 3-quarters, birthday.  I saw this super cute “make your cupcakes look like tiny milkshakes” idea on Bakerella.com, and just had to try it.  She used paper straws, which piqued my interest, having leftover paper straws from The Monkey Rainforest Birthday Party.  Don’t laugh at me: I didn’t have the heart to use them.  I love them too much!  Kelly and I found these brightly colored striped straws that matched the cupcake liners we had on hand.

Bakerella is best known for her Cake Pops, and I’m warning you, her ideas are just PHENOMENAL, and with one visit, you will be addicted to her blog.  You’ll want her book.  You’ll want to make a career out of making Cake Pops.  You can bet when the girls are in full day school, I’ll try my hand at some of her recipes.  Because Kelly’s class has a gluten-free child, and well, because they are only 3 years old and probably wouldn’t appreciate the time it takes to make a ganache, I changed her instructions a bit.  I used a chocolate gluten free recipe, and bought gluten free icing (most naturally are).  I also found sprinkles made with rice flour.  It’s amazing how much more our stores carry these days, isn’t it?  I used my 2D tip to make the icing look like whipped cream, and the “cherry” is a red gumball, per Bakerella’s easy to follow tutorial.

There is a small trick to getting a bag of nothing but red gumballs: I went to the bulk candy section at the grocery store and hand-picked out the red ones.  Probably not the most sanitary thing I’ve ever done, but there is no way I was buying a bulk bag of red gumballs, which seemed to be my only other option.

When I need a recipe to turn out a certain way, I make extras so the girls can go rootie-kazooty with their own baking.  They are happy to have their own canvas, and I’m happy to have my own project turn out as I pictured in my head.  They decided to turn their white icing pink and purple, use marshmallows instead of gumballs, and got to use their first piping bags and tips.  I should have guessed the following would happen:

Um, Kelly?  No.  I know that seems like a logical use of a piping bag.  But no…it’s not an icing drinking device.  In 2 short weeks, Sara turns 5 and a half (gasp!), and we’ll be doing this all over again.  Because in our little corner of the world, the celebration of life never ends!