Butterfly Cupcakes & Cake Pops

It has been a crazy couple of weeks around my house and you will get to see part of the reason in this post and part in my next post. I have been super busy in the kitchen as well as traveling for weddings and graduations.


My cousin little girl, Adelynn, turned the Big 1 at the beginning of May and her mom and I had been planning her birthday for several months. Once she picked the butterfly theme, I immediately started brainstorming ideas for the cupcakes. I instantly thought of the Butterfly Cupcake in Hello Cupcake then I stumbled upon a close vision of what I was already thinking on Annie's Eats. Perfect :)


In addition to the cupcakes, I made cake pops in flower and butterfly shapes to put in these pot we made at a pottery place here in Houston. (You can see them in the pictures below)

I tried to take step by step pictures for these cupcakes. The butterflies were made out of candy melts and made a few days in advance. If you have the book, they have pretty good instructions in there. If you dont I will try to walk you through the steps below.

To start I just traced the butterfly wings from the book on wax paper. I cut individual wax paper squares for each of the butterfly wings, 52 in total.

Using the candy melts, (I colored mine black) outline the butterfly wings and make a deep "V" shape for the antennae's.

Do one butterfly at a time, starting with the outline and then filling with the color. This allow you time to move the color around and swirl to the edges of the wing before it begins to dry.

I used bowls to melt the candy coating and then transferred to squeeze bottles. I used a toothpick to swirl around the color to the edges. Sprinkle each wing with the white nonpareils.

I made 3 different flavors of cupcakes for the party. For the chocolate I used the Hershey's recipe I have used in the past here. For the vanilla cupcakes I used my favorite recipe here. But the last flavor, my cousin requested specifically was yellow cupcakes. After looking through my recipes I realized I didn't have a "go to" yellow cupcake/cake recipe. I went searching online and decided on the recipe below. However I have to warn you...I wasn't too impressed with these cupcakes. They were a tad too dry for my taste. So if you have a favorite yellow cake or cupcake recipe, please share!

Yellow Cupcakes from BakingBlonde (She used it as a sheet cake)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1.2 cups sugar

1/2 cups butter, softened

3 eggs

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 drop Yellow Food Coloring

Preheat oven to 350F. Place the liners in a cupcake pan.

Sift cake flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugar and using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed to blend. Cut butter into 4 or 5 chucks and drop into the bowl with the flour. Blend on low speed until mixture looks sandy and no large chucks or butter remain, about 1-2 minutes.

In large measuring cup, combine eggs, milk, vanilla and food coloring. Beat lightly with a fork until combined. With the mixer on low, pour 1 cup of the egg mixture into the bowl. Turn speed up to medium and beat for 1 1/2 minutes. Reduce speed back to low and pour in the rest of the egg mixture. Continue to beat at low speed for an additional 30 seconds, until liquid is fully incorporated.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for a few more seconds. Pour into prepared liners. Fill about 2/3 full. Bake 18 minutes at 350. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, I used the recipe I blogged about here. Just a simple buttercream I found on Bakeralla.

Supplies Needed for the Butterfly Cupcakes:

wax paper

plastic squeeze bottles

Cocoa candy melts (I added an oil based Black Candy Color)

Colored Candy Melts ( I used pink, green, blue and orange)

Toothpicks

White Nonpareils

Chocolate Chips

Plastic Baggie

Frosted Cupcakes

As the cupcakes were cooling off, I whipped up a few batches of icing and began separating it into bowls to add the color. I decided on orange, pink, blue, and green for the icing colors to match the candy melt colors of the butterfly wings. Frost your cupcakes as you desire.

To begin assembly of the butterfly cupcakes, first press down slightly on your frosting to create a slightly flat surface.

Place 2 chocolate chips about a 1/2 inch apart towards the top of the cupcake. Insert one wing into the icing and let it use the chocolate chip for support. Continue on to the next one using the same steps.

After the wings are inserted, create the body by piping chocolate blobs in between the wings. I used a plastic bag and just cut off one of the corners.

Next, place the antennea's into the frosting just at the head of the butterfly.

Here they are all lined up before getting packaged in the box.

And a picture of the dessert table at the party.

A close up...(Note I made several extra sets of antennae's and brought with me because they are a little fragile)

The birthday girl with her special cake. Her cake was a 6 inch double layer vanilla cake, frosted with the pink frosting and had 3 butterflies on the top.

Here she is sharing with her daddy!

These cupcakes turned out beautiful! I got so many compliments on them, they were definitely worth all the work. If anyone has suggestions for a yellow cake/cupcake recipe please let me know!!

Happy Memorial Weekend to everyone!

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