I can't seem to host a gathering without baking cupcakes. So after my Halloween efforts I started up my Kitchenaid again and whipped up some Melbourne Cup themed cupcakes.

My original idea was to recreate the race using cupcakes and horsie cupcake toppers. I had grand plans of 24 cupcakes with cupcake toppers showing the colours of each horse and jockey in the race. I even wanted to make a finishing post and fence out of fondant. Of course, ultimately I didn't have time for these pipe dreams.

I ended up making 15 chocolate cupcakes. I iced these with green butter cream using my special "grass" tip. I made cupcakes toppers by meshing horse clipart and jockeys from the form guide. I only had time to do two different jockeys. I went with Red Cadeaux and Niwot cause their silks were pretty.

So not the fantabulous idea that I originally had but in the end not totally unfortunate looking. And they were taaaaaaaasty. That's all that matters really.

Now that I'm on uni break I've got more time for fun stuff. Yay! I couldn't pass up a chance to make Halloween cupcakes. Especially as Sarah and Duncan gave me a great book, Zombie Cupcakes, to use as inspiration. After seeing Not Quite Nigella's Haunted House cupcakes, I knew that I wanted to try them out too.

I think they turned out pretty well. The cake bit is gluten-free vanilla cupcakes. The tops are yellow coloured fondant decorated with black food colouring. The decorations were a Wilson team effort. Andrew is a much better artist than me so he drew the haunted houses using a food colouring pen. I then completed the pictures (by colouring in between the lines. I'm so clever!).

One mishap. The black food colouring didn't dry properly on the cupcake toppers so everyone who ate them ended up with black lips (oops!). Not sure what I need to do to make the colouring set.

To mark Fushmush's 10th birthday I made fushie cupcakes. It was another flash of pinspiration. They are vanilla cupcakes covered in blue butter cream icing. The scales of the fish are Smarties and M&M's, the eyes are M&M's minis and the beak is half a Jelly Bean. Do they look like fishies? I think they need a tail as well.


They look like fish if I do this *glub glub glub*.

I'm a big fan of themes for parties, so I'm pretty excited that I now have a new person to party style for. Unlike Andrew, Evie isn't able to voice her objections to the themes that I pick.

After a little bit of pin-spiration I decided on a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme for Evie's welcome party. When Evie was a newborn we called her our very hungry caterpillar. It seemed like all she did was eat and sleep. Also, when we wrap her for sleep it looks like she is in a cocoon. When I unwrap her after a nap I often tell her that she is my beautiful butterfly... awwww.

But truthfully, one of the main reasons I picked this theme was so I could do a Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcake cake. I've had my eye on it for quite a while and have been looking for an excuse to make it.

The head of the caterpillar is a vanilla cake decorated in red fondant. I bought the red fondant precoloured which saved me a bit of time. It also meant that I didn't have to have hands stained with red food colouring. Although I made the eyes, antennae and feet using white icing and food colouring so my hands didn't escape completely. Did you know that black food colouring turns your hands an interesting shade of purple?

The body is made up of 48 cupcakes decorated with green butter cream icing. I used a mix of chocolate, vanilla and vanilla gluten-free cupcakes. Because I had so much stuff to bake and a baby to look after I totally cheated this time and used a box mix for the cupcakes and the cake. So the cake didn't taste as good as it usually does but it sure looked pretty.

So it won't be all baby posts on fushmush. Occasionally I'll post about cupcakes too.

Since Evie was born I've managed to get into the kitchen and bake a few batches of cupcakes. I was one of those annoying mothers who brought something homemade when asked to bring a treat along for morning tea at Mothers' Group. I'm sure everyone was thinking "smug cow". But they wouldn't be thinking that if they saw the state of our house. Baking is something that I enjoy doing. So sometimes when Evie goes down for a nap I bake instead of cleaning the house. The house may have suffered a little bit but my mental health is better for it.

I baked these to take to a catch up at Em's house. They are gluten-free vanilla cupcakes with butter cream icing. Clare is unable to eat gluten and in the past couldn't eat the gluten-loaded goodies that I took to gatherings. I felt a bit guilty about that so I've been searching for a good gluten free recipe that I could adopt as my standard. With all the recipes I tried though I found they involved having lots of different types of gluten-free flour alternatives in the pantry. I was despairing because my pantry isn't big enough for all the stuff that was needed.

In the end I decided to try the Basco's gluten-free cupcake mix. I have used cake mixes for normal baking in the past. I stopped using them because baking isn't really that difficult. But I understand the point of cake mixes now. It's all about convenience (duh!). It is very useful having all the gluten-free stuff that you need in one little handy box. The cupakes made from the mix are pretty tasty too. Now I always have a box of gluten-free cupcake mix in my pantry so I can whip up a batch of cupcakes just for Clare. Aren't I nice :D.

(Hrm, I've made it sound like Clare eats the entire batch of cupcakes. She doesn't. She eats the normal number of cupcakes.)