The Lorax Inspired Cupcakes

My Lorax inspired cupcakes

I just love how I can plan on something. . . then something new happens. . .and I have to change my plans. I always joke that, "Man makes his plans. . . and God laughs!" I had my next few blogs planned out of previous cupcakes I made. . . but since I am a substitute teacher, and it is flu season, I got the phone call a lot this week. I knew some of the classes were doing some Dr. Seuss themed things since his "birthday" is tomorrow. I thought how great would it be to do a cupcake of Seussical proportions. . .My inspiration was The Lorax. Now I have not seen the new version, but that drawing of him is where I got my motivation. I obviously cannot share them with the children at school, but I can share with the teachers and my own children can share in the fun of the cupcakes.

Polaner's All Fruit

I made these an orange flavor, both in the cupcake and in the icing. I started with my favorite white cake recipe as my base and I made a basic buttercream and used orange extract and orange juice instead of vanilla and milk. I needed to make it a little different so I could make it orange flavored. You could also use a white, yellow or lemon cake mix and do the same things. I will post the recipe at the end. What I did was add orange extract to my cupcake recipe and then I added about 1/4 cups of orange jelly (I used Polaner's All Fruit). You could most definitely do this to a cake mix if you didn't want to make the cake from scratch.

I found these fabulous eyes at Walmart, and I thought they would be perfect for the eyes for the Lorax inspired cupcake. The package I bought was the Large size. It had 24 in the package for $3.50 .

 

Candy Eyeballs

I made a double batch of my buttercream icing and tinted most of it orange. I reserved about 1 cup and tinted it yellow. I flavored it all orange. For a basic buttercream that you want to pipe on to cupcakes (single recipe)--1 stick of butter, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 TBSP liquid (I usually use milk, but for this today I used OJ) and 1 TSP of vanilla (today I used orange extract).

I used the #21 tip to pipe the orange on to the cupcake. What is great about this is that it can be a little "messy." I just piped it on. You could also spread it onto the cupcake and then just put a few strategically placed "elongated star shape" onto it. I pretty much did a big squiggle all over it, and then a few "elongated stars" to make him look "hairy"

The base of the Lorax cupcakes

The next step was to put the eyebrows and mustache on the fella. I tinted this icing yellow. I used the #32 tip (it is a little broader). It is very similar to the "shell" design that you might make in cake decorating. I did the same thing for his mustache.

The Lorax with eyebrows and mustache

Originally I didn't have the nose on, and it was just missing something. I remember that I had some orange M & Ms left from a previous project, so I thought those would make the perfect nose. I got these at the candy store at the mall. They have a variety of colors.

The Lorax with his nose.

My final step was to put on those fabulous candy eyes. I think they turned out SUPER CUTE! And they had some pretty good flavor!

Packaged up and ready for some of the teachers at school

Now for my orange cupcake recipe. I have made a "orange dreamy" cupcake before and this is slightly different.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 TSP vanilla
1 1/2 TSP orange extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 3/4 TSP baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange jelly (Polaner's All Fruit)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar together. Add the eggs in one at a time. Add the flavorings (vanilla and the orange). Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture, slowly add in the milk. Fold in the orange jelly and tint the batter if desired. This make about 18 cupcakes for me. Bake for about 20 minutes.

After cooling, I decorated those cupcakes.

I thought they were super cute, and that they tasted quite nicely too. It was fun to do and fun to eat. I will be honest, this is one of my favorite "looking" cupcakes. I really like my tie-dyed ones too, but I think these. . . take the cake! (Yes the pun was intended!)

If you want my recipes/ideas for my Tie-dyed cupcakes or any of my others, you can check my archives or follow any of the highlighted words (those are links to other sites or blogs).

I'm dreaming of an orange cupcake

Tonight was experiment night in my cupcake kitchen. One of my friends mentioned how much she liked my orange cupcakes. I made them one time, from scratch, and I cannot remember where I got the recipe. So I went back to my old standby, Pinterest. As I was looking at cupcake recipes, specifically orange flavored cakes and frostings, I came across another absolutely adorable cupcake decoration.  Then when I finally focused on the orange cupcake, I found a really neat technique here that I have used before, but had forgotten about. Because of all of these ideas running around in my head, tonight became experiment night.

Orange Cream Cupcake with butterfly candy decoration

 This was my final product. As you can see, it isn't perfect. Sometimes I think perfect looking cupcakes, don't always taste the best. That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Since I couldn't find an orange cake recipe that I wanted to do, I went to plan B. It is always my plan B! I used a cake mix and doctored it up. I made the cake according to package directions, adding OJ (Sunny D because that is what I had) in place of the water. A great way to personalize a boring cake mix is to add a flavor in place of the water, like orange juice, lime juice, peach nectar, coffee (to a chocolate cake).

My cake ingredients

 The package directions always say you can get 24 cupcakes out of the mix. I like mine a little fuller, so I just get 18 out of them. Make sure you plan ahead. I have come across some excellent cupcake papers too. Reynolds StayBrite Baking Cups are my favorite (see the pictures of them here). I don't have to add Pam, I don't even need a cupcake tin when I use these. I guess that is some free advertising for them, but I figure if I am going to tell you how I make my cupcakes, I have to tell you what products I use and why I use them.

Swirled Orange Cream Icing

My picture may not be the best, but the icing has a swirl to them. It comes from two different flavors: orange butter cream and cream cheese icing. I used two basic recipes and put them side by side in my piping back. I have seen a few different techniques on how to do this, but what I did is I put the orange in first, then I put the cream cheese in. I used a 1M Wilton tip. If you start in the center and work outwards toward the outer edge of the cupcake, you make a little rosette. If you start on the outside and work your way to the center, you make the cute little swirl. I think it looks similar to a soft serve ice cream cone. I have both examples in the picture above.

My set up

If you have something to hold your piping bag in (like my container), I think it makes life a little easier.

Orange Butter Cream Icing Recipe:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup butter flavor Crisco
Orange Juice (I used Sunny D)
About 4 cups powdered sugar (depending on how stiff you like your icing)

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Cream Cheese
1 Stick butter
2 tsp Vanilla--I really like the vanilla flavor
2 TBSP Milk--Or whatever you need for the right consistency
About 8 cups powdered sugar--This is more than I what I normally use because I wanted to pipe it on instead of spread it

My daughter's cupcake :)

For the cute little decorations, I used a piping bag, Wilton Candy melts, parchment paper and my freezer.

My butterfly wings.

We were looking for a way to make the butterfly wings, my way. I tried to free hand it (unfortunately I didn't take a picture, you probably would have gotten a chuckle). I decided if I needed to, I could print off a picture from the internet and place it underneath the parchment paper to use as a template. Then my daughter (who is 9) told me that when she draws butterflies, she draws two of the letter "B"--forwards and backwards. I thought that I would give it a try. I gotta be honest, I liked that idea best. Yea for her! This is proof I listen to my kids!!! I melted the candy melts in the piping bag, cut the tip off, then piped my decoration. I left them out hoping they would set. Once I put them in the freezer for maybe 15 minutes, the set perfectly and just popped off the parchment paper.

When it was all said and done, I really like the cupcake. It was tasty. I liked the two tone icing. It wasn't necessary, but the look was cute. I thought it looked like the yumminess from one of our local frozen yogurt places. It didn't need the candy decoration either, but was a cute add on. You don't need to do a butterfly, I did my kids' initials, too. You could do any thing you wanted. That is what I really liked about this particular idea. From the cake mix to the frosting to the candy decorations, personalize it to your tastes.

Finished products, with a few decorating differences