I got these silly cupcake pedestals and decided to take a few pics with a cupcake on them. I like them but they don't really serve much purpose. Maybe just for photo ops. And why not put a cupcake up on a pedestal?
First I made the apple cupcake. I used apple cider for the liquid, apple sauce instead of oil I peeled and shredded an apple and added in apple pie spice
They smelled amazing. I also made an apple fluff filling and I forgot to take a picture of them filled
I had leftover cream cheese from the cream cheese frosting I had made for the pumpkin spice cupcakes and I wasn't about to let it go to waste. Besides who doesn't love cream cheese frosting. I played around with my Wilton 1M tip and did different looks with the frosting. Not just the typical swirl
And of course my husband asked for a giant glob of frosting and so I did and served it to him on the pedestal.
A friend of mine asked me to make cupcakes for her step son's 11th birthday and the theme was skateboards. His favorite colors are red and black. I found an idea online and made mine smiliar but not exact
Once I had made the red frosting and it turned out SO RED I decided for the chocolate to leave it chocolate and not color it black. The liners were red foil for the vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and black liners for the chocolate cupcakes with red colored vanilla frosting
I made fondant letters and numbers for the "Happy Birthday Kyle" and the 11's and the rest were circles meant to look like skateboard wheels. I found mini skateboards on Oriental Tradin co online. Gotta love that site they have everything
I think they turned out pretty cute - although I don't think I would ever hear an 11 year old boy say "cute" but he seemed pretty happy when he saw these
October means no more summer which makes me a little sad because I love the warm weather but its the start of the baking season which makes me happy. Even though I firmly believe baking season is year round. All the yummy fall flavors like apple, pumpkin, cranberry, spices etc. inspire many delicious baked goodies I enjoy to make and eat!! So I jumped on the pumpkin cupcake bandwagon first. It seems to be very popular right now
I started with a spice cake base for the cake and added in canned pureed pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and apple sauce instead of oil. It was dense, moist and smelled amazing
I have been into doing filled cupcakes lately so a friend of a friend gave me her pumpkin fluff recipe which I found out was my friend's recipe after all. Confused? ha ha
Its a mixture of pumpkin puree, vanilla pudding mix, frozen whipped topping and more pumpkin pie spice. I wanted to sit down with the bowl and a spoon, forget the cupcakes. ha. No seriously this stuff is to die for. Probably really good with graham crackers or ginger snaps
I used my Wilton Bismark tip to fill. I overfilled some since some were cracking on top -oops. Nothing a big glob of frosting wont fix!
Topped off with super yummy cream cheese frosting, I do believe that any kind of spice cupcake and cream cheese frosting go very well together
A sprinkling of cinnamon and a mellowcreme pumpkin to finish it off
I forgot I had this super cute pumpkin plate so I took this pic at last minute. I don't even remember where I got it from! But perfect to display my pumpkin spice cupakes
Pumpkin Spice Cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting recipe
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 c applesauce
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup milk
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Directions
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 24 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners. Sift together the flour,pumpkin pie spice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.
Beat applesauce, the white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the sugar mixture before adding the next. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree after the last egg. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting by beating the cream cheese and 1/4 butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth. Beat in the confectioners' sugar a little at a time until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; beat until fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cool, frost with the cream cheese icing
Pumpkin Fluff Recipe
Ingredients
1 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree ( not pumpkin pie spice)
1 package of vanilla instant pudding mix
1 container of frozen whipped topping ( cool-whip) thawed
1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
Directions
dump all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until everything is incorporated. You can use a spoon, a spatula or even a hand mixer. Yes its that easy!!
What exactly is so exciting about cupcake liners? I am not totally sure except that they are kind of like shoes to a woman's perfect outfit. You have to have cute shoes to match the whole ensemble right? So that is what the liner is to me. Sure it gets torn off and thrown away and most people don't really take much notice. But its all about today's cupcake aesthetic. They say you eat with your eyes first so why not have as pretty of a cupcake as possible. There are liner of all shapes, sizes , colors, patterns. You name it - they make it. Cupcakes are the rage these days, and I am even jumping on the cupcake bandwagon, so they should stand out to get noticed. And why not? Who doesn't love a cupcake. They even come in sugar free, wheat free, egg free, vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, you name it they have it. If you have any kind of allergy or intolerance well there is always a cupcake friendly enough for you to eat.
So.
Back to the liners. I got introduced to the brown cupcake liner by my friend Steph and she directed me to where she got them on Ebay. I ordered a few packs and made them with an order of chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. I am not blogging these cupcakes since I have twice already and its the same recipe. But I LOVED the look of the brown liner. It just makes the cupcakes look, well, classy. Instead of the boring white or another color that the dark cake washes out, these held up true to color and are grease free so they didn't have any splotches on them. I am all for the grease free liner. So you may not notice the liner the next time you have a cupcake, but to my perfect outfit or cupcake, these are my perfect shoes aka liner and I will take a look before I tear it off to eat the yummy cupcake goodness.
My recent travels to Hawaii inspired me to make some tropical flavored cupcakes when I got home. I absolutely love all the wonderful fresh fruits that one can get in Hawaii - they just taste that much better there - so I decided on making cupcakes with Lilikoi also known as passion fruit. I paired it with one of my other favorite flavors, coconut.
I first made a coconut cupcake which was made with coconut flour, coconut milk and extract. Amongst other ingredients. The cake was light, moist and not overpowered by coconut flavor
Since I wanted both the coconut and lilikoi flavors to shine in this cupcake I made a lilikoi curd to fill the cupcake with. I brought back several cans and bottles of lilikoi juice, butter, jelly etc. So I made the curd with the juice. I used my apple corer to take a chunk out of each cupcake to fill them
I love using the apple corer. Makes an even hole each time for even filling
The curd was sweet and tart. Just like a ripe passionfruit. It has such a distinct flavor, by far one of my favorites especially for cakes and cupcakes
I frosted them with my version of passionfruit italiam meringue buttercream. It came out light, tart sweet and buttery. I could have eaten it with a spoon. I added a few sweetened coconut shavings as a garnish. These were super yummy and I will make again. I might have to go back to Hawaii for ingredients though, oh darn!!
September always reminds me of the yummy fall flavors that take over the baking world, especially apples. Living in Oregon I have discovered that there are more varieties of apples than I could have ever imagined. Baking with apples, making apple cider and all the wonderful spices that goes with and on of my personal favorites, ooey gooey caramel apples.
I love the combo of a tart, crisp green apple mixed with the salty, sweet taste of creamy caramel and a little bit of crunch from toasted pecans.
I started with a green apple cupcake. Jumbo of course. I used apple cider mixed with some extra frozen concentrated thawed for a nice apple flavor, used apple sauce instead of oil for moistness as well as more apple flavor and a dash of apple pie spice
I found these adorable ribbons in the $1 aisle at Target. One had red and green apples on it, another said , "Fall Fun" and another with stripes and another with sayings on it including , "Apple picking". They were perfect. I used Wilton cookie sticks I got at Michaels.
Still working on my cupcake photography.
The frosting is from Martha's Cupcake book. I am still on the fence about making swiss meringue buttercream. My heart belongs to Italian meringue but it didn't work with trying to make it caramel. At least not the way I was trying to make it. So I went with Martha's recipe. It flopped but instead of throwing it out I stuck it in my fridge to chill and I am glad I did. Chilling it made the flavor mellow out and taste more caramel like than toffee like. I wasn't terribly to thrilled with the swiss meringue - I have made it before and it flopped and no amount of mixing saved it - but this time it worked. I just have to perfect my caramel making skills so it has that deep caramel flavor. I drizzled caramel sauce over the pecans to add to that gooey goodness.
Next time I will use green liners so you can really see that green cupcake.
All in all I say these are a keeper on my list of cupcakes to make
Green Apple Cupcakes
Ingredients:
2 eggs
¾ cup apple cider or juice mixed with 2 tbsp of frozen apple juice concentrate
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon apple pie spice
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 cups Granny Smith apples peeled and shredded
a few drops green food coloring ( optional)
Makes: 10-12 jumbo cupcakes, 18-24 standard
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Place paper liners in either two 12 cup regular muffin pans or two 6 cup jumbo muffin pans.
In large bowl, beat eggs with cider mixture, apple sauce and vanilla. In separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to egg mixture; stir just until moistened. Do not overmix. Stir in apples. Pour into prepared pan 1/2 - 2/3 full. Bake 18-20 (25 for jumbos) minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack
Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream Ingredients
Makes 5 cups
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
6 large egg whites
Pinch of salt
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
Make caramel: Pour 1/4 cup water into a medium heavy-bottom saucepan. Add 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved and syrup is clear. Continue to cook, without stirring, until syrup comes to a boil, washing down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush two or three times to prevent crystals from forming. Let syrup boil, gently swirling pan occasionally, until syrup is dark amber.
