Mommy & Me Cupcakes

I am often asked by my friends and co-workers how the heck I have time to do all this decorating and what not with a toddler running around. To this I usually laugh and respond that I burn the candle at both ends and rely heavily on a schedule.  I manage most of my decorating for customers early in the morning, nap times and at night time.  I do like to spend several evenings with my husband curled up on the sofa watching T.V. and I try my best to take a couple nights a week to do so. Occasionally I do have things that I need  get done while my daughter is up running around and you can usually find her right beside me and wanting to be all up in it.  I recently purchased this adorable cupcake set from Melissa & Doug and I  let her go to town decorating while I am doing whatever tasks I need to get done.

This set comes with 4 cupcakes, washable markers, ("icing") and birthday candles.  I also give her some of my extra fondant to play with.  She loves drawing, re-drawing and adding fondant accents to the cupcakes.   I highly recommend this product for any active toddler because this keeps them busy for quite sometime!

Yes, that's green "icing" all over her face.

                                            

The end result.

                                                             
Sometimes it just isn't enough to decorate fake cupcakes and you need the real thing!  So recently I held a Mommy & Me cupcake class at a craft store.  I am a Wilton cake instructor and love that you can teach specialty classes and gear them toward a specific audience and theme.   Since my daily life is focused around a 2.5 year old I figured why not get some of her little friends together and let them go crazy playing with cupcakes, candy and icing! For this class I tried to pick simple and easy cupcake designs for the toddlers. I settled on ladybugs, turtles, rainbows, Easter bunnies, and shamrocks.  The mommies were asked to bring 8 to12 un-iced cupcakes along with a few other supplies.  I purchased several different candies, gave a few quick directions and let them get to work.  I was actually amazed at how well they paid attention and took direction. 
                                  

They practiced their icing technique.

                                                   

They worked on their piping skills.

They even rolled out fondant!

TA-DA!! This was the end result after 2 hours of non-stop cupcake decorating!!

And this is me and my munchkin and only a small taste of the mess she made. This picture was also taken BEFORE all the sugar kicked in!  Needless to say she missed a nap that day and was up way past her bedtime, but it was so worth it!