Pickle Cupcakes

We celebrated my father-in-law's birthday at the same time as my nephew's.  My nephew had requested a special cake (see yesterday's post) so it just felt right to make a special cake for my father-in-law, too.

Problem was, I had no idea what to put on his cake that would make it "his".  So I asked my kids, "What does your papa like that I could put on his cake?"  They answered "pickles".  Ummmm...

But then one day I was thinking about how my father-in-law always says, "It's no big deal."  It's one of his most favorite phrases.  I put that phrase together with the pickle idea and got "No big dill."

And thus was born the pickle cupcakes.

To get that 2-toned frosting look, you draw stripes of gel food coloring with a toothpick inside your decorating bag before filling the bag with frosting.  I drew 4 vertical green stripes and then used white frosting.  (You have to use the gel food coloring - not the liquid.)  I added green sprinkles to mimic the seeds that float around in pickle jars.  The candy on top is a green sour apple flavored candy straw that was somewhat pickle shaped.

I made one larger cupcake pick that says "Another birthday? It's no big dill" and then little pickle cupcake picks in case someone missed the pickle reference.

Happy birthday to my father-in-law!  And many more!