Recipe of the Week: Pink Flamingo Cupcakes (Plus a Printable Sheet of Cupcake Toppers!)

A couple of weeks ago I was messing around in the kitchen and came up with an idea to make "Pink Flamingo" cupcakes to share with some of my friends. If you have a Sonic in your area, you can order a drink called a "Pink Flamingo", which is a lemon/lime concoction with cherries...this is where I got the idea to create cupcakes that would sort of taste like the beverage. After I made the cupcakes, (which turned out great!), I decided that they needed some cute little pink flamingo toppers. Using a clipart image I found in Word, I created a pdf sheet of pink flamingos that you can click on, save and print to use on your cupcakes too. :)

Now, let's make some cupcakes!!

Cupcake Instructions:

Using a boxed white cake mix, prepare according to package directions EXCEPT in lieu of water add an equal amount of Sprite or 7-UP. Drain a jar of maraschino cherries, (reserving the liquid to use in the frosting), and coarsely chop the cherries. Fold chopped cherries into cake batter. Spoon batter into cupcake liners that have been placed in muffin tins, and bake according to package directions. Cool cupcakes before frosting with cherry-vanilla butter cream frosting.

Cherry-Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting Ingredients and Instructions:

• 2 sticks of softened unsalted butter
• 2 Tablespoons milk
• 2 Tablespoons cherry juice
• Pinch of salt
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter, salt and vanilla together until creamy. Gradually beat in sugar, milk and cherry juice until frosting is smooth and creamy. Frost cooled cupcakes, add rainbow candy sprinkles and flamingo toppers to cupcakes, serve to friends and enjoy!

Here's how I made the toppers:

Click on the pdf sheet above, save and print on white cardstock. Using a 1 1/2" circle punch, punch out the flamingos and set aside. Using a 1 7/8" scallop punch, punch out 2 aqua blue cardstock scallops for every 1 flamingo circle. Run scallops and flamingo circles through a Xyron adhesive machine:

Attach flamingo circle to the center of an aqua blue scallop. Peel one of the aqua blue scallops from the Xyron sheet and attach a toothpick as shown below:

Peel off the scallop with the flamingo, carefully line up the scallops, and adhere to scallop with the toothpick in the center. Press the edges firmly together so that the toothpick stays in place:

Carefully insert the picks into the cupcakes, serve and enjoy!

Wishing you a blessed week, friends!