Monday, April 5, 2010

Daffodil Lemon Muffins: April's Cupkins


Hooray It's Spring!

The birds are chirping, the weather has been gorgeous and to celebrate- Joanne at Ready, Set, Craft! and I choose Spring as this month's Cupkins theme.

Nothing says spring to me like flowers.


Joanne and I have been doing the Cupkins collaboration for a while now, each month she makes a cupcake and I make a muffin that share a common theme. I think this one might be my favorite muffin so far - it's 50% recipe and 50% craft project.

I came up with these daffodil muffins really by accident. I needed something that said spring, what says spring in a muffin? I thought how about sunny yellow- maybe I could dye muffins to get a pretty spring color. Lemon seemed like a good flavor for yellow so I came up with a lemon recipe. While grabbing the baking powder I accidentally knocked a pack of muffin liners out of the cabinet. When I picked them up, for some reason (maybe my brain was stuck on spring) I instantly thought they looked like daffodils. That's when the idea of doing a pot full of daffodil muffins struck me.

Here's what you'll need:
  • Mini lemon or other yellow muffins. (My lemon muffin recipe is below)
  • Container of lemon frosting
  • Mini muffin liners (Yellow if you can find them- I could only find white)
  • Yellow regular sized muffin liners
  • A package of wooden skewers
  • Styrofoam or floral foam
  • Clay pot and saucer (In whatever size you'd like)
  • Green straws
  • Green and brown card stock
  • Eyelet punch
  • Scissors, craft knife, and glue
First things first- I baked a batch of mini muffins in the white mini liners (The recipe for my muffins is at the end of this post). While they were cooling I started cutting out my flower petals using the large yellow muffin liners.

Daffodils have 6 petals and are sort of star shaped. I folded the liner in half and cut one petal in the middle.


Then I cut two more petals, one on each side.


Unfolded I have a nice flower/star shape.


I cut as many of those as needed and set them aside. I used five in my large 6 inch pot, and four more between my two smaller pots.

Next I started constructing the pots themselves.

Place a piece of styrofoam or floral foam in the bottom of your pot. This will hold each stem and muffin flower in place. I just wedged the foam into the pot- no glue needed.


Then I used a piece of brown paper to represent soil (and cover up the foam). To cut a circle that fits into the pot, trace the top of the saucer that goes with the pot.


With scissors cut the traced circle out- but leave a few tabs around the edges.


These tabs will be used to glue the circle into the pot. Use the back of a craft knife to score the tabs along the edge of the circle so they fold in nicely.



At this point you'll need to plan where your flowers will go. I held the stems (green straws) up to get an idea about how many flowers I wanted and how far apart they should be.


Using an eyelet punch (roughly the the same diameter of your wooden skewers, not your straws) punch holes into the brown paper where your skewers will go thru.


Next glue all but one of your tabs on the circle. Slide the circle into your pot.

Add some glue to the last tab with the back of a skewer. Use the tip of the skewer to fold the tab inside and get the entire paper circle into place.

This has to dry for a while so now is a good time to go back to the (now cool) muffins and attach the flower petals.

Here is where the lemon frosting comes in. Put a little frosting on the bottom, not on the top, of the muffins.


This will act like glue for the liners. Set a frosted mini muffin in the center of each petal.


I set these flat on a few plates so the frosting can dry. Once dry, the petals won't move anymore.


(I think they are pretty just set on the plate like that!)

It took about a half hour for both the pot and the frosting to dry. And now the entire thing can be assembled.

Using the tip of a skewer I made a pilot hole in each muffin. This makes it easier to slide the muffin on the skewer when it's in the pot.


Next I added all the skewers to the pot, being sure to slide them into the foam so they were securely in place.


The wooden skewers are strong but don't look very attractive (or stem like) so I needed something to make stems- green straws from a well known coffee chain were perfect!

The straws slide over the skewers and sit on top of the soil. I cut each straw a little shorter than the skewer so the muffin had some room to slide on.


I intended to stop here...


but it didn't look quite right. These really needed leaves to look complete. So I cut some long thin leaves from green card stock.

Using the craft knife (with a sharp blade) gently slice into the brown paper until you get a line long enough to slide in a leaf.


These will hold in place without glue as long as you don't cut the line too big.



Place leaves all around the pot in different directions until you're happy.


I ended up making three sizes- the smallest one with just one flower would be perfect as a place setting or a party favor.

Now my mind is turning with all the other flower muffin or cupcake possibilities. Sunflowers, tulips.... the list goes on!

I'm so happy with how these came out. And a bonus... they even smell good! The lemon frosting I used had a strong smell, making these seem even more like real flowers.


If you'd like to use my muffin recipe, I've included it- but any yellow muffin would work great. Corn would be perfect.

And, if you don't want to use food coloring- leaving the muffins the natural color worked just fine too.


Lemon Muffin Recipe:
  • 1.5 cups of flour
  • 3/4 cup of sugar
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup of applesauce
  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup of reduced fat or non fat milk
  • Zest from 2 large lemons
  • Yellow food coloring (optional)

Add all the dry and wet ingredients (except for the zest and food coloring) in a mixing bowl. Once all the ingredients are loosely incorporated, add the zest and the food coloring. Mix until combined. Fill mini muffin cups (with muffin liners) no more than halfway. Bake at 350 about 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Enjoy!


Now head on over to Joanne's blog (by clicking the cupkins logo) to check out her Spring Swirl Cupcakes!


12 comments:

  1. Meg - Your daffodil cupcakes are adorable! I've never seen anything like them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my goodness, these are SO cute!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. These are my favorite of yours too! They look FABULOUS! Great job, Meg!

    ReplyDelete
  4. So darn cute! And I bet they taste as good as they look too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is absolutely adorable!! What a great idea :) Thanks for sharing!! :) Found your blog via Ready. Set. Craft. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a concept.. They are adorable.. Thanks, I will make them soon. When the grandkids come..
    Maggey

    ReplyDelete
  8. Meg, what a great idea! I'm linking in the Foodwhirl facebook page:
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Foodwhirl/278068522470
    dot

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for sharing!! Loove the idea!

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are adorable & so creative! Thanks so much for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. These are so unique and cute! Very creative! :)

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...