Awesomely Geeky Cupcakes

My boyfriend's birthday was coming up soon, so of course I planned to make him some kind of cake or cupcakes. Now, he is a little bit of a geek (as am I), so originally I thought I should make him a Minecraft cake, because he loves that game (and has gotten pretty good too I might add). But then it occurred to me that it would only be one thing that he loves, and I really wanted to the chance to incorporate a bunch of things he loves. So, I decided to make him some cupcakes, each one with a different geek-related theme. :)

Because I was going to make 6 completely different cupcakes toppers, and would need a fair amount of fondant in many different colors, I opted to try out Wilton's ready-to-use fondant. It definitely saved me some time because I didn't have to make it and it freed me from the hassle of having to make all those different colors.

Unfortunately, it was not as easy to work with as the marshmallow fondant. It was stickier, believe it or not, and it dried out really fast. The colors were very vibrant, but that being said, the taste of the colored ones was NOT good. The taste of the white fondant wasn't too bad. In the end I think you just have to weigh the pros and cons and figure out what the best option is, and that might change sometimes, depending on what you're making and what your time constraints are.

For the Batman cupcake, I was able to take the same approach as I did with the corgi; I traced the picture on to parchment paper and then used that to trace it on to the fondant and cut it out (this was just the black piece of course). Then I cut out an oval shape in yellow fondant and placed the batman symbol on top.

Fondant Batman symbol

Everything else was freehand (other than the Mario star, for which I used a cut-out).

Geek-themed cupcakes

The Yoshi egg was surprisingly the most difficult shape to make. Trying to get the bottom half to slope out, so it truly looked like an egg, was a little frustrating. Pinching the top portion obviously created an uneven appearance because it leaves fingerprint indents. What I found worked the best was actually turning it on its side (after making it into an even oval shape), placing one finger on the upper 1/3, and rolling it back and forth while putting just a small amount of pressure on it, so that it starts to get a little skinnier at that end.

Fondant Mario icons

For the Minecraft character (the Creeper), and the Lego blocks, I realized this a little too late, but I think it would have worked better to use a fondant smoother to get a more even shape of each square or rectangular piece. I used my hand to try to flatten each side, which worked well enough, but hands obviously are not completely flat.

Fondant Minecraft Creeper

Fondant Lego blocks

For the McDonald's French fries, I drew them on a piece of paper first, just to get an idea of how it might work, which really helped. Then when I cut it out of the fondant by hand, I actually planned to place the red box on top of the just bottom portion of the fries (going for more of a 2D image) but when I did this it looked a little odd, because the box stuck out a lot further than the fries. So I cut out a back piece for the box, placed that behind it, and cut out two side pieces to connect the front and back ones, creating more of a 3D object.

Note: When you're working with all these different pieces, and there's some time between when you create one piece and when actually finish the entire product, it's really important to put some shortening on whatever surface you're storing the pieces on until you use them again. This way when you go to pick them up again, they will not have adhered to the surface already.

Fondant French fries

I had a lot of fun making every one of these cupcakes - and I think Steve definitely enjoyed eating them ;) But if I had to pick just one, the Mario mushroom was most certainly my favorite! It turned out so well, and it's the most recognizable Mario symbol, and I grew up playing quite a few of the Mario games.