Immediately remove from heat; carefully pour in cream (caramel will bubble vigorously). Stir caramel until smooth. Transfer to a bowl; let cool.
Whisk together remaining 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, the egg whites, and salt in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water; whisk until sugar is dissolved and mixture registers 140 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.
Return bowl to mixer; fit mixer with whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until stiff. Reduce speed to medium low; add butter, a few tablespoons at a time. Continue whisking until smooth.
Switch to paddle attachment. Add caramel and vanilla; beat on lowest speed until combined, 3 to 5 minutes. The buttercream can be made 2 days ahead and stored in the refrigerator. Before using, bring frosting to room temperature; return to mixer and beat with the paddle attachment until smooth.
My mom got me a set of jumbo cupcakes pans and I have been dying to use them and since I don't ever really need an excuse to bake but a friend's birthday is always a good reason. My friend Julie is a huge fan of Sex and The City and LOVES Cosmos just like Carrie so I decided to try my version of the Cosmo cupcake and make them JUMBO
I made an actual Cosmo for the liquid in my batter and added in a touch of pink coloring to enhance the pink color of the cupcake. I LOVE how pink they came out. I also added in lime zest so when you took a bite there were little flecks of green here and there throughout the pink cake
I baked 6 jumbos and made the rest of the batter regular sized. They looked so tiny compared to the jumbo. And made me think why have I been making regular sized all this time when we could be eating Jumbo. If I had made mini's that would have been eating like popcorn - by the handful. Ha ha.
I then made another cosmo - how I didn't get a buzz during this process I do not know - and reduced it into a glaze which I brushed over the still warm cupcakes with a pastry brush. I really wanted that cosmo flavor infused into the cake.
I used a few teaspoons of the cosmo reduction in the buttercream and added pink sprinkles. I made little lime curls to garnish. I had attempted making candied limes but I didn't do them right so that is another item on my list of things to try to do. Another time
What girl doesn't love the girliest of girly drinks made into a cupcake!!
These tasted amazing!!
Cosmopolitan Cupcakes with Cosmopolitan Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter room temp
2 cups sugar
2 eggs room temp
1/2 tsp salt
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cup Cosmopolitan ( recipe to follow)
zest of 1 lime
Red paste or gel food coloring.(optional, if you would like a stronger reddish tint in the cake)
Directions:
Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line muffin pans with cupcake papers.
With a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add the eggs 1 at a time and beat until well combined. Add the lime zest
Combine all dry ingredients in a separate bowl and set aside
Make the cosmopolitan and measure out 1 ½ cups in a separate bowl.
Add in 1 cup each of the dry and wet mixtures alternately, beating on low until the whole mixture is well combined.
Fill cups with batter two-thirds full. Bake at 350 F for 18-22 minutes or until cupcakes
spring back in the middle when touched lightly. Cool for 10 minutes in pan.
For glaze:
1/2 cup cosmopolitan
Heat the cosmopolitan over med heat until thickened and slightly reduced.
Brush with cranberry/vodka glaze when cupcakes are still slightly warm.
When cupcakes are completely cooled, frost with Cosmo Buttercream
Cosmopolitan Buttercream Recipe
Ingredients:
3 sticks or 1 1/2c butter room temp
4 c confectioner’s sugar
1 tbsp meringue powder ( optional)
pinch salt
1 tsp lime zest
3-4 tbsp of the Cosmopolitan (or more until you reach desired consistency)
red food coloring
Directions:
Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time beating well with each addition. Add the meringue powder and the salt. Mix in the zest. Add the Cosmopolitan one tablespoon at a time until you reach desired consistency.
Garnish with: (optional)
Dusting of Lime zest
Dried cranberries
Cosmopolitan Cocktail Recipe
Ingredients:
1 (1.5 fluid ounce) jigger vodka (cranberry or any citrus vodka works best)
1/2 fluid ounce cointreau
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1 1/2 fluid ounces cranberry juice
1 twist lime zest, garnish
Directions
Pour all the ingredients into a shaker with lots of ice. Shake vigorously for several seconds and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime twist.
This is for one drink or roughly 3 ounces of a cocktail. I needed about 15 ounces (I think) so I converted it to 5 servings. I may have had enough I can’t remember since I made this recipe a while ago but here it is .
