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 Make People Happy.

2012 ended two weeks ago, but I just haven't found the words to blog here about it until now.  And that is because it was an amazing year. Can you believe I was left sort of speechless?!  So I decided to start my blog with how I ended last year. ♥

You see these cookies? They are signature Amanda Cupcake cookies! Inspired by my cupcakes.  I believe in soft sugar cookies...that are little discs of magic when you bite into them. Swirled with pillows of frosting on top and glitterized with sprinkles and all kinds of edible gems. I made them especially for one certain boy in mind ♥

Kayden is the boy I made them for. ♥

This is his mom Tina.  She is one of my volunteers.

She's a single mom, who goes to college full time too.

And somewhere in the midst of all of this, she finds some time to help me in the kitchen.

Her favorite thing to help me make in the kitchen is my frosting!

This is Tina at my Cupcake Mansion.

She does laugh the whole time she helps me make my frosting.

On a more serious note..she told me right before Christmas that her hot water heater had died, so she had to use whatever money she had to buy a new one.  Because of this, Kayden wasn't going to get any new presents, she was going to wrap one of his old fire truck toys to make it look like new and put it under the tree. I thought for sure I could do something, now that I live in the Cupcake Mansion, a place where people come from everywhere to eat cupcakes.

This was my Facebook post on my Amanda Cupcake fan page, and look at all the thumbs up.  Everyone in New London and the greater area wanted Kayden to have a Merry Christmas too! The best part after this Facebook post was when Tina surprised me by knocking on the door of my cupcake mansion that night.She just wanted to come and give me a hug :).

♥

So people came in, one by one bearing gifts.

And in return I fed the town of New London cupcakes ♥

I liked these special handmade ornaments that were especially custom made for Tina & Kayden because they will tell a story even when Kayden outgrows all his toys.

On Christmas Eve ♥

I gave him all his presents donated from the town of New London..and some donations even came through the mail from other states! He didn't open them on Christmas Eve though, I made sure to pile them all in a big bag-so he could unwrap them all on Christmas morning!

♥ This picture makes me smile, and giggle a bit. But really..it shows that cupcakes are a wonderful medium to make a big difference in one person's life. 

Like a kid in a cupcake shoppe, I let him pick whatever treat he wanted. He dove for a signature M&M sugar cookie!

This was Kayden's variety pack (his selections from the cupcake mansion)...

Some of my best cupcakes of the year:

♥A chocolate Snowman that I built out of frosting & oreo cookies

♥A chocolate peanut butter Rudolph with a shiny m&m nose

♥A sugar cookie that looks just like a cupcake

♥A Cupcake with a mini sugar cookie on top 

♥A Chocolate Mint Hug Cupcake with a thin mint baked inside

♥A Chocolate Peanut Butter Gem

I thought the best way to wrap up 2012 would be to focus on one big goal that I turned into a reality right at the end of the year.  I've always wanted to use cupcakes as a medium to make a difference in someone's life.  I have this huge dream of committing random acts of cup-kindness all over the world.  Some would say I am cupcake obsessed.  This is the reason.  The wonderful people that I meet and make smile, the lives behind the cupcakes.  This story says it all, and the fact that I was able to use my cupcakes to make someone truly happy..means that this dream of sending hope out into the world through cupcakes...is well on its way ♥ Welcome 2013. A year of cupcake hope!