campout cupcake

I designed these fun camp cupcakes a few weeks ago for my beautiful little boys and of course they go perfectly with our “campout” birthday party theme too!

My boys love tents, roasting marshmallows and fishing, so I needed to incorporate each element. If you’ve not noticed yet, there is also a little sleeping bag in the tent {giggle}. I couldn’t resist piping one since my boys love to use theirs on their beds sometimes! Oh, and by the way, these are the cupcakes I entered in the parenting.com cake and cupcake contest that I mentioned last week.

Here’s what you’ll need to decorate your white cupcakes (use egg whites only to preserve the color of your cupcake wrappers):

• Hershey bars (2 3/4 pieces per tent)
• Mini goldfish crackers
• Fiber one cereal (campfire logs)
• Cream cheese icing
• Blue, green and red gel food coloring
• Toothpicks
• #46 tip (flat side for sleeping bag)
• #107 tip (campfire flame)
• #233 tip (grass)
• white bakers wire (could use floral wire with non-edible items)

And here are the easy steps:

1. Using the grass tip, ice your cupcakes. (TIP: You’ll want to add all of your decorations before the icing sets too much so that the grass will act as adhesive to keep the items in place.)
2. Build your tents next. Take two full blocks of chocolate and trim the third, the base, to 2/3 its normal size. On the base pipe your sleeping bag, a short strip for the pillow and a long strip for the bag.
3. Melt a block or two of chocolate in the microwave to use as adhesive for assembling your tent. Apply the chocolate with a toothpick and hold your tent in place for a few seconds to allow it to set. Place it on your cupcake.
4. Using Fiber One cereal as your campfire logs {I know… but they look just like little sticks!}, set them up in a pyramid shape and then pipe a dollop of icing on top for the flame.
5. Finally we create our fishing pole with a toothpick, I used colored ones, a mini goldfish and bakers wire. Simply wrap the wire around your fish and wind it around your toothpick pole. I placed it so that it is over the edge and then embellished the cupcake with a paper wave design as if they were on an island.

I hope you enjoy my little creation, my boys really did! As always, I hope you’re inspired to craft, bake, create and celebrate!