April Showers Bring May Flowers

So this weekend I had the awesome privilege of making some cupcakes and cookies for a bridal shower. The theme was April Showers Bring May Flowers. The lovely brides colors are turquoise and coral so we decided to incorporate those colors as well. I decided for the cookies to make sugar cookies and I REALLY wanted to make them umbrella shaped and then have the flowers be on the cupcakes but I couldn't find an umbrella shaped cookie cutter anywhere. So I just did flowers all around. Here is how they turned out.

Isn't this table super cute! My sister and her friend decorated it! Amazing!

 And here are the cookies and cupcakes on display. The cookies were a lemon sugar cookie and are by far my favorite sugar cookie recipe I've ever made. They were still nice and soft, but still held there shape really well when baked. 

 The cupcakes were all peach. Peach cake and peach frosting. I even put little pieces of peach in them. Mmm.... I think next time I will try and add a little more peach flavor though to really send them over the top.

The cupcake recipe was adapted from tasteandtellblog.com

Cupcakes
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup peach jam
• 2 medium peaches, peeled and chopped
• 1 tablespooon flour
Frosting
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 5 tablespoons peach jam
• peach slices, for garnish

Instructions

• Heat oven to 350F. Line 16 cupcake tins with liners.
• In the bowl of a mixer, mix together the vegetable oil and sugar. Beat in the egg.
• In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. To the sugar mixture, add 1/3 of the flour mixture. Then add half of the milk. Add another 1/3 of the flour, the rest of the milk, then the remaining flour. Mix just until combined. Fold in the jam.
• In a small bowl, combine the chopped peaches and flour. Fold into the batter. Fill the cupcake tins 2/3 full with the mixture and bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17- 20 minutes. Cool completely.
• To make the frosting: In the bowl of a mixer, cream together all of the ingredients. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes

The sugar cookie recipe was adapted from allrecipes.com. To the cookie batter I added the zest of one lemon and the juice of the lemon.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Directions

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. 

Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

For the Icing I used Martha Stewarts recipe and went with the meringue powder. I also added 

a few drops of lemon oil.

Ingredients

• 1 box confectioners' sugar (1 pound)
• 5 tablespoons meringue powder or 2 large egg whites

Directions

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sugar and meringue powder. 
2. Mixing on low speed, add a scant 1/2 cup water. 
3. For a thinner consistency, usually used for flooding, add more water. 
4. A thicker consistency is generally used for outlining and adding details. 
5. Mix until icing holds a ribbonlike trail on the surface of the mixture for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle.