Rawr! These little guys are so cute. I wish I had a safari party to bring them to. But alas… They’ll just have to hang out in my kitchen. Or maybe the den (wink wink) until I devour their furry faces.

So grab some cupcakes and buttercream frosting and let the decorating begin.

* Frost cupcakes with buttercream tinted light brown. I used a couple of drops of brown and yellow gel icing color for the lion’s fur. * Gently tap the frosted cupcake on all sides in a small dish filled with powdered sugar. * Then shape the frosting into a nice little dome using the palm of your hand if needed. The thin coating of powdered sugar will keep frosting from sticking to your hands. * Finally, gently roll the frosted cupcake on a paper towel. This will remove most of the sugar and create a tiny textured pattern at the same time.

Looks kind of like short fur. : ) That was the intention anyway.

And, don’t worry about any last remaining flecks of sugar. They will eventually disappear from the moisture in the frosting.

Okay, now let’s put their faces on! It’s easy.

Eyes = Black sugar pearls Noses = Chocolate morsels Mouth = White M&M’s or chocolate gems Tongues = Pink confetti sprinkles

Start with the noses and then add the other details. You just need to gently press each piece into the frosting. I decorated each face as I went to make sure the frosting was still sticky enough to allow the pieces to stay in place.

Sidenote: You can totally decorate these lions by just frosting the faces and skipping the whole powdered sugar and pattern method. I just like to start with smooth frosting when making animal faces. Like I did with these chicks using sanding sugar instead of powdered sugar. Sugar crystals work too. And cocoa powder on chocolate frosting also does the trick.

Ferociously cute faces!

Now for the “mane” attraction. Tint buttercream a darker brown and use a #233 grass decorating tip to pipe around the perimeter of the cupcake.

Pipe around at least twice and fill in where necessary for a full head of hair.

Tip: If your heat from your hands starts to make the frosting too soft creating droopy hair, then place the piping bag in the freezer for just a couple of minutes to firm it back up again.

Adorable. And oh yeah, the ears… I reserved some of the light brown frosting to pipe two small dollops of frosting on each cupcake and then used a toothpick to scrape down and carefully remove half of it so they would look flat on the front side and round on the back. Sorry I forgot to photograph that step. : )

I love them just like this, but …

You can also make them feel like a king. I used one of my Bakerella for Make’n Mold candy molds (discontinued now) but google crown candy molds and you can find something similar. Then just fill the candy mold with melted candy coating. Let dry and use gold luster dust mixed with clear vanilla extract to paint right on top of the candy.

Royally cute! Hope you enjoy them.

Here’s a last minute easy Easter treat. All you really need to pull it together are some candy wafers in spring colors (or even just chocolate and vanilla). And don’t forget some fun Easter candy. Eggs, pastel candy corn, miniature chocolate bunnies, peeps, M&M’s. Customize the colors and candies and get creative.

P.S. Here’s another version without bunnies but still cute.

I decided to use a couple of my candy molds to make bunny ears and little letters. Fill the mold cavities with melted candy coating, place in the freezer to set and then gently pop them out until ready to decorate. The cool part about using molds and candy is that you can totally make the decorative pieces in advance to use them when you need them.

My molds are sold out, but you can find other letter molds online, and if you want cute bunny ears, you can substitute jordan almonds, pastel candy corn, or even pipe your own ears shapes on wax paper using melted candy coating.

Okay, so I spelled out the obvious… but duh… now I wish I had spelled out something like Hoppy Easter…… next time.

ASSEMBLING YOUR BARK:

* Have all your add-ons or decorative pieces organized and ready to go. * Melt your candy coating until it’s nice and fluid. * Spread out into a 9 X 12-inch sheet pan covered with wax paper and work _FAST_ so you can add all your goodies before the coating sets.

I started with letters first. Then bunny ears and candy eyes. Next, candy Easter eggs making sure to evenly space out all the pastel colors.

Then add sprinkles in lots of pretty colors and let the bark set. You can also place in the freezer to speed up the process.

FYI … These are one of Sweetapolita’s beautiful sprinkle medleys. Check her out for tons more color combos to swoon over.

For the final touch, use a dot of melted candy coating to attach small pink heart sprinkles in positions for noses. I decided to do this after the bark had set because they were so small and took the most precision.

Bunnies! When dry, use a knife to make cuts on the bark, scoring it to make it easier to break apart. Then lift the bark from the pan by the wax paper and break into pretty pastel pieces.

Enjoy and … Hoppy Easter!

Check out these super cute chick cupcakes all dressed up for Easter wearing adorable eggshell caps. Cute on cute.

And they’re easy to decorate, too! You just need some cupcakes to get going. I used this recipe for cupcakes because the tops mound nicely. BUT instead of baking them as mini cupcakes, I used the batter for 16 regular size cupcakes and baked them for about 16-18 minutes. And, here's the basic buttercream recipe I used, too.

Of course, feel free to use your favorite flavor combo.

For the chicks, I tinted buttercream frosting a pretty yellow and then dipped the tops in a bowl of light yellow sanding sugar to smooth out the frosting. I like this technique because I have a hard time frosting my cupcakes without them looking all lumpy and once. Then, once they are coated with sanding sugar you can gently mold them into shape with your fingers if something is still off slightly.

After you top each cupcake with sanding sugar go ahead and add details for the faces. They will attach easier if you decorate the tops as you go and before the frosting sets or starts to stiffen.

