Farmcakes

by | Aug 10, 2018

Good moooo–rning!  

I received a request from a dear friend of mine to make farm animal cupcakes for her adorable daughter’s second birthday. How could I say no to that?! Generally for baby and kid parties, I suggest more plain flavors for cupcakes such as vanilla and chocolate. Due to needing to use food coloring for the faces, you must use a frosting that is white in color as a base. You could do cream cheese frosting, vanilla buttercream, marshmallow frosting…you name it! I recommended my favorite, vanilla bean frosting, because the party was outside and Florida in June is like being inside a hot tub 24/7 and anything else would melt quickly. If you would like to see how I created these adorable little farm animals, check the steps out below.  

Gettin’ down and dirty at the farm:

  1. Bake your favorite cupcake and cool completely or stick in fridge for 30 mins or so.
  2. Make a frosting of your choice but must be a white base such as vanilla buttercream. I had to double the frosting recipe as I had to make 3 dozen cupcakes but this will depend on how many you decide to make.
  3. You’ll need the following candies to create the cute little mugs:
    • White Tic Tacs for cow horns
    • Fave Red Starburst for pig ears and duck mouths. I used both pink colors because they were both very similar in color
    • Pink Candy Melts for cow and pig noses
    • Candy Eyes which you will need for the three different faces. I originally used the mini eyes but after making them for the first time, I feel like a little big bigger would be better. You bake and you learn! 🙂
    • M&Ms for cow spots but just use the brown…the rest is for snacking!
  4. Separate the frostings into three different bowls: one bowl for “white”, one bowl for yellow, and the last for pink. Add yellow food coloring to one of the bowls and mix until you get the desired yellow color and do the same for the pink frosting bowl. I have recently discovered AmeriColor food coloring and I fell in love but you can also use Wilton brand, too.
  5. To frost, I used my large round tip and kept it at an even layer as seen below.

  1. To make the top of the frosting look smooth, I take a small plastic cup and fill ¾ with water and heat in microwave for 2 mins. Then I take my offset spatula and let sit in the water for a min or two and use to smooth the frosting as shown below.

  1. Little Piggies: First place the pink candy melt where you would want the nose to be and I like to place a small dab of frosting under to ensure it stays put. Then place the eyes where you think they would fit best. For the ears, I cut a light pink starburst in half which would create the two ears needed. So one starburst per piggy.
  2. Little Duckies: Please the cute little peeping eyes near the top as shown below. Just like the piggies, cut a pink Starburst in half and use the other half for another cupcake (half starburst per one cupcake).

  1. Moo Moos: For the cows, I started with the horns and the ears. Begin by placing the tic tacs at the top and the brown m&ms for the ears fairly close as shown below. Don’t forget to eat some while decorating! Then place the eyes closer to the bottom of the ears and then a pink candy melt for the nose. I used a smidge of black frosting for the nostrils but you could use edible decorating pens as well.

Viola! Farm animal cupcakes for all to enjoy! I hope you have as much fun making these as much as I did! As always, feel free to ask questions or leave feedback. I enjoy hearing from all of you.

 

- Ciao, Lori