Memorial Day Cupcakes

When Memorial Day weekend came along, and I knew I'd be up at my parents' cabin with all of my family, I wasted no time using that as an excuse to make some fancy treats for everybody. Plus I had already seen some really cute ideas for Memorial Day themed cupcakes.

I thought because I had some practice with both frosting and fondant at this point, that I should try to incorporate both.

I of course went with red, white and blue colors for the frosting. As for the fondant, I wanted to do more than just stars (the most obvious Memorial Day shape), so that I could have some more practice making shapes. So I came up with a bunch of other things that come to my mind when I think of Memorial Day weekend.

In the end I decided to go with a sail boat, a flower and an ice cream cone. The sail boat is because a lot of people partake in water-related activities for Memorial Day. The flower is because Memorial Day is nearing summer, when there are a lot of fresh flowers popping up, and the ice cream cone is because a lot of people indulge in summer treats that weekend.

Memorial Day themed cupcakes

The stars and the flower itself were both cut-outs. The stem of the flower I did by hand, as well as the cone and the sails of the sail boat. For the ice cream, I actually used one of the frosting tips, the bottom side, to make the big circle, and one of the candy eyes that I used to make the minion character a couple weeks earlier. For the bottom of the sail boat, I used the top of one of my gel food coloring containers, and then just cut that circle in half. You'd be surprised at the random things you can find to cut shapes out of your fondant.

Fondant sail boat

For the bottom of the sail boat, the red star and the cherry on the ice cream, I painted on the gel food coloring. I wanted that really deep red, so I hardly added any water to the food coloring. I also painted on the green for the stem of the flower and yellow center. But for the flower itself, the blue sails, the ice cream, the blue stars and the one silver star, I used the Wilton Color Mist.

Note: When using the color mist, make sure the fondant isn't too wet (from shortening) or too dry, or you will get some patches of white spots because the color won't stick after it dries.

Fondant ice cream cone

Blue fondant star

On some of the cupcakes, the frosting was just too pretty to be covered up with fondant, so I left those alone. I really liked the way the red rosettes turned out. I even added red sprinkles to some of them for a little sparkle. I also added a star in the middle to one of them, just to see what that would look like. I don't mind it, but I'm partial to just the rosette by itself.

Red rosette

Red rosette with star on top and red sprinkles

My nephew really liked one of the blue ones, because it "looks like hair" (the one at the bottom of the picture below), and immediately claimed it as the first one he would eat :) There wasn't a specific "look" I was trying to achieve with that cupcake, just trying something new.

The other blue ones I made pretty much the same way I made the red rosettes, but using a smaller tip instead.

In the end I was pretty happy with the way they all turned out. I look forward to finding my next excuse to make more treats! :)