I've been wanting to make owl cupcakes for oh... about 2 years now. and today is my sweet baby girls 3rd birthday and since she has been celebrating this glorious event since last weekend she has had every sort of birthday treat imaginable. I had to do something different and BETTER for her to take to her nursery school class.
Therefore, I'm bringing the big guns. Mini owl cupcakes. Because they are smaller, just like my Moochie, they are automatically cuter. Thus, they will trump everything done thus far. Even the stupid cake Mr. Papers had someone else make for her birthday party yesterday.... hmph...
I was short on time so this is quite possibly the easiest treat to date (except maybe the Dump Cake). Check it:
One box cake mix. Whatever flavor floats your boat- and all the necessary ingredients to make said cake.
One tub of frosting- or two if you want to do two different flavors/colors
Mini Oreo cookies
Candy Corn, Mini Chocolate Chips, M & M's, orange candy gummies***** we will talk about the candies at the end****
First you will need to bake mini cupcakes w/ said box cake mix. Follow directions on the box, cool. If you want to be a perfectionist you can bake a cake from scratch (like my delightful chocolate cake) and you can use brown cupcake liners.
I baked cupcakes last weekend and had a ton left over, so I froze them, thawed them and used them today. So sue me. They are also in mismatched cupcake liners- not at all halloween or fall themed. Again, I suck at life.
So, if you baked from scratch or GASP used the box mix, let those babies cool while you
Mini oreos by nature are not as 'clean' as full size oreos. so they are a bit more 'dusty' on the creme filling. But, 3 year olds are eating these. They could give a rats behind. I'm in a HURRY here and working with what I have. You want to break them in half so the cream is on one side and then the "clean" side you will want to slice in half because these will be used later for further face decorating... See:
You frost the cupcake, then add the eyeballs, then the pupils (mini chocolate chips), then the beak- which can be either an orange M &M or a candy corn, then add the 1/2'd oreo as eyebrows/ears/feathers. Not sure what they are, but they are cute.
Here are a few variations:
Moochie's favorite colors are pink and purple (and lately orange) so, I made some pink owls as well. This is where I got slightly fancy
Pink frosting, pink heart sprinkles, oreo eyeballs, mini chocolate chip pupils, yellow m&m beaks
Super fancy, no?
Here they are in all their IN YOUR FACE glory ready to be half eaten by unimpressed 3 year olds
**Notes on the candy... The candy corn, I felt, was too big for a beak. And someone commented that they made them look like muppets, not really owls. And I obviously didn't use a single orange gummy thing. Because I would have had to manipulate the candy- i.e. cut it into the right shape, possibly use a rolling pin, etc etc. I was short on time. The M&M's worked best, looked the cutest (in my opinion) and kids all love M &M's. But I did have to sort through a bag of the candy to get only yellow and orange. SO, you could just buy reese's pieces and save yourself even more time.
