Ms. Fox's Sweets: Dr Seuss

Friday, August 12, 2011

Dr. Seuss- The Cat In the Hat, Thing 1 & Thing 2

Since the day I first saw Thing 1 & Thing 2 at ObSEUSSed, I couldn't wait to make them! They are just so cute! The author of the ObSEUSSed blog has also made a printable to make the little "Thing 1 & Thing 2" disk, which makes these cupcakes even easier!

This is before the cotton candy and Cat in the Hat's bow were added

Dr. Seuss brings back so many memories for me from my son's childhood. I read him the books daily and even had most memorized and would recite them to him on car rides. I read the stories to my oldest daughter as well and now they are both in highschool. My youngest daughter has watched the shows and she also loves what she has seen of Dr. Seuss, yet the books have been boxed up for many years as she has mostly been a Disney Princess girl. Today, I thought it was appropriate to bring out the books to go with the cupcakes! I enjoyed reading the stories just as much as she enjoyed hearing them!

Of course these cupcakes needed be fun inside and out, so I needed to make a Cotton Candy Cupcake!

I looked through my recipe binder for a little inspiration from both Martha Stewart's Yellow Cupcakes and Glorious Treats Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes. I wanted to keep the great texture of the Glorious Treats Cupcake, without adding anything to take away from the cotton candy flavoring. Amazingly, with all the tweaks I had made, they still came out with the perfect texture of the Glorious Treats cupcakes and the cotton candy flavor that I was after! This is what I came up with:

Ingredients

1-3/4 Cups AP Flour + 3T cornstarch

1-1/2 cups sugar

1-3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp sea salt

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup oil

1/2 tsp LorAnn Oils- Cotton Candy Flavor

Directions

Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl, then in mixer bowl, mix wet ingredients, slowly adding dry ingredients until combined, scrapping down sides as needed. Fill red cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Bake at preheated 350 degree oven for 18-20 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack. This recipe makes 14 standard sized cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes. I will be using the 24 mini cupcakes for the next Pink Princess Cupcake design.

Cotton Candy Icing

The icing I used was from based off the Wilton Class Buttercream

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup shortening

2-3 tablespoons water or milk (I used milk)

1/2 tsp LorAnn Oils- Cotton Candy Flavor

Mix all of the shortening, with 1 cup of sugar at a time, add in flavoring and milk.

Before icing your cupcakes attach the "Thing 1 & Thing 2" badges. Ice the cupcakes in a blue and teal colored icing and place blue cotton candy on top for their hair. Within about 30 minutes the hair will start to melt, so do this right as you are ready to serve!
The Cat in the Hat cupcake hat and bow were made with red and white fondant.

I hope you enjoy these cupcakes as much as we did!