The Ramblings of Carmom: Tasty Tuesday- Butterfly Cupcakes

I had such fun last week making cupcakes for Abby's birthday. I ended up making two different batches of cupcakes for her, one for her class to enjoy on Friday and one batch for her tea party on Saturday. I will post the ones from Friday later but here are the instructions for the butterfly cupcakes from Abby's party.

I got the idea for these cute cupcakes from the book Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. If you haven't looked at this book you need to. And don't be intimidated by these cupcakes. They are actually really easy to make. I have never taken any cake decorating classes so this is all fairly new to me. Anywhoo, here is what you will need.

Cupcakes
2 colors of candy melts of your choosing (I used pink and dark chocolate)
dark chocolate frosting
1 can of icing (color of your choice, this will be your background)
brown M&M's
sprinkles (I used clear glitter sprinkles)
Ziploc bags
Wax paper
round toothpicks or skewers

1. You will need an outline of your butterfly. I traced the one in the book using tracing paper. I then melted the candy melts according to the directions on the back of the package. I bought Wilton's candy bottles and used these. Though I would not do this again. The bottles both got cracks in them making them very hard to use. Instead you can use ziploc bags. You can melt the candy right inside the bags. You will need to leave the top open and microwave for 10 seconds, massage and repeat until all the candy has melted. You will then press out any excess air and seal the bag.

2. Snip a very small amount from the corner of the bag. You will then need to outline one wing onto wax paper. Go over the outline once or twice more to thicken the wing.

Once you are finished with the outline you will fill in the wing with your second color. You can fill in any holes by using a toothpick or skewer. You can also try tapping the pan slightly but this almost never worked for me. You will also need to make antennas for each of your butterflies. To do this you will make a bunch of curvy capital y's.

Next you will need to start pulling the dark chocolate into the other color. Have fun with this part. Pretty much anything goes. It is very important to only do on wing at a time because the chocolate starts to set up pretty quickly and then this part is almost impossible to get right. You will then sprinkle with nonpareils or sugar glitter and put into the fridge.

3. Once your butterflies are fully set up you can start putting them together. Ice your cupcakes in the color of your choice. Put two M&M's side by side with a small space between...your wings will be sitting on the M&M's.

Carefully remove your wings from the wax paper and place them resting on the M&M's side by side. Next you will stick the antenna into the top of the cupcakes.