Cupcake Sugar Cookie Cutouts

Baking and decorating isn't the same if I don't step on sprinkles of crunchy rainbows that fell on my kitchen floor tiles,  find frosting in my curly hair, and wonder if I should ever wash my pants again, because smears of glittery frosting on my pants from a fun night of baking looks so pretty! (Sprinkly frosting colored denim line in the future of Amanda Cupcake? Perhaps..)

For Cupcake Lovers that might want to try something new..

 ♥Sugar Cookies♥ that are inspired by cupcakes, layered with Sprinkles, White Whipped Buttercream Frosting, and topped with a bright red sparkly cherry! 

........My cupcake sugar cookies resemble the cupcakes I made last year (they were filled with sprinkles)!

This was really easy. You push a hole down into the middle of the cupcake with a cupcake corer and fill that empty spot with any sprinkles you wish).

The sugar cookies I make are soft, not crunchy. (I leave the crunchy texture up to the sprinkles). I cut the sugar cookie dough with a cupcake cookie cutter about 1/4"-1/2" thick and bake them just until they are done on a lower oven temperature.  This cookie is the perfect BFF with a fluffy marshmallow cream frosting!  I don't believe in a thin glaze of frosting (that's just my own cupcake religion).  I firmly believe in piling on puffy swirls of frosting.

 Isn't that what dreams are made of?

How a Cupcake Sugar Cookie is born:

1.  Roll out the dough so it is 1/4"-1/2" thick (see recipe for making the sugar cookie dough below).

2. Use a cupcake cookie cutter to cut out your shapes, and bake on parchment paper at around 325 for 10-15 minutes (depending on your oven. You don't want to overbake the cookies, but you don't want them to come out raw. You want a happy medium).

3.  Fill a piping bag with Marshmallow Cream frosting (I am using a 1A round decorating tip in my piping bag (see recipe below).

4.  Frost the cupcake liner section of the sugar cookie.  While the frosting is still creamy, dip the frosting in a bowl of rainbow sprinkles.  The rainbow sprinkles will stick to the frosting to create an edible cupcake liner!
5.  Swirl your frosting on to the top of the cupcake, and top with a real cherry!
6.  Sprinkle edible glitter or pixie dust on the Maraschino Cherry for some extra sparkle and shine.


"Cupcake" Sugar Cookies don't have to look like cupcakes.
All my sugar cookies are inspired by how I pipe a pretty swirl of frosting on top of my cupcakes!

Minnie Mouse Sugar Cookies (I just used a Mickey/Minnie Mouse Cookie Cutter and swirled on Electric Pink Frosting!)

Lucky Charms Sugar Cookies! (I just frosted the cookie with frosting and used Lucky Charms as my sprinkles)

Rainbow Sugar Cookies (to learn how to pipe a rainbow swirl, click here for my tutorial)

Lemonhead Sugar Cookies!
(just add 2-4 teaspoons of lemon extract to your buttercream recipe--listed below--for a lemony buttercream). Top with a lemonhead or two..or three!

I Love You Sugar Cookies, Sprinkled with Love and Disco Dust.
(I used a cookie cutter for the shape).

A Garden of Sugar Cookies ♥

Unicorn sugar cookies! (the horn is a bugle and the nose is a marshmallow!)

..Every single one inspired by a cupcake!

Amanda Cupcake Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:

6 Cups Flour

3 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp salt

2 Cups Softened Butter

2 Cups Sugar

2 Eggs

2 Tsp Vanilla

Instructions:
1. In Stand Mixer, Cream Butter, Sugar, Eggs and Vanilla Together.
2. Combine Dry Ingredients-Flour, Baking Powder, and Salt in A Separate Bowl.
3. Gradually add Dry ingredients to creamed ingredients.
4. Now roll your sugar cookie dough out on parchment paper and lay out on a pan.
5. Cover sugar cookie dough with parchment paper and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
6. After 20 minutes you are ready to cut out your shapes using cookie cutters. (I make my shapes really thick, about 1/4" to 1/2" so they are like "cupcake" tops!)
7. Bake shapes in the oven at 325-350 for only about 10-15 minutes (I always underbake them a little so they are soft instead of hard).

Amanda Cupcake Marshmallow Cream Frosting:

13 oz Marshmallow Cream

1 lb softened butter

4 T Vanilla Extract

appx 8 Cups of Powdered Sugar (depending on how thick you want your frosting to be)

Instructions:
1. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the Marshmallow Cream and the butter out into your stand mixer.
2. Mix well until fluffy and well blended.
3. Add vanilla extract.
4. Now add your powdered sugar, slowly until the frosting reaches desired consistency. Don't be afraid to add more powdered sugar-there is a lot of butter and marshmallow cream so it may take awhile to reach the stiffness desired for piping pretty swirls on your cupcake inspired cookies. ♥

Cupcakes for an Architect!

The one thing about moving back to Wisconsin is that I have reunited with a lot of people from my past..through my cupcake creations!

This order was a cupcake reunion. For Nathan.
The last time I saw him, I was in high school.
And I never actually saw him, but my cupcakes did. His mom delivered them to him upon his return visit home from Minneapolis.  I hope he loved them.

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Nathan is an architect now.

I think it is kind of neat that he took a break from building..while I built him swirls & swirls of deliciousness on top of cupcakes.

I used his architect background as inspiration for the cupcakes.  These are red velvet cupcakes, topped with brown/red frosting to look like cherry colored wood.  The "wood chip" sculptures are made out of layered white/dark chocolate. 

Dark Cherry Wood with a Cherry On Top!

Nathan also requested carrot cupcakes.

For the carrot cupcakes, I created classy looking chocolate wood "tabletops". I thought I'd go the extra mile and add a birthday candle on top!

His name is balancing on a cupcake skyscraper. ♥ It's all yummy. Imagine...your name written in the sky with chocolate?  That's something out of a daydream.

I made the contemporary wood grain table sculptures by using a paintbrush to paint  a thin block of melted dark chocolate onto parchment paper, then freezing the 1st layer of chocolate.  (The brush will create the rough woodgrain texture).

Once the dark chocolate was frozen, I poured a thin layer of white chocolate over the dark chocolate and froze the layers of chocolate again.

Once I froze the chocolate, I used a round cookie cutter to cut my wooden table tops.. and this is how they ended up! I broke some of them up into moon shapes and wave shapes for the chocolate wooden cupcake toppers!

So..Nathan is an architect for buildings.

And I guess I am an architect for cupcakes.

..and perhaps a frosting architect?

♥