• 1 Tablespoon Lemonade (or vodka…most of my cakes are kid cakes so I feel a little weird about using vodka and lemonade works great)
• Gel Food Coloring (color(s) to meet your specific designing needs.

Instructions

1. Put lemonade in a shallow dish or palate
2. Start adding your first gel color, remember you can always add more, so use a toothpick and dip it into the color and stir the lemonade with this.
3. Add the color or combination of colors until you achieve your desired color.

To paint the griddle marks on the pictures above I used:

brown as my base color, and added golden yellow, copper and a VERY SMALL amount of burgundy to make the colors you see on my son’s cake top and sides.

Take your Yellow Cake Base Recipe and add two things before you batter your pans.

1) Cinnamon

2) Nutmeg

No, I am not kidding you! It is THAT easy (and delicious!). As not to confuse anyone clicking back and fourth, I will re-write the ingredients and instructions here for your convenience.

Ingredients

• 3 cups Cake Flour, sifted
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs (room temp)
• 1 cup milk (room temp)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• ½ tablespoon nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions

1. Sift flour with baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. (Bowl 1)
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy in your blending bowl. (Bowl 2)
3. Crack eggs into their own small bowl (Bowl 3)
4. Beat butter and sugar mix at a medium speed, adding eggs one at a time. (pour them in there, they will plop out one at a time if you go slow) (Bowl 2)
5. Add flavor extracts. Reblend (Bowl 2)
6. Add spices (nutmeg and cinnamon). Reblend (Bowl 2)
7. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, creaming until smooth after each addition. (Bowl 2)
8. Pour into a SprayJoy’ed Pan of Choice (10-inch bundt pan or (3) 9 inch round pans, (2) 8 inc round pans or cupcake pans how many cupcakes you yield will depend upon the size and how full you fill your pans. I fill mine ½ full and yield 3 dozen cupcakes.
9. Bake at 325 degrees and bake. 1 hour and 25 minutes (one hour for round cake pans). 15-18 min. for cupcakes. 1 HOUR for the jumbo cupcake pan I used for Poppy’s smash cake.
10. Cool in pan 10+ minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack.

These cupcakes were also on the tray for my son’s 1st birthday.  I just used my leftover french toast cake batter and made cupcakes, then pipped on leftover maple frosting and added a cute little fondant mini pancake and drizzle.  HUGE HIT!

When I started this, I had only PLANNED on making Poppy’s Pancake Stack Smash Cake and my awesomely generous Mother-In-Law took care of ordering the cupcakes for the guests which I planned on topping with mini fondant pancakes and drizzle (like above but white cake and vanilla buttercream) to fit the theme.  However, with all the practice I had done I ended up with more silver dollar stacks and those cupcakes pictured above.

Do you like the theme, and the idea of dressing up an ordinary ordered cupcake to fit your theme? Check out these pictures below: