Guest Post // Golf Cupcakes

Welcome! Today I have a guest post from Jennifer who is a contributor to shopathome.com. If you are interested in guest posting or holding a giveaway on Willamette Valley Wonder Woman make sure your check out my Media Kit. Currently all who purchase side bar advertising will also have an opportunity to guest post as well.

 ~Melissa

 

Score a hole in one with DIY golf cupcakes

 

By Jennifer Osieczanek, ShopAtHome.com

 

I don’t know about you, but when it comes time to celebrate my husband’s birthday, he’s not forthcoming with party ideas. Sure, he claims he doesn’t like the fuss - but we all know that’s not true.

So, when his b-day rolled around, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Knowing there’s nothing he loves more than golf, I found a way to incorporate the sport into our simple get-together with friends by making super cute (but in a manly way, of course) golf cupcakes. And also knowing there’s nothing I love more than a good deal, I was sure to find valuable coupons on supplies on the ShopAtHome.com grocery page, where you can virtually clip and print coupons on cake mix and more.     

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Your favorite cake recipe or mix (find a Duncan Hines coupon here)
• White/vanilla frosting (it must be white)
• Green food coloring/tint
• Red food coloring/tint (optional)
• Yellow food coloring/tint (optional)
• Fondant
• Cupcake holders 
• Toothpicks
• Cake decorating ball tool
• Black food-safe marker
• White nonpareils sprinkles
• Food safe marker

I made two different batches of cupcakes, but both started with your standard vanilla cake. If you’ve got a favorite recipe, perfect. If that recipe comes from a box - no problem!

Once your cupcakes are baked and cooled, the fun begins.

Using your favorite vanilla or white frosting (chocolate won’t work because, well, golf balls are white), smoothly cover half your cupcakes. Set those cupcakes in the refrigerator to cool because you’ll need the icing to be a bit firm for the next step.

While the white cupcakes are cooling, tint the rest of your frosting green. I prefer gel tints because of the vivid color they produce. Frost your remaining cupcakes with the green. You can cover them with a smooth finish, or, if you have a decorating tip for grass, go to town!

Next, we’ll make flags. You can usually pick up fondant at your local grocery or craft store. (HobbyLobby, Michaels and Wilton.) You don’t need much for this project, so get a small box if you don’t regularly use the icing. Choose white if you want to tint it yourself, or grab a primary color pack if you’re in a hurry. If you choose white, again, I recommend using the gel tint. I used yellow and red to pop against the green frosting.

Roll out your colored fondant to about 1/8th of an inch thick, then simply cut out small rectangles. Wrap one edge of the fondant around a toothpick to make a flag. Using the food-safe marker, you can write numbers on the flag -- 1 through 18 to represent holes on a golf course or go with the age of the honoree. Then stick the toothpick into your green cupcakes and you’ve got a putting green. The finishing touch for these cakes is to place one white nonpareils sprinkle near the flag to represent a golf ball. How close? Depends on how good the golfers you know are!

By now, your white cupcakes should be well chilled and the frosting somewhat stiff. This next step does require some patience, but it produces some cute cakes. Using a decorating ball tool, create indents in the frosting. Start in the center and make rings of “dimples” until you reach the edge of the cupcakes. You may need to periodically re-chill the cupcakes if the frosting is too soft, but once you’re done, you’ll have cupcakes that look like golf balls.

Now, just wrap up a fun golf gift and all that’s left to do, as they say in the world of clubs and tees, is slice!

Jennifer Osieczanek is a contributor to ShopAtHome.com.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Osieczanek