May Day Panda Cupcakes

Happy May Day! Ok, so I know that May Day has pagan origins, but for me its just a day which highlights that spring is in full swing (it was glorious weather here yesterday for a change!) and in the UK signals a bank holiday! Although we have to wait for next monday for the bank holiday its also very exciting to be in the month of May as that means my baby is due next month!

Another reason I have a fondness for May day is that as a child our primary school used to do Maypole dancing, and I think we were the only school in town who had their own maypole. For weeks before we'd have to practise the different dances to make sure we knew them properly. When you dance with the coloured ribbons they wrap around the pole in a very complex and lovely pattern, each dance giving a slightly different pattern, and by the end of the dance you unwrap them. You can imagine what confusion and knots would ensue if people did it wrong!! I'm inspired to try and make a card with this as the theme!

Next I want to share with you some beautiful and fun little cupcakes me and my monkey made this weekend.  A good friend of mine put me onto a fantastic blog called Bakerella

and the most recent post was some CUTE panda cupcakes

I knew straight away that I wanted to have a go at these, and as I was making some chocolate cupcakes for my Year 11 class anyway, I made a few extra little fairy cake sized ones to decorate. I underestimated how small the cupcakes were over on Bakerella to get the chocolate chips to be the main decorations, and I ended up using chocolate buttons instead to make ours. My monkey thought they were amazing, and they tasted pretty darn good too. I used my 'best chocolate cupcake recipe' and the hummingbird buttercream recipe. I think I need to set up a link to a post containing all my best tested recipes for easy access, but that can be a job for another day.

So how did they turn out?!

Monkey needed a little help with the icing and where the eyes should go, but he thought they were just the best thing ever!

Here's us just before he demolished this one!!

I recently bought a great book which helps you transform cupcakes into fun objects and animals, so keep an eye out for more fun baking posts!

Have a great day!