Alligator Cupcakes!
One of my coworkers LOVES alligators. So, for her birthday, I made the Alligator cupcakes from "Hello, Cupcake!" Since Spring Break is the craziest week for the zoo, I had little time to prepare, so I purchased pre-made cupcakes designed for St. Patrick's Day and altered them. They turned out pretty well, despite the time shortage.
Later, for her son's birthday, she asked if I would do another set of alligator cupcakes. MY FIRST PAID JOB! I was super excited. Since she needed so many cupcakes, I custom designed alligator themed cupcakes for her. It was so much fun!
Ingredients (for custom cupcakes):
48 cupcake liners - I used blue, green, and black
48 cupcakes - vanilla and chocolate flavors
Vanilla frosting - half dyed "murky" green for the alligator, half dyed blue for the water
Chocolate frosting - for the mud
Green Licorice - cut for reeds/grass
Newman's Chocolate Square cookies - cut in half diagonally, for the armor on the alligator
6 1/4 Banana runts - 6 for the alligator nails, 1/4 for the bird
3 Marshmallows - 2 for the alligator eyes, 1 for the bird
2 Junior mints - for the alligator eyes
2 green jelly beans - for the nostrils
Swedish fish
For the most part, I followed the same directions from the " Hello, Cupcake!" Book (Old Swampy, pg. 85) for the alligator. To include the additional cupcakes for the order, I decided an alligator coming out of the water would look nice. I did a lot of counting out and pre-planning before knowing what liners to use and how to frost what color.
I started with the alligator first, piped the cupcakes with green frosting in a scaly look, and placed in place. I did the mud cupcakes next, frosting with chocolate and placed in the box. For the cupcakes on the water's edge, I frosted half the cupcake green or chocolate and then frosted blue. I frosted the water blue cupcakes last. Now that they were all in place, I started adding the extra pieces.
For the alligator, add the two green jelly beans at the end of the snout for the nostrils. Then add the marshmallows and frost with more green frosting. Pipe additional green frosting on the rims of the eyes more an armored look. Add the junior mints to each side of the marshmallows for the pupils, using frosting to secure. For a finished look, pipe white frosting for a gleam in the eye. At the ends of the front legs, use three banana runts (per leg) for the nails. Lastly, cut the chocolate cookies diagonally in half and place on the alligator for the armor scales.
For the mud, I only added some cut pieces of green licorice for a grassy look.
For the water, I added more cut pieces of green licorice for reeds and placed a few Swedish fish around. For one cupcake, I also added a bird on the water. You can find the bird from the sequel, "What's New, Cupcake?" on page 106. Cut a marshmallow in half, and then again to create a crescent shape for the body. Instead of using a mini-marshmallow for the head, I just used a small circle from the leftover marshmallow. For the beak, I added a broken banana runt tip. Then I used chocolate frosting to make an eye and wing.
Trials and errors: Piping the frosting for the alligator was time consuming. As the frosting warmed, it became less edgy and more rounding scales. Overall, still looks good. Practice makes perfect. Also, dying frosting a "murky" green was frustrating. I googled it (because the book was no help) and it said to use green, red, and yellow. I don't know what I did, but it turned out PURPLE and in my attempt to fix that, GRAY. I started over and ended up with what you see.
As you can see from the first picture, I had a happy customer! I'm glad it turned out so well and I can't wait for another order.
Be Crafty,
Kris
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