Cupcake Toppers!

Tonight was Girls' Night at my house! It was such a beautiful fall day, so I decided to put together a fall meal consisting of pumpkin dip with ginger snap cookies and apples, chicken chili with the fixins', spinach/apple/cashew salad, and the dessert seen in the pictures above featuring my new cupcake toppers! The girls at my home tonight raved about these delicious, fallish brownies so I've included the recipe below! All I'm going to say is caramel ice cream topping, Recees Peanut Butter Cups, peanuts, apples, brownies....mmmmm....a perfect combo of sweet and salty!

I figured tonight was great time to try out my new cupcake toppers. I have been seeing these on all my favorite blogs, and I just love them! They can be used in a variety of ways: toppers on your favorite dessert (cupcakes, brownies, etc), tags on party favor bags, and many more! See below how I used them to decorate a glass jar filled with candy corn.

The toppers are super simple to make - I created them on my laptop and then used a 2" scallop punch (AC Moore), to create the fun, scalloped border around each. I plan on using these a lot! The colors can be customized to match the decor of any event, as well as what you see in the middle of the circle. How adorable would these be for a child's birthday party or a baby shower?!?

CANDY APPLE DESSERT SQUARES:
Ingredients:

~ 1 pkg brownie mix

~ 8 oz cream cheese, softened

~ 1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping, divided

~ 2 firm apples

~ 6 peanut butter cup candies, chopped

~ 1/4 cup peanuts, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degreens. Spray pan. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions for cake-like brownies. Remove from oven and cool completely.

2. Place cream cheese and 1/4 cup of caramel ice cream topping in bowl; whisk or beat until smooth. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over brownies.

3. Core and slice apples into small pieces and spinkle evenly over cream cheese mixture. Coarsely chop peanut butter cup candies and peanuts. Sprinkle candies and peanuts over apples; drizzle with remaining ice cream topping.

4. Cut into squares and serve.

5. Enjoy this YUMMY fall dessert!

Here's another idea for how to use the cupcake toppers! I bought fallish looking ribbon from Michaels and using my hot glue gun, attached it to the glass jar. Then, I glued one of the cupcake toppers, minus the lollipop stick, in the center and VOILA! A cute jar to fill with your favorite Halloween candy!