Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcakes

 Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcakes

I'm baaaaccckkk.... Sort of. Sleep deprived, exhausted, zombie-fied, but I have been baking and I neeeeed to blog. Oh and I have NO CLUE what happened to my background. I saw that blogger changed its format one day and I was looking at it and I guess I changed it and couldn't figure out how to fix. Hopefully I will soon because it looks goofy. I am not an IT person so for right now that's what you get. ha ha

So my first blog is some cupcakes I made for a good friend for her kiddo's 2nd birthday. I KNOW I said my first blog back from my self appointed baking maternity leave would be killer vanilla cupcakes but those will be soon ( and they weren't as killer as I thought they would be..) any who. My friend's little boy is 6 days older than my first daughter so they are good friends and we do play dates all the time and my gift to him besides a very obnoxious batteries required monster truck that his dad just LOVES was his birthday cupcakes. Jack is a HUGE Yo Gabba Gabba fan so I made cupcakes to match the theme of the party. I TOTALLY didn't take step by step pics. I know. I suck. BUT. They are MY go-to chocolate cupcake recipe and a basic vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, dyed with ameri-colors food colorings to get those nice bright colors. Americolors are a gazillion times better than Wilton's for 2 reasons: 1. squeeze bottle. No digging around in a tub with a toothpick. 2. You use way less to achieve a nice bright color. So no funny dye taste. I made 20 cupcakes and 2 cakes. I used my wilton sports ball cake pans for the two half dome cake pans. It was also Jack's dad, Noah's birthday celebration so I made him a cake too. I am not all that familiar with Yo gabba gabba so I found several online for inspiration as well as the Nickelodeon web site

Okay. Picture time

Jack - the birthday boy patiently waiting for his cake/cupcakes

 I bought this stand just for the party. There are 5 different characters so I made 4 of each one. Aren't the colors great? Americolors baby!!

I laughed when I saw how I had outlined the eyes on some of the characters. They looked like they had glasses on. My friend Kaysie had made a Yo Gabba Gabba quilt and said that the characters looked like members of The Cure with the black around the eyes. We were cracking up.

For the fondant dots I rolled the fondant thin and used a #12 round wilton deco tip. Worked perfectly

Jack's favorite character is this guy, Brobee, so I made him a smash cake. So what if kids usually only get a smash cake on their 1st birthday, I don't think it should stop at age 1, I think everyone should have a smash cake. So I will have one at my "29th" birthday next year... ha ha.  I used the grass tip for the fur and it wasn't that easy to use with swiss meringue buttercream. I have hot hands and when I pipe the frosting started to soften up so the fur would look a little mushy. I kept having to chill the bag a little so it would harden back up enough to show the detail.

This is the cake I made for Jack's dad, Noah. There is a DJ in Yo Gabba Gabba named DJ Lance and he wears this crazy orange hat with a funky star. I figured since Noah is a DJ by hobby that he needed a DJ Lance hat cake.

Here is the whole set up with the Yo Gabba Gabba quilt in the background. My friend Kaysie did a great job with it.

Cake smashing time. Jack was already messy from the finger painting session so why not dive into the cake. And of course he wanted cupcakes too and why not? It was his birthday afterall

My munchkin diving into a cupcake

I was dying laughing she looked like she had lipstick on. I think from now on I will just do frosting shots. That's all kids eat any way...

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting Recipe

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Makes about 5 cups

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 

6egg whites
1/8 tsp salt
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Put sugar, egg whites and salt into the top of a double boiler over a pan of simmering water. Whisking constantly, cook until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees). Pour heated egg whites into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg white mixture on high speed until it forms stiff (but not dry) peaks. Continue beating until fluffy and cooled, about 7 minutes total.   With mixer on medium-low, add butter two tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. Increase speed to medium-high; continue beating until frosting appears thick, about 3 minutes. If it is still runny keep beating it will come together I promise. Add in the vanilla extract and continue beating 1 minute to reduce air bubbles.