Banana Split Cupcakes

Don't these look YUMMY?!!  My son, Sam, and I made these as part of a fundraising effort in May for his National Youth Leadership Training fees.

It was just an idea we came up with and put together without Pinterest or Google and, boy, was that a good idea this time.  The reason being that afterwards I DID look up 'banana split cupcakes' and found lots of recipes using yellow cake mix and mashed bananas as the cake portion and chocolate for the filling.  That's all good but, we - blissfully naive - went in a different direction and they were delicious!!

Banana Split Cupcake , à la The Coles - chocolate cake, banana pudding filling, cream cheese icing sprinkled with cinnamon, sugar, chopped peanuts, and topped with a marachino cherry.

Make sure the cake is moist and the icing is thick (not like the canned store bought stuff, if you can avoid it.)

One thing we did use Pinterest for was a means to deliver the cupcakes to his customers.  We used a shirt gift box as shown at THIS PIN.

[caption id="attachment_1399" align="aligncenter" width="336"] Sam getting ready to deliver a dozen red velvet cupcakes to earn his way to NYLT.[/caption]

 

Eagle Scout Cake

A few years ago I promised a few of my Scouts any cake of their choice if they earned their Eagle rank.  They have begun cashing in!  Our latest Eagle scoured the Internet and asked for this classy design.

[caption id="attachment_1310" align="aligncenter" width="362"] Vanilla, red velvet, and chocolate tiers covered in mm fondant with white chocolate fleur di lis.[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1312" align="aligncenter" width="427"] Our Eagle and his parents with myself before cutting into the cake. They worked as hard as he did for Eagle![/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1311" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Most of these boys start out smaller than me. Clearly that doesn't last long![/caption]

Congratulations!!

Art Update

I've been our Scouting unit's committee chair for the last year and a half.  In that time I have enjoyed watching these young men advance, both in rank and character.  Our program is growing and maturing and it is exciting to be a part of it.

Last weekend our unit honored its third Eagle; the second since I've been chair, and the first we've been able to have a Court of Honor for since then.

Chris and I have become close to the Slade family this year so I wanted to give them something special for this milestone.  So here's what I did during the first Presidential debate:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Slade Eagle portrait phase 1[/caption]

And what I did while watching the second debate:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="342"] Slade Eagle portrait phase 2[/caption]

 This is a great family and I really enjoyed the Court of Honor they put together.  I can't wait to see the great things this young man will accomplish in the future!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320"] Myself with our newest Eagle and his parents[/caption]

...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="310"] completed Slade Eagle portrait, graphite on paper, 8x10[/caption]

...

 Congratulations!!

Memorial Day

Chris and the boys spent the morning posting flags with the Boy Scouts.  Have a happy, safe Memorial Day!

Seek The Higher Ground

I can upload pictures again!  Yay!

Our Stake's Boy Scouts did a week-long priesthood encampment this summer with the theme, "Seek the Higher Ground".  The deacons tented at base camp, the teachers did rock climbing, and the priests did a high adventure canoe trip. This is the cake I made for our ward's Court of Honor following camp.

The BSA emblem is molded and colored white chocolate against a painted cookie (from the back view it is a sun.)  The grass is colored shaved coconut and the canoe is made of rice cereal treat covered in painted fondant.  The boys' hair and white water are made from buttercream icing and EVERYTHING else is fondant.  All the fondant is "marshmallow fondant".

The back side of the cake.

The boys up close.

I'll be posting the others cakes I've done since June shortly!