The Joys of Caking: It's A Jungle Out There

Gabriel was turning one. So naturally, his brother Noah had to pick out his cake. (This is the same Noah of the dinosaur cake.) He decided on a large elephant. So his mother decided to go with a jungle animal or circus animal theme. She had the elephant pan, but she also wanted some cool cupcakes to go with it.

First I made the elephant.

I love these "character" pans because they are so low-stress. You just bake it in the shape, then pipe stars to fill it in. And done.

It looks kind of creepy at this stage.

So I started by frosting the edges with blue frosting. You don't have to be clean and precise because you can just cover it up when you pipe the elephant.

Then I did the outline and all of the smooth parts. To achieve this look, simply pipe the frosting in the shape that you want and then smooth with a finger dipped in cornstarch.

Finished Elephant - So cute!

Then pipe your tip 18 stars in and voila! A lovely elephant, with very little hassle.

Next came the cupcakes. I was going to make three different kinds, lion, monkey and elephant, from a recipe in my Hello Cupcake book. Here are the ingredients I used:

Runts

Mini M&Ms

Twizzlers (the kind you pull apart)

Cheerios

Chocolate Jimmies (yeah I didn't know what these were either. It's sprinkles)

Candy Melts

Frosting

I used candy melts to make the ears and trunks for the elephant using the template from the book. I let these dry overnight. I should have waited to put them on until I brought them to the party. They looked really good on the cupcakes, but the next day they were kind of falling over and breaking. So now I know to wait to put those final touches on at the last minute.

The elephants got a blue frosting face. I added the ears and the trunk. Then I piped white dots and added brown M&Ms for the eyes, with a little white dot on top. Finally, the banana runts (which were always my favorite flavor of runt) go on for the tusks.

The monkeys got a chocolate face. Then I dipped the edge of the cupcake in chocolate jimmies to look like hair. I piped the white part of the face, the mouth, added brown M&Ms for the eyes and more jimmies for the eyebrows. I was supposed to use sunflower seeds for the nose, but I just cut a mini orange M&M in half instead. I also piped the ears on instead of using chocolate cheerios.

The lions were definitely the hardest because I had to cut up the licorice and it took FOREVER! But they turned out really well. They got an orangey face, then surrounded by pieces of licorice. I added the heart from the Runts and piped the mouth and whiskers. Mini blue M&Ms for the eyes and regular cheerios for the ears.