Okay, details. Here we go. Black candy beads for eyes, black jimmies for eyelashes, orange coated sunflower seeds for beaks and jumbo pastel pink confetti sprinkles for sweet little cheeks.

For size reference, candy beads are bigger than a sugar pearl but smaller than a sixlet. : )

Gently press each piece in position until you feel safe they won’t fall off.

Here they are super simple with just eyes and a beak and you could totally stop here. (I do think that if you only wanted them decorated to this stage that they might be even cuter as mini cupcakes.)

Now with lashes and blushing cheeks.

So sweet!

Okay, now they’re really dressed for the occasion with their eggshell buttercream bonnets.

To continue decorating, chill the cupcakes in the fridge until the frosting is firm. Then use a toothpick to draw the cracked egg shape in the frosted cupcake.

Pipe the outline and fill in the shape of the eggshell with vanilla buttercream. This will be the toughest part, but it’s not too bad. Since the cupcakes will be chilled at this point, you can more easily frost over the yellow without disturbing it. Use an offset spatula dipped in a little warm water and gently pull the spatula across the piped vanilla frosting to smooth it out. Don’t press too hard or it will separate from the chilled yellow frosting that is underneath. Do one cupcake at a time so you can work with the frosting before it stiffens any.

Once you have smoothed out the eggshell, place a sugar flower decoration to one side and decorate the shell by pressing pastel confetti sprinkles on top.

The cutest little Easter chick cupcakes.

So tweet!

It's been a lazy day Sunday and I just wanted something simple to satisfy my sweet tooth. No frills or flowers or fluff needed. A simple slice of cake always wins with me.

And look at that slice … freckled with miniature chocolate chips equals perfection.

Chocolate chips just kind of make people happy. They tend to cheer me up anyway. I'll take them in cake or cookies and of course, by the handful :)

 

Curious… do you guys generally grease and flour your cake pans or use a non-stick cooking spray. I like to go for the flour method. It's comforting.

Enjoy a slice!

It’s the sweetest time of the year. And these adorable ice cream cone bears will surely brighten your Valentine’s Day.

I love these tiny cones! They make ice cream cake pops a lot easier. I usually just saw the ends of regular size ice cream cones off with a knife to get them small enough for pops. Like I did here. But no need with these. They are the perfect size. My friend Cupcake Julie found them in California at a store called Cake Box on Main.

Speaking of size. Here’s a visual to give you an idea how small they really are.

When rolling your crumbled cake and frosting together to make pops, the balls should only be around 1 inch in diameter to fit the nicely on the cones.

Here are my basic cake pop instructions if you need them. And instead of dipping with a lollipop stick, you can follow the instructions below.

Let’s go.

* First, prepare a styrofoam block to use as a stand for the cones so they can dry. You can use a lollipop stick to make a hole for them to fit into. Just stick into the styrofoam and rotate it in a circular motion to form an upside down cone shape for the cones to rest in. * For the first scoop, I used melted pink candy coating mixed with multi-colored nonpareils - but you can keep them solid pink, too. Also, for a lighter shade, I melted white candy wafers with the pink and mixed together. * Use a toothpick inserted into the ball to dip into the melted coating. Allow most of the excess to drip off and then place on top of the ice cream cone to dry in the prepared styrofoam block. When dry, gently remove the toothpick by twisting it out. * For the second scoop, insert jumbo confetti sprinkles into melted chocolate coating (I made a lighter shade here as well by mixing in white candy wafers with regular chocolate wafers) and place them into the top and side of the rolled balls for ears. Let dry. * Dip the second scoop into melted lighter color chocolate coating using a toothpick. Shake off the excess and place on top of the first scoop. Let dry completely and remove the toothpick. * When dry, use a toothpick to draw on an even lighter chocolate shade of melted candy coating for a nose and let dry. You can also fill in the ears with the same shade. * For the faces, attach black confetti sprinkles for eyes and pink confetti sprinkles for cheeks using a toothpick dipped in melted candy coating.

Finishing touches. Dot the eyes with the lightest chocolate coating used for the nose and ears. Use regular chocolate coating to add drips to the very top and cover up the toothpick hole. While the coating is wet, attach red sixlets for cherries and sprinkles for well, sprinkles. : ) You can draw on mouths with a black edible ink writing pen.

They’ll be beary cute! But now to figure out how to gift them to your sweetie.

I had these tiny cake pop boxes meant for displaying upside down. They are from BRPBoxShop and they’re so freaking cute. They seemed like a perfect way to display individual ice cream cones. Just use a 1-inch punch to remove circles from the top of the box so you can rest the cones inside.

Then fill the bottom with more sprinkles and insert a tall rectangular card into the box with your Valentine message. Beary cute! Beary Sweet! I like … or love you beary much! They all work. I just printed the messages on card stock or smooth bristol board and cut out the tall skinny rectangles (1 5/8 inch X 6.5 inch) with an x-acto blade.

Keep in mind the two scoops are a little top heavy so be careful transporting. Or simply make single scoop bears. They’ll still be un-bear-ably cute!!!

And tasty too. I used the same cake and frosting mixture for these as I did for my recent birthday cake pops. But… if you decide to make some, you should totally use chocolate cake for the top scoop and strawberry cake for the bottom for maximum effect.

Hope you enjoy and have a Beary Sweet Valentine’s Day! xoxo