Ingredient amount for roughly 15 ounces.
5 (1.5 fluid ounce) jiggers vodka (cranberry or any citrus vodka works great)
1/4 cup and 1 tablespoon cointreau
1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons fresh limejuice
3/4 cup and 3 tablespoons cranberry juice
5 twists lime zest, garnish
You can always err on the side of needing more and make more. And if there are leftovers you get a martini glass out and fill with the remaining cosmo and drink up!!
Side note : this recipe makes a lot of cupcakes. Because I made jumbos and the rest regular size I really don't know how many it makes if you do all jumbo or all regular. Bake the jumbos about 25-28 min and the regulars 18-22 min.
This year we decided to plant sunflowers in our garden. I thought, "oh how pretty I love sunflowers" Little did I know that we were going for world record sized sunflowers. They grew and grew and grew. One is over 10 feet in height. Amazing So when they finally started to bloom and open I was excited to see how big and pretty they got and was instantly inspired to try making some sunflower cupcakes
The cake is the dark chocolate cupcake ( the same ones I made for the dark chocolate peanut butter ones) and I had leftover IMBC from the pineapple cakes that was already dyed green and yellow. I used my Wilton leaf tips 68 and 71 for the leaves and the petals
For the centers I sprinkled in some chocolate jimmies. I think they came out pretty good.
This is the flower on our 10 foot plant. Look at all the pollen on the leaves. These put a huge smile on my face. Sunflowers are just so happy. And we have some seriously happy honeybees in our yard right now because of these!
Most of the time I make cupcakes from scratch. I rather enjoy making a GIANT mess in my kitchen. Especially since my mom bought me a new KitchenAid stand mixer for my birthday this year. The big boy 6QT professional model. She has gotten her money's worth already that's for sure. But sometimes I make a batch of cupcakes from a box mix. I am not always fond of the commercial taste of some box mixes but my friend Steph told me that there was a new one out that was now her fave, DARK chocolate. Being that the only type of chocolate I like is dark I had to try. So I made a batch of 24 and made two different frostings. One was a prior fave of many, the creamy peanut butter frosted ones. The others I will blog about here soon. My twist on these was that I added in cold coffee that I had brewed earlier in the day instead of water in the mix for a richer flavor. I tend to substitute other liquids instead of water for a less box like flavor. I will also add in extracts, spices etc.
I am using my GIANT pastry tip that I now love. Its like the Wilton 1M on steroids. ha ha
The cupcakes are so dark you can hardly see them. I added in a few dark choc chips on top. These were a hit at my husband's work. He told me people asked for my recipe! Now that's a box mix worth using over and over.
I am actually glad my old hair salon is no longer in business. It was getting too fattening to get my hair cut. I would go on Saturday mornings to get my hair done and hang out with my friend Jenny that does my hair. And the minute I walked in I would smell these amazing fresh baked cookies. There on the table in the waiting area was a GIANT plate of cookies. I of course couldn't resist. They were too good to pass up. They were always the same base recipe but the "mix-ins" changed on a weekly basis. Sometimes chocolate chips, another time white chocolate chips and dried cranberries, another time toffee chips and dark chocolate chunks. The possibilities are endless. Once they were made with duck eggs instead of chicken and well lets just say I won't ever be making those. EW. One day I asked the guy that made them for the recipe and I have been making my own variations ever since.
So anyways I have a friend that had an upcoming bodybuilding show and I wanted to send some yummy after show treats. Dieting for months and months would make any sweet treat taste extra yummy. So I got out my old stand by recipe and added in M&M's as my "mix-in"
I finally used my silicone bake pad for what its meant for. No more parchment paper or scraping cookies off my old cookie sheets. Silicone is the way to go. Easy cookie removal and cleanup
Don't they look yummy?
They smelled amazing and tasted great. The colors from the M&M's bled a little into the cookie and they always come out a little different each time. Some thicker, some flatter. But always good. My favorite mix in is dark chocolate chips, walnuts and dried cherries. OH MY!!
Recipe - MY OWN
Best Ever Oatmeal Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour (you can sub in 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour for one of the cups of AP flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup aka 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar ( can use white or organic)
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
4 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups oats ( quick cooking or whole oats)
*** ADD INS – see my notes after directions
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 Deg F.
