How to Make Cute Kitty Cupcakes

In honor of my friend's birthday, I made some cupcakes from the book "Hello, Cupcake" by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson.  This book is tons of fun for every skill level.  It shows you how to make cupcakes without special tools. 

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First, gather your ingredients together.  I decided to go ahead and use the recipe from the book for Perfect Cake-Mix Cupcakes Orange Spice.  A tip:  all ingredients should be room temperature, so warm up eggs, milk, etc.

If your recipe calls for Buttermilk and you don't have any, you make it using a tablespoon of lemon juice for each cup of milk.

A microplane makes quick work off orange rind.

Add all ingredients together and mix for 2 minutes as per instructions

The authors suggest using a Ziplock bag to fill your cupcake pan with.  They have full instructions on this.  Basically, though, it makes it easier to fill the cups evenly.

Mmmm, Orange Spice cupcakes! 

Now for the decorating.  Copy the fishbone from the book to make it easier to do.  Place a parchment sheet over it and pipe candy melts over fishbone lines.  Let dry.  This is fairly straightforward and she uses a Ziplock bag for this also.  They dry hard and you can place them easily

Fill one Ziplock or piping bag with about 1 cup of white icing

Divide remaining can and a half into 2 separate containers and color white icing gray and orange with food coloring.  Then place in their own bags.  You will also put chocolate frosting in a bag.  On a side note:  The Rich & Creamy frosting was a little on the runny side at room temperature, so I kept refrigerating it.  The chocolate, I did not have this problem.

These are the Famous Chocolate Wafers.  You are supposed to cut them with a serrated knife to make the ears.  You end up with a lot of leftover and cracked pieces.  Maybe a pie crust??

The 3 stages of icing the face.  Step one - attach ears (wafers) to head with chocolate icing about 1" apart.  Step 2 - Start piping the hair.  Step 3 - pipe entire head, except muzzle (leave for white)

Finish piping muzzle with white, now to move onto adding the features.

I had to make 3 substitutions.  The features call for Mentos (cheeks), Mini M&Ms (eyes), Starburst (tongue), Runts (nose), and Black Licorice Laces (eye brows).  I used Laffy Taffy for tongue, Conversation Hearts for nose and black Candy Melts for eyebrows.

The 4 steps of the body.  Step 1 - Pipe hair with color of body.  Step 2 - Place marshmallows that are cut in half diagonally in sets of 3 on either side of belly.   Step 3 - Using black candy melts, pipe fingernails.  Step 4 - Add pre-done fishbones