Alicia Gines Photography: Birthday cupcakes! -children photographer (stockton, ca)

Your typical First Birthday Session usually subsides in a very messy, food coloring stained baby! Sure, a real cake makes for some adorable messy faced babies, but again THE MESS is not everyone's biggest fan including mine! A one year is a very "on the go" creature to begin with. They don't typically care to stay in one spot and listen and look at the camera. And if that already wasn't enough to make mom and dad stress out, and the photographer; try having very professional expensive equipment around all that frosting! EEK! So, I did like anyone else would and search around on the internet to see if I could find some cute fake cupcakes for my own daughter's first birthday portraits. The journey lead me to Etsy.com where several ladies were making these adorable cupcakes. However, they were all charging over $10.00 without shipping and saying that it would take three weeks to make just one! I honestly didn't have the cash for just one cupcake that I wasn't even sure if it was exactly what I wanted and nor did I have the patience to wait to find out. So, figuring that all these ladies made them, why couldn't I? It can't be THAT hard! I'm a very crafty being, or so I'd like to think so I once again googled to find the directions on how to make these cupcakes. I found a ton of recipes but I highly discourage anyone from using the ones on the internet. They are very unsafe and unhealthy to have around babies and yourself. Most involved chemicals and un-natural products. I was frustrated with this and thought I was at a loss but my husband suggested maybe we try something we've done before, playdough! Easy enough, safe, wholesome! So I would LOVE to provide all of you with this fun little recipe on how I made these cupcakes.

For the "Cake" part of the cupcake
1 cup of flour
1 cup of water
1 cup of salt
-preheat over to about 350*
-mix everything up until playdough like form. if need be add a little more water.
-use a real cupcake pan and line it with your choice of cupcake liners.
-put dough in the cups and fill it to look like the size of a baked cupcake, the dough is not going to rise so make the cupcake top as well.
-bake until hard (time varies just keep checking) don't bake until burnt though.
-allow time to cool, they get VERY hot, place cupcakes on a vented surfaces or else the bottoms get moist. (i found that out the hard way)

As you see, my cupcakes vary in looks so decide how you want to decorate your cupcakes prior to baking.

Frosting
-1 tub of wall Spackle (not the safest but not going to hurt you either just dont let the kids eat it!)
-acrylic paint. this will be for the frosting color. the individual tubes at Joanns is best and goes a long ways.
-you will need to get a frosting tip you can find them at joanns for under $5
-I used Ziploc baggies for the frosting bags which was difficult but do-able. you can also just by normal throw away frosting bags at joanns for about $10 with the tips included.
-mix spackle and paint color together. both amounts are up to you. make sure you mix enough to cover the cupcake though that way you dont have to stop your decorating in the middle of a cupcake...that doesnt look so cute.
-allow a day to two days to dry fully.
-do not place in a humid area the spackle will slide off.

Sprinkles & Decor for the cupcake toppings
-I used a pretty glitter and just sprinkle it on top once done frosting (while wet still) as desired.
-You can also use beads that look like sprinkles.
-For the cherries, hearts and other things on top of my cupcakes I made out of the playdough and allowed it to dry, once it dried i then frosted the cupcake and inserted it in the wet frosting and allowed the frosting to dry.

There ARE obviously some unsafe things that the babies can ingest...adult supervision is required, the cupcakes are for decor and props only, not for play use.

If anyone attempts these cupcakes on their own Id LOVE to see what you come up with so feel free to share!!!