Baked goods and packages

Now that my husband is actually deployed, I am always looking for things to send him and things to make for him to send him. When I first got onto Pinterst, I found a recipe that sounded different and interesting. It was for Mountain Dew cupcakes. I was looking forward to eventually trying it. When I found it, I was wanting to do it before he left. However, that didn't work out all that well. So now, I'm on summer break, wanting to bake, his craving Mountain Dew like none other. Prefect time to try them! I found that recipe from the website All Things Cupcakes. One thing that I would add to her recipe is that you should bake them at 350 degrees.

I baked them yesterday and made the frosting as well. What I must say about the frosting is keep mixing until it actually looks like frosting. At first I just mixed until things were blended but it didn't look right. I thought it wasn't enough powered sugar so I added a little more and mixed and mixed and mixed. It will take several minutes of mixing and you might even want to do it on high for awhile. After that it looked much better.

After the baking cooling, and making of the frosting now comes the task of shipping the cupcakes to him at his current duty station while deployed. Well, Pinterest to the rescue again! While just looking on there several times, I saw how someone was packaging cupcakes for easy grab and go for parties. But why not modify it (I'm such a Special Ed teacher) to make it fit for what I needed? The original idea can be found here. However, my modifications are to not put the frosting on and using Glad Press and Seal instead of the celo wrap and ribbon.

First get the cups. They are those clear 9oz short plastic cups. The smallest pack I found was 40 cups. I already had the press and seal because I like to use that more then the regular stuff. I feel it's a little easier to manage when it comes off the roll as well.

Next, place the cupcake into the cup.

Third, you will need a piece about this width. Approx. 4-6 inches I would say.

Another reason I love the Press and Seal is it's easy to "cut" in half. I would press a corner onto the counter then start a small tare about half way. Then I wold pick it up and finish the tare to get a piece that looked about like a square.

Then stretched the piece over the cup.

 Followed by pressing the sides down around the cup.

There you go! You now have a cupcake that is ready to ship in a care package or to someone else and you don't have to worry about them getting destroyed!

On the off change that you are sending homemade frosting as well like I did, you may want to use containers like those pictured below. I knew that I would be doing this soon, so I actually just bought that Hillshire Farms deli meat that comes in the re-usable containers. I unexpectedly found something else that I would be sending and bought the store brand of the twisting locking containers for that. Either would probably work.

I also put them in a zip lock bag then into one or two plastic grocery bags. However, before putting them into any type of bag, I used some fun duck tape that I bought the hubby to make sure the Hillshire Farm container stayed closed. You can use whatever you have around the house though.

I then put everything and a few other things into the large flat rate boxes and shipped it all off!

Just as a side note: the cupcakes and frosting do taste really yummy. I'm not sure how much like Mountain Dew they really taste but they do taste pretty amazing!

Note as of 6/28/12: Hubby received his package last night and all but one cupcake survived. He believes the one is still able to be eaten though. Also, he said that the cupcakes were very good :).