SUNSHINE CUPCAKES

'Bunny Corn' was .25 per bag after Easter.

sort out all the broken peices - kids will love to eat them for you

I wanted to try out these sunny cupcakes.
I bought a boat load of Candy Corn - and needed it!
Well, really only half of it ... do you need some?

Too much good sweet stuff! 

I made miniature cupcakes - 1 tsp of batter per cup - from a plain yellow cake mix that was on hand begging to be used up. I split it and only mixed half at once so I could bake them in stages. I whipped 2 eggs, 1/2 plus 1/8 cup water, and 1 Tablespoon of oil together and then added that to each cake mix part (measured in halves). Half a batch made 48 mini cupcakes.

I cooked some lemon pudding/pie filling and used a decorator bag to squirt it into the centre of each cupcake. Just plunge the point of the tip into the centre and squeeze - be careful not to overfill. This gave an subtle lemon flavor to the finished product.

I iced these with a bright lemon yellow butter cream frosting - made with butter of course! I always use about 2/3 butter and 1/3 shortening. Keep it spreadable but not thin.  And don't skimp on the coloring - put in LOTS! To achieve a shiny smooth-ish surface dip a flat edged table knife of spatula in a glass of warm water and swipe it across the frosting. Allow it to set slightly but not dry before decorating. Working with 3-5 at one time seems to work.

Now came the fun part. Drop on 2 mini chocolate chips for eyes - use your imagination and keep them near the centre-ish.

Snip off a chunk of 'peel-and-pull' red licorice - approximately 1 inch - more or less, and peel it apart. Because these cupcakes were so tiny I also snipped the licorice in half lengthwise with scissors.

Pinch on piece into a 'U' and  set it below the eyes (almost touching) for the smile.  Exact position will vary and add character.

This fellow was one of the first - I learned to make the 'U' more narrow 

Make sure to start with a tight 'U' as it tends to pop wider - it will 'relax' a bit.

Finally position a few candy corn to make sunshine rays around the perimeter of the cupcake.  Be sure to keep the base of each well onto the cake. TIP:  angle tip upwards (see left centre above). This will help them to not slip and droop - that was not fun to fix - not too hard though.

I preferred the look of fewer with a slight space
between fewer candy corn

If your candy corn are drooping or slipping off put them closer to the centre and use fewer that are spaced further apart. Drooping may also mean your icing is a bit too thin or soft. If they won't stick your icing is too dry - just put a small dot under each one.

The simplest way to transport these to an event is to carry them in the pan/s they baked in.

Notice not all of them turn out perfectly smooth -
the rougher guys  were eaten just as quickly though.

These were simple, inexpensive and fairly fast to complete.

Welcome back SUNSHINE!!