Whisk together dry ingredients ( flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) and set aside. Do this in a bowl of some sort not just on the counter
In mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer beat the butter for 30 seconds on medium speed then add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy. Just a few mintues you don’t want to over beat
Add in the eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition then add in the vanilla and milk. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until well blended and then mix in the oats on low speed as well. Fold in your ADD IN ingredients
Place rounded tablespoons of dough on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool for a min on the baking sheet then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
This recipe makes like 70 cookies if smaller cookies are made, Probably around 50-60 if you make bigger and 40 if you eat half the dough while making them. Ha ha
ADD INS
Spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, apple pie spice etc… ( add a tsp or so in with the dry ingredients
Dried fruit – raisins, cranberries, cherries, pineapple, coconut, apple
Some of my favorite combos of ADD INS are
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips, 1 cup chopped walnuts, 1 cup raisins and cinnamon
2 cups DARK chocolate chips, 1 cup chopped dried cherries
2 cups white chocolate chips, 1 cup dried pineapple pieces, ½ cup sweetened shredded coconut, ½ cup chopped macadamia nuts
1 cup chopped caramel pieces (or toffee bits), 1 cup dried apple diced up, 1 cup chopped pecans and 1 tsp apple pie spice added in to dry ingredients ( this is for the caramel apple oatmeal cookie)
I bag of peanut butter M&Ms
The possibilities are endless. You can also go for “Kitchen Sink” cookies and throw in any combo of whatever add in ingredients you have on hand. Go crazy put anything in. These cookies are super yummy!!
You can make the cookie dough ahead of time and freeze or refrigerate. Just thaw before baking so you can actually get the dough out of the bowl. Ha ha
I have been seriously MIA from my blog. These past few weeks have been CRAZY to say the least. I have been baking and I forgot to take pics of some of the things I have baked. I made some awesome zucchini banana muffins with fresh zucchini from our garden but since this is a cupcake blog ( for the most part) I decided that those were WAAYYYY to healthy to post. And I also baked some killer oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for a friend but I lost those pics. Boo.
On to why I was so busy. It was my daughters first birthday! Her nickname was "Pineapple" when I was pregnant so I had to have a pineapple themed party. And I had to do a pineapple cake. I was just going to make her a mini cake and make a larger one for the rest of the party goers but I got an idea in my head to make an upright cake and make it look like the cool Maui Gold spiky pineapples. I made a bigger cake from the Wilton pineapple shaped pan and I have this really cuet cast iron pan that makes 6 mini pineapple shaped cakes - meant for pineapple upside down. So my original idea was for 6 minis. So what I did instead was frost the minis together with IMBC ( Italian meringue buttercream) and then cover with green and pipe light and medium yellow blobs all over to make it look pineappley. I made the leaves/topper out of gum paste I dyed green to match. I think it came out great. I decorated the rest of the cakes the same way. The actual cake was a pineapple cake recipe I found online and the BIG cake had a layer of buttercream and pineapple curd I made from scratch. The cake itself was tasty and not too sweet. I LOVE italian meringue buttercream. It is more buttery than sugary. I don't like the too sugary frostings.
She had her own mini cake to dive into
The table set with the cakes. And oh yeah I forgot I also made pineapple sugar cookies AND candies to go with as party favors
A friend of mine asked me to make a Minnie Mouse themed cake with matching cupcakes for her 4 year old's birthday. She had seen some cakes online and loved this idea. This was my first time making a stacked cake
I made the cakes at my house and assembled at her house. I didn't want to transport the cake stacked and risk it falling. The bottom tier was a chocolate fudge cake with a strawberry buttercream filling. Homemade marshmallow fondant covering it. The second tier was a vanilla cake with lemon buttercream filling and marshmallow fondant dyed pink to match Minnie mouse's dress on the napkins for the party. The top was a Wilton sports ball pan - just half -made with chocolate fudge, buttercream and black Satin Ice fondant. I wasn't about to attempt dyeing fondant black. I had to make black royal icing to "glue" the ears to the top and my hands were purple from just that little amount. The bow is fondant mixed with some gum tex so it would harden up and stay on the head and not get droopy. I also "glued" that on with royal icing. The ears are the Satin Ice fondant mixed with gum tex. The cupcakes are chocolate with chocolate frosting. Oreos for the ears and pink fondant bows. I had also made fondant bows for the minnie cutouts on the bottom tier.The wrappers are pink with white polka dots but because of the cupcakes being dark the wrappers kind of got lost. They were super cute
Here it is all set up. The "dots" are buttercream. The look on the birthday girl's face was worth all the work I put into this.
