Sunshine Lemon Cupcakes. Lemon Chiffon cake topped

with creme cheese buttercream and fondant candy sunflowers.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! I'm taking a highly unpopular stand in my neck of the woods and rooting for the Steelers but, in reality, just hoping for a good game and funny commercials!LOL!

Today's cake is actually easy, fun little cupcakes. Cupcakes are a quick and easy way to have cake in your life and an inexpensive gift to a friend for their birthday. Of course I go a bit farther and handmake the flowers but you can buy them easily! So there's "secret" number one....topping your cupcakes with a cute edible flower or sugar piece. They don't cost much, usually come in sets of 12, perfect for that dozen cupcakes you are making, and have begun to taste pretty good. If you want to make your own though, it's still pretty easy. It just takes a bit of preplanning and a teeny bit of work. These were made with a "daisy" cutter. You can find a set of three at Michaels. I cut out two different colors of fondant, dried one flat and one with the curled up edges (just use your fingers and the wooden end of a paint brush to curl them up). I brushed the darker flat pieces with a paint like consistancy of gold luster/pearl dust and clear vanilla extract and dusted the curled pieces with dry gold luster/pearl dust. Stacked them, using a bit of water as glue, with a little dark brown disk of fondant that I'd poked a few times and that was it to make the sunflowers!

The other "secret" to todays cupcakes has to do with presentation. Dessert plates are one of my favorite things to collect but you can just use decorative paper plate saucers to dress up the cupcakes instead. The plate pictured cost a dollar at Michaels in their dollar section...yup, a set of six for $6! And dessert plates are easy to store. I buy in sets of 4 or buy them seperately in sets of 6. That way, whether I'm serving a birthday cake or valentine cupcakes, I have a pretty way to serve them up. It really makes a difference. So no matter what you are serving, give a little thought to what you are serving your cake on and you'll get rave reviews!

I'm working on a large display cake that I hope to show you next weekend. I've finished the roses, now it's just time to actually do the rest! Since I also have the cake for the CubScouts Blue and Gold dinner I may not get the display cake finished but I will have photos of the Scout cake and at least a teaser of the display cake for you all next Sunday!

GO STEELERS! (had to get that in...)

Cat