A Cupcake Named Desire

So I have a very cute niece, Alissa.  Last week Alissa turned 2!

I wanted to make her an over-sized cupcake for her party, but I wasn't able to find the right size cupcake cup in time.  So I just made one of those giant cupcakes instead because that's what I could find.  I was very lucky that Big Lots had one of those pans just for me! 

I had a vision for this cupcake.  In my brain, it looked about like this -ish....

I made mine with red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting. I thought the red would look really cute as the cup part.  I also wanted to add a little something-something to top.

It didn't come out like exactly like I wanted, but considering I am no cake artist, I was pretty happy with it.  I didn't have the skills to pipe the frosting on in one big swirl which is what I wanted, I had to smooth that out. Here's what I came up with (don't mind all the crap in the background, we were in a hurry)...

The banner says Happy Birthday Alissa!  Let me tell you, it was a hit at the party!  I thought the other desserts would be more appetizing (hello, Marie Calendar's pies!), but the first thing that was gone...my little cake.  I was a little bit proud I'm not going to lie.