Dirt Road Cake and Spaghetti and Meatball cupcakes!

I know it's been awhile since I blogged, but I promise I have a good reason!  We had our first visitor!  My brother's girlfriend made the long trip out here for a week and I got to take on the role of tour guide!  Before she came out here, I asked if there was anything specific she wanted to do and she requested to bake with me!  I've been wanting to try out some of the ideas in my Hello Cupcake book, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. 
We looked through the book and decided that the spaghetti and meatballs was the winner.  It was easy to make and I think they turned out pretty well! 

The cupcakes are yellow cake and the icing is just a can of vanilla icing mixed with cocoa powder and yellow food coloring.  The directions said to use a ziplock bag to pipe the icing on, but I prefer to use my decorating bags and tips.  We iced the cupcakes with a thin layer first, grouped them together, and piped the icing all over them.  It was fun to pipe the icing on because it didn't have to look perfect.  The sauce and meatballs are strawberry preserves with Ferrero chocolates.  Did you notice the parmesan cheese?  It's grated white chocolate!  How cool, right? 

Before my brother's girlfriend visit, I had a friend ask me to make her husbandn's birthday cake.  He loves cars, so we came up with the idea to do a dirt road and put toy cars on it. 

I used crushed chocolate cookies for the dirt road and I got to use my grass tip again!  That grass tip is quickly becoming my favorite!  It's a simple cake, but it got rave reviews from my friend's husband!