Sunday, June 28, 2009

Pup Cakes

For New Year's Eve, I took the opportunity to try my first batch of decorated cupcakes. I picked designs that didn't involve piping, since I don't feel too confident with that yet, but had multiple versions to try. The ingredients for the pup cakes were really easy to find, too. Here is how they came out:
From left to right: dalmation, chocolate lab, beagle, dachshund.

Sadly, the first three are not vegetarian, since their muzzles are made of marshmallow (underneath all that frosting). So I decided to make the dachshund also, which was the least cute in the book, but the only one without any marshmallow. He looks great in real life, though, and turned out to be my favorite.
The book (called Hello, Cupcake!) insists that all of the designs are easy enough for anyone. I agree that they were easy; however, they're very time-consuming. It took me three hours to make eight of them, though it was a fun three hours. Most of the time came from cutting the chocolate cookies (you can see the cookies on the dachshund's ears; they also make up all the dogs' mouths), and mixing frosting colors and loading bags. I couldn't find a good way to shape the cookies, which turned out to be the most annoying part. They tended to split in the wrong places. The book suggests popping them in the microwave for a couple of seconds to soften them, but that did nothing for me. The rest of the designs were easy. The ears for the beagle and lab are made of smooshed Tootsie Rolls, which was fun, and the pink tongues are squished Starburst.

I made two of each breed. Here is the whole dog park:
The book has a ton of really cute designs, so I hope you all like cupcakes, because that's what you're getting for your birthday!

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