Pretty in Pink Lemonade Poodle Cupcakes

As a kid, one of my favorite summertime treats was pink lemonade. Because Eve was born in the summer, and because it just seems so fun and girly, pink lemonade cupcakes seem to be a perfect fit for her party.

1 box vanilla (white) cake mix
amount of water and oil indicated on cake mix box
3/4 cup thawed frozen pink lemonade concentrate
pink/red food coloring

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix the first three ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Add one or two drops of the food coloring to make the cakes appear to be a vibrant pink. Line a cupcake pan with pink cupcake liners. For the poodle cupcakes, you will need one standard size cupcake and one mini cupcake for each serving. Bake standard sized cupcakes 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Bake the mini cupcakes for 10-20 minutes.

When the cakes are completely cooled, follow the directions found here to decorate them to look like poodles! The only thing that I will be doing differently is that I will be cutting caramel-vanilla marshmallows into the shapes of the ears and snout.

I also thought that since not everyone is crazy about pink lemonade, to tie in the "puppies" part of our theme I would decorate chocolate and vanilla cupcakes as shown here.

If you are traditional and believe that the only birthday cake is a real cake (not a cupcake) then you can wrap these up in pretty cellophane bags and use them as favors.

One little tip that I am finding out though is that you need to keep these as cool as possible for as long as possible. When the frosting begins to melt, the facial features start to fall off, and the poodles begin to look a little scary! If you have a fridge handy on site, I would use that. A cooler with ice on the bottom, covered with a small cookie sheet (to keep the ice separate from the cakes)and the cupcakes on top would be the second best.