Crazy cupcake creations

By: Evelyn Raab

Make a bunch of cupcakes, beat up some icing (or buy it at the store) and let your kids loose. Crazy? You betcha.

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups	(375 mL)	all purpose flour
3/4 cup	(175 mL)	granulated sugar
1/4 cup	(50 mL)	unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp.	(5 mL)	baking soda
1 cup	(250 mL)	milk
1/4 cup	(50 mL)	vegetable oil
1 tbsp.	(15 mL)	white vinegar
1 tsp.	(5 mL)	vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F (190° C). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper cupcake liners.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Add milk, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer just until smooth.
3. Spoon batter into prepared pan, filling each cup no more than 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven, take cupcakes out of the pan and let cool completely on a rack.
4. When cool, frost with homemade (recipe follows) or store-bought icing and decorate to your heart's content. Ideas galore below.

Makes 12 crazy cupcakes.

Creamy vanilla icing
Divide this icing up into several bowls and tint each one a different color. If possible, use paste food colors — they'll give you a deeper color and won't thin the icing.

Ingredients

1 cup	(250 mL)	butter, softened
3 cups	(750 mL)	icing sugar
1 tsp.	(5 mL)	vanilla
1 tbsp.	(15 mL)	milk (optional)

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add icing sugar and vanilla and beat at high speed until smooth and fluffy. Add the milk, one single drop at a time, only if the icing is too thick.

Makes about 3 cups (750 mL) of icing — more than enough to produce a whole bunch of crazy cupcake creations.

Crazy cupcake ideas
You can just go crazy with bowls of candies, sprinkles and icing. Or you can make these slightly more coherent creations. Or maybe a little of each.

Bunny
Spread white icing on top of cupcake. Cut a ladyfinger cookie in half crosswise to use as ears. Two brown M&M candies for eyes and a red or pink one for a nose. Black licorice string whiskers and maybe a small mouth cut from a red licorice string.

Kitty
Same as Bunny cake, but use graham cracker cut diagonally into two triangles for ears.

Octopus
Peel paper off cupcake and turn upside down. Spread tinted icing (choose your color — octopi are very clever at changing colors!) over the whole cupcake. Stick 8 gummy worms into the cupcake around the bottom and add two candy eyes on the side.

Butterfly
Cut a slice off the top of the cupcake so that the top is flat. Save the part you cut off (don't eat it!). Frost the flat top of the cupcake with whatever color you like. Cut the cut-off cupcake top in half, making two semicircles. Stick these into the frosting to make wings. You can put spots or stripes on the wings if you like, or just leave them plain. Add two candy eyes and two licorice antennae. Ta da — a butterfly.

Survivor island
Frost the top of the cupcake like so: cover most of the top with tan icing — this is your island — and surround with a border of blue (the water). Now add rocks (candy pebbles are cool) and tinted coconut grass. Cut a gummy spearmint "leaf" candy in half to make palm fronds and stick these on a pretzel stick to make a palm tree. Poke into the top of the cupcake for a tropical paradise.

Jackson Pollock cupcake
Spread white frosting over the top of a cupcake. This is your canvas. Fill several small plastic bags with various colors of icing. Cut a tiny (I mean tiny) hole in one corner. Use these for piping squiggles, wiggles, glops and splodges all over the cupcake. Throw on a few sprinkles and candies. Stunning — but what does it mean?