I splurged and ordered these two  cupcake books overnighted from Amazon: Hello, Cupcake &  What’s New Cupcake? (recommended by Dorrie Greenspan) – totally cute ideas, but almost all the decorations are candy, and I knew the kids would just eat it.

Hello, Cupcake has the cupcake garden idea – dip frosted cupcakes into crushed Oreo dirt and then decorate with lettuces, radishes, carrots and peas. Marzipan vegetables would be more traditional; instead, they use all kinds of candy ingeniously to make the veggies. Jolly Rancher, Starburst & Airhead fruit chews, M&Ms, green licorice laces (pea vines). I especially like the lettuce – cornflakes coated with green icing, arranged around a little ball of green Jolly Rancher on top of the dirt-covered cupcake. And of course, in the book, the cupcakes are arranged in neat rows. They even have plans for end of the row signs, the seed packs that say what vegetable is where – frosted graham crackers on pretzel sticks glued on with chocolate. Martha’s got a carrot cake with a marzipan vegetable garden on top – it was published back when my kids were about 8 & 9, and we were always going to make it – John and I both love marzipan – but we just never did. This candy version we might’ve accomplished.

I provided yogurt raisons, gummy worms, teddy grahams, dried papaya stick carrots, banana chips, coconut, and toasted pea crisps. I forgot to bring the mint I bought at the farmers’ market for leafs, but the birthday girl’s family brought a big bunch from home. The kids’ garden came out a little messier than the book – looking at the cupcakes the dad said, “That’s what I love about you kids – no holding back – whatever we’ve got goes on the cupcake”.

I was going to start by having us make Farm Cakes – they’d have baked while we decorated and the kids could’ve taken them home – but it seemed like too much for one party. We mixed up two flavors of icing: chocolate sour cream & strawberry drizzle – decorated, ate, and opened presents. There was maybe a 15 minutes span when we needed something to do, and the dad started a game of Twister. Oh, and the birthday girl was completely surprised!

Stuck banana bread cupcakes

I used the Grandma’s Banana Cake recipe from Classic Home Desserts, by the late Richard Sax, one of my fave cook books. It’s supposed to be baked in a tube pan, so I should have known to really UNDER-fill the muffin cups – because it’s a cake batter that really needs the support of the pan. Also working against me are the facts that 1) I think my oven is not working quite right – the fan has been making this singsong  sound to get started, and I get the feeling that it gets too hot too fast. Haveta call the repair man – the dishwasher handle is also kinda busted, so maybe I can do two things at once. And 2) I used yogurt instead of sour cream in the batter, and even though Sax says this will work OK, I think yogurt is more acidic and makes the baking powder and soda work overtime – hence the flat, spread out tops.

I started trying to un-mold them,  gave up, took the picture, and peeled them off the pan right into the trash, and took the bag right out to the curb – which would have been a lot more satisfying if the if the city had not just come down our street collecting.