The tale of the duck cupcakes...

Isabella asked for a duck party this year, not sure of her inspiration! I found these adorable duck cupcakes online and that was the direction I decided to go with, instead of trying for a cake (so much easier to serve at a party anyway!). 

Isabella asks for pink strawberry cupcakes.

Again.

I tried to make her pink cupcakes for her 2nd birthday but they turned out a disaster.

I try to avoid food dye as much as possible so here is how my first batch of cupcakes went.

1. Go to Earth Fare and sheepishly ask if they carried food dye. "Uh, I doubt it, because most food dye is artificial and we don't carry artificial colorings here." (duh, that's why I am there in the first place!). They DO have food dye. However, it is $17 for a small package of 3 colors...not willing to pay that much. But they do have this colored sugar that intrigues me. Surely I can add this pink sugar (beet juice, yessss!) to the batter and turn it pink, right?

2. Come home and make cupcakes (I admit, I went the lazy route and used a box mix, I know, I know, I'm against food dye but I'll use a box mix?). Add some pink sugar to the batter. Hmmm, not very pink. Add more sugar. Not working. Then decided to add some pureed strawberries to the batter. Ok, we're getting pinker!

3. Bake the cupcakes. Due to my "doctoring", they did not rise one bit, maybe they even sank. So now I have 24 cupcakes that are all about 1/2 way up the sides of the liners. This isn't going to work.

4. Say SCREW IT and buy the damn pink strawberry boxed cake mix.

5. But I DID make my own icing and it didn't include any artificial anything, just cream cheese, sugar, and butter. (Pat self on back here). Aren't they just disgustingly pink? FOOD DYE!!!

6. Ok, on to decorating...

Isn't he just adorable?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! As IF that's how mine turned out! I mean, it doesn't look so hard, right??

WRONG! I present to you Mr. Freaky Duck:

Yeah. He's a freak.

Luckily, I decided to cut the mouth down a different way and I used my trusty helper Isabella to put on the eyes. I skipped the eyebrows and used chocolate raisins for the eyes. What kid wants to eat black jellybeans?

Birthday girls is obviously happy with the finished product!!