I realize I am terribly late on this post. However, don’t think of this as just being an Irish themed cupcake – It can be spring too! Remove the pot of gold..put a bunny..or a flower..or something else Spring-y! I must admit; it does make an adorable St Patricks cupcake though! I do not want to take the full on credit for making this cupcake, I was inspired when I googled “St Patricks Cupcakes”. This is the post I had found – Cakexplosion Blog

I wanted to take this idea and make it my own.  So I thought in the spirit of St Pattys I wanted to add a pot of gold.  I went and picked up some fondant.  Of course the boxes were in the wrong spot and this massive box was in the $7.99 spot..I come to find out it was really $19.99 so instead of getting a lot of fondant at an incredible price..I got a lot of fondant for the true price..sigh..oh well.  I dyed the fondant black with gel food coloring.  I just flatten out my fondant, dab a little in the center and just knead it until its done.  I highly recommend gloves for this!  After my fondant was dyed black, I rolled each one up into a fairly small ball, just about the size of a finger tip.  I made a small well with my pinky and filled it with royal icing.  All I do for this is a small amount of powdered sugar, meringue power and water to desired consistency.  I then dyed it with the closest color to gold I had.  I then sprinkled Wilton’s Yellow Pearl Sprinkles in the center.  Voila! I have a pot of gold!

To save you alot of trouble in finding those stinkin’ rainbow candies – I found them at Walgreens after checking many stores for them.  They are a rainbow sour candy ‘belt’ made by Airheads.

Now as I say time and time again.  I do not bake!! I am far more interested in the decorating part.  If someone would just make and cool batches of cupcakes for me for me to just decorate, I would be absolutely thrilled!  That being said, I clearly do not make my own cupcake recipes.  This recipe I found came from Joy of Baking  .  It is one of my favorite tried and true chocolate cupcake recipes.

Chocolate Cupcakes

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla

1. Combine cocoa and boiling water, mix well until you perfectly blend in all cocoa.
2. Cream together butter and sugar, add vanilla, salt and eggs
3. Slowly temper in cocoa and water mixture, mixing vigorously to not scramble eggs or melt butter.
4. Add flour and blend well.
5. Pour into desired sized muffin tins and bake @ 350 degrees until a toothpick comes out clean, about 10-12 min

While cupcakes are cooling make the buttercream frosting.  My favorite is Wiltons buttercream –

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup crisco
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tablespoons milk

Blend all ingredients until fluffy.  Reserve a small amount of white butter cream and set aside, add green food coloring to the rest.

Spread a small amount of green frosting to each cupcake.  There is no need to make it perfect! Add two small dollops of white for clouds.

I do have a friendly warning – those candy rainbows and very flimsy! They will bend and lean if you make them too long.  The first time I made these I only cut them in half, the second time I cut them into thirds and it didn’t lean as much as it did when it was just cut in half.  Stick each end of the rainbow into the clouds.  Place a pot of gold under the rainbow and sprinkle a few extra yellow pearls around it.  Then finally, you need to take pics because they are so darn cute!

Logan definitely enjoyed the cupcakes!