Cameron's Cupcakes

My beloved pesuedo-nephew is turning 18 and I decided to make cupcakes. Cause that's what Aunt Cyndy does In my mind he will always look like this:

But now he looks more like this.  Apparently it is very upsetting when your parents show a video of

your first diaper change to a group of you friends.  Go figure. I thought it was adorable.

Anyway, I decided since he was growing up I would go for grown-up cupcakes. I was inspired by these candles that I saw in the supermarket.

And I used these ingredients to start out with.

White cake mix made with butter instead of oil and whole eggs. Amaretto for flavoring. Cream and chocolate for the ganache frosting. Butter, sugar and vanilla for the vanilla frosting. Decorative M & Ms in black and white. Really awesome chocolate. Black get frosting for swirls. Silver cupcake holders.  And this:

Beautiful Mexican Vanilla.  I have it smuggled in by the liter. (Kidding about the smuggling. It's legal)

So I ended up using the M & M's to make dots:

Black gel frosting to make messy swirls:

And a frosting tip to stripe the chocolate with vanilla

Then I put them on silver trays in the shape of the number 18

Then we lit them on fire for the birthday boy

And he blew them out

So a story about Cameron:

Long ago when he was a little-bitty baby we were babysitting him one Saturday. He was in a bad mood, screaming his head off. I had laid him down on the floor to change and I bent over him to give him a kiss on the forehead. He dug his tiny little fingernails into my cheeks and pinned me there on top of him. If I moved, I'd go off balance and crush him. So he held me there ripping my face off for several minutes until Tim heard my muffled screams for help. And then Cameron screamed some more. And then a little more after that. Tim went outside to get away from the screaming, slipped on the steps and hurt his back. Then Cameron screamed some more. And then Tim said. "We are NEVER having one of those." And we didn't have any kids. Well except for these kids:

And these kids

Oh and these kids

But still Cameron, I really feel it is your responsibility to take care of us in our old age. Just because. So study hard in college. We love you.