Cupcake Ducks

For some reason I really like making novelty cupcakes. After the success of the penguins, I decided to try something from the second Hello Cupcake book, called What's New, Cupcake - specifically the cute little ducks on the front cover!

I invited two friends, Ros and David, over to my house, and made a batch of cupcakes before they arrived. And yes, I am wearing a William McKinley High t-shirt..... we had a Glee marathon while we were baking!

I took photos of every part of the process but have made some changes to this post to remove some of them, to not give too much away otherwise you won't buy the book :-)  I did adapt it quite heavily anyway, as I couldn't get the exact ingredients required and I always make tweaks as I go along as well.

The basis for the duck is a cupcake- I used plain vanilla- and I made the head out of a mini chocolate-filled doughtnut from Asda (they come in a box of about 16 for £1 so there are plenty left over to eat!). Use buttercream to stick the doughtnut on as a head, and cut a marshmallow in half and stick that on to be the tail.

I've got all my ducks in a row! (sorry....)

As with the penguins, you need to coat the cupcakes in liquid icing. I used some Betty Crocker's ready-made buttercream and warmed it in the microwave until it was runny, and added some yellow food colouring. Take the duck and dip in the liquid icing - and watch out for any drips!

Ta-da!

Take a fruit chew - I used Fruitella - and use it to make the beak. This wasn't in the instructions but as I found the sweets a little hard, I put them in the microwave for a few seconds so they softened a little. I found one Fruitella was too large so I cut a sweet in half, and by folding it in half and moulding a little, I made a beak.

It's also worth mentioning here that a packet of Fruitella contains several different flavour (and colour) sweets so I went through about three packets before I found enough yellow ones. I also used yellow cake cases.

Using a tube of white piping icing and black writing icing, add some eyes to the duck.

I went a bit overboard with this one and got a chewy sweet shaped like a pair of lips for the mouth and used the writing icing to make some giant eyelashes. I call this one Jordan!

Cute!

I made this one a little hat from another Fruitella (and painted it with black food colouring) and gave it fangs with the white piping icing. I called him Count Duckula :-)

My cat Tilly doesn't seem too impressed!

This one has a little hat made from another Fruitella, and some slightly evil eyebrows.

I made this one a little bow to wear in her hair... I think she looks sweet.

David made this one - it's a computer geek duck with an iPad in front of him!

A whole pond full of little ducks!

These were definitely easier to make than the penguins and looked really cute!

I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Kate of What Kate Baked and Karen of Lavender and Lovage, as their theme this month is cupcakes and muffins.

 

Even nearly two years later I'm still really pleased with these cupcakes so I'm revisiting this post to add it to Treat Petite, a new blogging challenge run by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat at The Baking Explorer. They will have a different theme every month but to kick off the challenge they are welcoming anything small and bite-sized including cupcakes.

 

 

And cupcakes are the theme for this month's Calendar Cakes, as it is National Cupcake Week in September. The challenge is hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of DollyBakes.