Blooming Lemon Ginger Cupcakes With Mint

Standard yellow cake (my favorite, I am a bit of a purist!) cupcakes are made exceptional with lemon ginger cream cheese frosting and scrumptious little light-tasting mint flowers. I am not the world's best cupcake decorator by a long shot, so I decided to skip the delicate icing flowers this time in favor of a more hearty bloom! The petals look piped on, but are in fact little cream peppermints, dusted with colored sugars.

Lemon Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting:
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)softened
8oz Philly cream cheese (1 package) softened
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp ground ginger
Grated zest of one large lemon (approx 1 1/2-2 tablespoons)
1 tsp lemon juice

1. With a mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese together for approx. 2 minutes, on medium speed until smooth.
2. Add the lemon zest and juice. Mix to combine. Slowly add the icing sugar. Add the ground ginger and mix well.
3.Chill the frosting in the fridge for 1/2 hour.
3B. Repeat for multiple colors, or divide one batch into smaller batches.
4. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with the tip of your choice (I used round tip 1A) and add the centers to your blooms, or just add little fun touches, like in picture 2!

To dust your cream mints with pretty decorative sugars, use a tiny detail paint brush, and paint a thin film of water onto the mint. Then dip your mint, wet side down, into a shallow dish of decorative sugar. Let each 'petal' dry before placing on a cupcake. Handle them carefully, as the sugar will fall off if you are too rough. I placed them on the cupcakes then piped little 'centers' in with bright icing.

These were made for a local seminar/pick-nick on fathers' rights and involvement. They call it "Father's (Matter) Day" The theme was "Dads make kids grow and bloom!" It was put on by the county, to encourage fathers to be a part of their kids lives. There were games, counselors with fun/low cost things you can do with your kids,food and parenting mini classes (10 minute sessions). It went so well, that the county plans to do "Father's (Matter) Day" every year.
I hope that I get to be a part of it every year, too!