Proud Parents to Be

The color's a little wonky in this one.

They have feet! The mother's come home from the fishing trip with a fresh little red herring. Unfortunately her little baby has yet to hatch.
If I hadn't been so lazy I would have baked mini penguins too. Perhaps next time.

Here’s the recipe taken out of the book in case you’d like to make these little guys for yourself. It doesn’t tell you how to make the cupcakes but how to decorate them once they’re made. I kind of cheated with this and bought a cake mix to bake the cupcakes instead of making them from scratch.
Also, I’ve switched a few things around when I did this so I’ll be putting my personal notes in italics. Enjoy!

March of the Penguins

Makes 7 penguins, 4 icebergs, and 1 bucket: 12 cupcakes
You’ll need 12 cupcakes, 11 baked in white paper liners and 1 baked in a silver foil liner
Note: I didn’t bother with the silver foil liner when I did this and if you make a batch of cupcakes usually you can make 24 of them.

Ingredients

Penguins
4 plain mini doughnuts
1 can (16 ounces) vanilla frosting
7 plain doughnut holes (I bought some plain timbits from Timmies and cut them in half.)
1 can (16 ounces) dark chocolate frosting.
Black food coloring (available at baking supply stores) (I didn’t bother with this since it was a little expensive)
4 marshmallows
7 thin chocolate cookies (Famous Chocolate Wafers)
I substituted the cookies with those large round baking chocolate wafers (You use them to melt the chocolate)
14 mini chocolate chips (and they mean mini)

Icebergs and Bucket
1 cup shredded coconut
½ cup blue and white rock candy, plus more for garnish (available at gourmet candy stores)
Small colored fish candies (available at gourmet candy stores)
1 strand black licorice lace

***I should note that if you’re allergic to coconuts white sprinkles and course sugar work as well. I used both on my cupcakes since I don’t like shredded coconut. I also added a tiny bit of blue course sugar to give it that blue hint that you see in the morning. The white course sugar made it sparkle like you’d see in the morning


Penguins
1. Cut the mini doughnuts in half crosswise. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the vanilla frosting into a small ziplock bag, press out the excess air, seal, and set aside. Spread vanilla frosting on 7 of the cupcakes and place a mini doughnut half, cut side down, on top. Spread more vanilla frosting on top of the mini doughnut and place a doughnut hole on top. I originally misread this and cut the doughnut holes in half instead Spread more vanilla frosting up the sides of the doughnut holes to fill the gap as smoothly as possible. Place the cupcakes in the freezer for 10 minutes, until slightly frozen. I left mine in for 4 hours while I was at work, They turned out fine

2. Tint the dark chocolate frosting black with the food coloring. Microwave in a 1 to 2-cup microwavable measuring cup, stirring frequently, until it is the texture of lightly whipped cream, about 35 seconds total. Holding 1 chilled cupcake by its paper bottom, dip it into the black frosting just up to the liner. Hold the cupcake above the surface and allow the excess frosting to drip off. Turn right side up and let stand. Repeat with the remaining 6 cupcakes. If the frosting becomes too thick for dipping, reheat for several seconds in the microwave, stirring well.

3. Using clean scissors, cut 1/8 inch off both flat
ends of each marshmallow. Trim ¼ inch off one side of 7 of the marshmallow circles to create a straight edge. Press 1 cup marshmallow piece onto the black frosting of each cupcake, straight edge next to the paper liner, to make the penguin’s belly.

I should note here that I did all of the cutting before I dipped the cupcakes into the icing. I also decorated them right away after dipping.

4. Using a serrated knife, make 2 parallel cuts in each chocolate cookie ½ inch in from opposite sides. The 2 curved outside pieces will form the penguins wings. Trim ¼ inch from one end of each wing (I forgot to do this too) Press the trimmed end of the cookie into the frosting just below the penguin’s head, one of each side, securing them with a dot of black frosting.

5. Cut 4 of the yellow fruit chews in half on the diagonal to form the triangular beaks. For each penguin, place the cut side of one of the triangles onto the black frosted doughnut hole, pressing gently to secure. Cut and shape the remaining 3 ½ fruit chews into fourteen 3-toed feet. Snip a 1/8-inch corner from the bag with the vanilla frosting. Pipe white dots for the eyes and add the chocolate chips, pointed end in. Pipe a small white highlight on each eye. Next time I might just buy white chocolate chips instead

Icebergs and Bucket
1. Spread the remaining vanilla frosting on top of the remaining 5 cupcakes and press the shredded coconut into the frosting. Arrange the rock candy on top of the 4 cupcakes in the paper liners to make the ice. At this point you can use the sprinkles and course sugar instead

2. Add a few fish candies and the licorice lace to the remaining cupcake in the foil liner. Attach the other end of the licorice to one of the penguins to make his catch of the day.

3. Arrange the penguin cupcakes in a curved line on a serving platter. Place 2 fruit-chew feet in front of each penguin. Place the iceberg cupcakes around the penguins and sprinkle the serving platter with fish candy and rock candy. Tuck a fish candy under the wing of one of the penguins.

Instead of using fruit chews for the beaks (I couldn’t find any) I ended up buying some hard gummy fish candies and used those instead. I cut them appropriately and they worked just fine. I plan on buying some more of them with some mini eggs for more photographs.
There’s also one random penguin in there where I added some course black sugar to its back. I didn’t like it so I didn’t bother with the others. Now I have a random bag of black sugar.

Source
Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson p. 44-47


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Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Lens: Macro 60mm