Towering Cupcakes

My daughter checked out the book Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh, My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson from the Crossroads Christian School library last year and started dreaming up what she wanted made for her birthday cupcakes to bring to school.  Eventually, I broke down and bought the book so we could return the book to the library.  We had so much fun making cupcakes for Caiden’s birthday that I simply had to share the recipe with a few twists we made to make it even easier.

Caiden’s Birthday Cupcake Towers 2012

When we made these for Caiden’s birthday we did it in epic proportion.  We used 132 pocky stick cookies, 5 boxes of cake mix, 20 eggs, 1 quart of buttermilk, 10 containers of frosting and 1 container of sprinkles.  Below are the directions to make 6 cupcake towers.

Birthday Towers supplies and Directions with My Shortcuts
1 box of cake mix
2 cans vanilla (or your favorite flavor) frosting
Premade tubes yellow, orange, green and/or blue frosting (or your favorite colors)
Pocky Stick Cookies (strawberry or chocolate)
Yellow sprinkles
Jumbo cupcake liners
Standard cupcake liners
Mini cupcake liners
Buttermilk
Vegetable Oil
Large Eggs

Perfect Cake Mix Recipe from Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh, My!
1 box cake mix (any brand, any flavor)
1 cup buttermilk (to replace water that is called for on the box)
Vegetable oil (amount called for on the box)
4 large eggs (in place of the number of eggs called for on the box)

1. Mix cake mix, buttermilk, vegetable oil and eggs together.
2. You will make 6 jumbo, 6 regular and 6 mini cupcakes. Put liners into each 6 spaces in each of the cupcake pans.
3. Fill cupcake liners about half full. This recipe will rise.
4. Bake according to box recipe. Bake until you can perform a fork test and have it come out dry. Do not overbake.
5. Allow cupcakes to cool thoroughly.
6. If you used cute cupcake liners you can simply frost the top of each cupcake. I used white liners that looked dull and boring when I removed the cupcakes from the pan. If that is the case with yours then frost the sides of each cupcake and tops.
7. Stack cupcakes with the jumbo on bottom, regular in the middle and mini on top. Use a pocky stick cookie through the center of all three cupcakes to stablized your tower.

8. Use colorful frosting from tube or spray container to create a circle around the outer top portion of each cupcake layer.
9. Make your “candles.” Break 6 pocky cookies in half. Spray or dip one end a pocky cookie with orange frosting and then dip the end into yellow sprinkles. Put four “candles” onto each layer of cupcake with the glitter side up as your “flame.”

In the cookbook the finished product is perfect, but my daughters and I had fun and worked together to make our fun version.  There are tons of super fun cupcake possibilities that you can find in the book Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh, My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  You simply have to check it out with your kids and have some fun.