Special Baking Assignment :: Part 2

Marzipan carrots !! They're genius, because they're sooooo easy, but they totally look professional. For my mini carrot cake cupcakes all I did was roll a piece of marzipan with some orange food coloring around and around until I was happy with their color. Then, I rolled it into small logs, cutting them off at the appropriate size, and tapering one end. Then, dip your knife in cocoa powder and score the carrots horizontally, so they look dirty + realistically flawed. then use something sharp -- I used a straightened paperclip -- a safety pin or toothpick would work a-okay. And to finish them, put carrot greens in the hole. Voila ! Perfect mini garden carrots.

I used these small paper cups as holders because I saw them on Nikole's Flickr stream, and thought they were beautiful. However, with my first banana bread muffin test round, my aunt, mother, and grandmother reported they were very difficult to get out. To try and negate this for the shower, I snipped slits at two places on each cup before filling. To be honest, I don't think people knew. From a practicality standpoint, I might not use these again... Both the carrot cake cupcakes and the strawberry were Martha's recipes. The banana bread muffins were my grandmas :).