strawberries & cream.

my sister, Marlana, celebrated her 25th birthday this past saturday!! congrats on making it a quarter century sibby :)  we had a good old fashioned family celebration, including a wintery trip to the Toledo Zoo ( i will share some of the photos from there later), dinner at P.F. Changs, and gifts and dessert at my house.

for those of you who know me, you know i love love, love to cook, but do not really enjoy baking that much, and frankly am not very great at it.  however because of my new kitchen aid mixer i have been experimenting in this department in the last couple of months.  

i decided to take on the task of making cupcakes for  her birthday.  i went with strawberry's & cream with a strawberry mist frosting with red sprinkles and fresh strawberries on top.  at this time i would like to thank betty crocker for her delicious white cake mix (in which i substituted the standard water for strawberry soda), and  whipped pink icing.  i said i was baking, i never said it was from scratch :) anyhow they came out lovely , so much so that i place them in special green paper cups with white polka dots and arranged them on a tiered platter.  they tasted as good as they looked and i can't wait to try this soda pop trick again...next time i am thinking orange with chocolate. what do you think?