You know how I LOVE Disney – well these Minnie Mouse cupcake toppers are perfect for a Disney fan’s birthday!

ingredients:
fondant
black gel dye
red gel dye
white frosting

Start by dyeing the fondant black. I always use gel dye and might I suggest investing in some disposable gloves, as the black is UNFORGIVING on your skin. Dyeing fondant black is hard, you don’t want gray tones – so you have to just keep working with it. If it’s not dark enough, let it dry a bit, then add some more color. Just keep working it in.

Once you’ve got the black you want – get a template ready. I just printed out some random ‘Mickey head’ images and sized it to the scale I wanted (these were mini cupcakes, so they were only about 1.75″ in diameter). Roll our your fondant on a flat surface, lay the template over and cut out the image. Set aside to dry.

Now the bows – if you know Minnie she has a GIANT floppy bow on her head. I’ve seen people do ‘Minnie’ cupcakes and they have this itty bitty bow on a big ol’ head. Nope. This Disney fanatic is here to tell you to stay true to the characters, do your research, Minnie wears a giant floppy bow, and traditionally it’s red with polka dots.

To make the bows – dye fondant red, then sculpting it with just your hands, make two little triangles with rounded edges. Put them together, almost like a butterfly, then add a little round ‘knot’ in the middle.

Lay the bows on the black Mickey heads and suddenly…they are Minnie!

Now just pipe on some white dots on the bows and she’s ready to go!

Place the heads on top of the frosted cupcakes – I used chocolate-y cupcakes (recipe, here) in red and yellow wrappers. VERY Mickey and Minnie.

Comics and cake. Two things I love. So when I was asked to make a SURPRISE birthday cake for Scott McCloud, author of “UNDERSTANDING COMICS,” I was excited and also totally freaked. I did not want to screw this up.

The request was for a “simple looking frosted-chocolate cake.” The recipe? Well, that’s my secret. Sorry folks, I don’t post ALL my recipes.

The cake was to say, “UNDERSTANDING FIFTY” – as it was his fiftieth birthday and it was a play on “UNDERSTANDING COMICS,” of course. The rest of the cake was to have an image off of his follow-up book, Reinventing Comics. See that TINY image on the left of a hand with a quill? Yeah. That’s the one.

I started out as I do with all my baking requests, by thumbnail sketching out ideas and drawing the layout by hand. Then I move to the computer and lay it out in ‘life size’ form.

For the lettering I rolled out white fondant, then lay the cut out ‘template’ that I printed and cut, over the fondant.

Once the letters were cut out, I pulled the template off…

…and now pay attention, here’s where my very expensive Architecture degree pays off : using an x-acto I cut out the lettering by hand, shaping each letter on its own. (Fondant lettering technique how-to, here.)

When it came to the hand + quill image, well – I just hand piped it. A good idea would have been to practice first, but I just went for it on a wing and a prayer. Probably a bad idea looking back, but it went quickly and smoothly, thank goodness. Sometimes stupidity works in your favor.

While this cake looks simple I assure you, the simplest things take a lot of planning. Hopefully everyone at the party enjoyed the cake – but really, can you ever go wrong with chocolate??!!

I just realized that this tutorial is lame since I forgot to take pictures of the process. See how rusty I am with a week off? Pathetic.

To do lettering in fondant, simply print out the wording you want in a font you want to emulate, on the computer. Take an x-acto knife and cut out the letters to make a template.

Then – much like the Batman how-to – place the template over your fondant and carefully cut out the letters.

Placing the letters on a circle of fondant makes them stand out and tops cupcakes really well!

When the Baby said “BATMAN party” the first thing that came to mind was the logo. Simple, iconic, and couldn’t be that hard to do, right? Well.

ingredients:
10 ounces white fondant
yellow gel dye
8 ounce chocolate fondant
2.5″ circle cutter

Since I didn’t have a Batman symbol cookie cutter in the exact shape I wanted and I am a crazy perfectionist – yes, I cut these all by hand. It certainly wasn’t fun. But I had 24 kids coming and I knew every kid had to have the same looking cupcake. Fair is fair.

Here’s how I did it: I printed out the logo at a size that would fit within a 2.5″ circle, so the length was probably around 2-1/4″ total. Then I cut it out on heavy cardstock.

Roll out your fondant to 3-1/16″. I used chocolate fondant, again (see ladybug post) because of the flavor. Is black traditional? Of course, but I knew that these 24 kids coming to the party would devour the fondant and probably leave my delicious Ovaltine cupcakes lying in the wake. (I was right) So I’d rather they eat chocolate than black dye. Hey, I care.

I always feel more comfortable handling an x-acto, but a paring knife will do as well. Just make sure that your x-acto is clean and sanitized. If you’ve worked with x-actos before, you know they sometimes come oiled – totally disgusting and not good when you are cutting fondant. CLEAN THAT THING.

Place the cardstock template over the rolled out fondant. Using your x-acto go carefully around the edges of the template. Set them aside in an airtight container, sprinkling a little cornstarch on the bottom so they don’t stick.

For the circles, just dye some fondant yellow, roll out to 3/16″ of an inch, and using a 2-1/2″ biscuit or circle cutter, cut out circles. Again, I dye fondant I like to let it air dry just a bit, then added moisture can make it kind of hard to work with.

Now place the chocolate Batman symbols on top of the circles. I like to let these dry out just a touch before I put them on top of the cupcakes. When you are ready, frost your cupcakes and stick them on top. Just don’t mess with Batman’s cupcake. He might get angry.

This weekend I made 120 cupcakes for a very special little girl’s 1st birthday. The theme was ladybugs and pink of course! I made red velvet cupcakes and topped them with fondant lady bugs.

ingredients:
24 cupcakes
frosting
12 ounces chocolate fondant
12 ounces white fondant (dyed with red gel coloring)
Dots candy – black (or licorice gumdrops)
Black licorice lace

I decided to use chocolate fondant for the base circle because sometimes dyeing fondant black seems to lead to leaking and trouble. These cute Thomas cupcakes turned out great, but after a while the black began to weep – not so cute. But those were eaten quickly and these I knew would be sitting out.

Roll the chocolate fondant out to 3/16″ of an inch. Try to keep it on the thin side because remember you will be stacking the red on top and you don’t want to weigh everything down. Use 2.5″ biscuit or circle cutter and out circles. Set them aside in an airtight container, sprinkling a little cornstarch on the bottom so they don’t stick.

Now for the red – take white fondant and using red gel dye, dye it red. This is the best dye for this because doesn’t run and doesn’t take much. I advise using gloves whenever you dye fondant, people will ask questions about your bloody red hands, otherwise.

After I dye fondant I like to air it out a bit, it tends to get a little wet and sticky and way to hard to start rolling immediately. Once the fondant has dried out a bit, roll out the red to about 3/16″. Using the same 2.5″ circle cutter – cut out circles, but then cut them in half. Lay them on top of the chocolate circle, but splayed a bit, like wings. Again, but in an airtight container.

To make the ladybug dots, I used a small – TINY – cutter for the circles. However you can just take off a bit of fondant, roll it into a ball and then flatten it. That will also give you the perfect sized small dot. Place those on top of the red wings. If they are too dry, you can add a touch of water on the back to make them stick to the fondant below, but NOT TOO MUCH.

To make the head, cute a black Dot candy or licorice gumdrop in half. These are so sticky they will stick all by themselves.

For the antenne – use a toothpick and make a hole close to the ladybug ‘head’. Cut a small piece of black lace licorice and insert it into the hole. You shouldn’t have a problem with it staying put, but you can put a little bit of frosting on the end to make sure it stays in place.

I like these to look like they are ‘floating’ on top of the cupcakes, to do that – put a small amount of frosting on the center of the cupcake, only about 1 Tablespoon. Then place the ladybug on top of the frosting and push down and twist.

NOW. Your cupcakes are complete! Yes, it was a little bit of work, but SO worth it. Especially when you have a pink ladybug birthday to celebrate!

I have to be honest with you, I have a FEAR of polka dots. Ever since I was a kid, circular patterns sort of set me off and actually make me physically sick. So when polka dot cupcakes were asked of me I knew one way to get around it was to make circles of varying size. That doesn’t bother me for some reason.

To make these cute Dot cupcakes, you’ll need:

ingredients:
cupcakes
frosting
sanding sugar
Fondant

I make my fondant cut outs ahead so I can assemble everything quicker in the end. Roll the fondant out to about 3/16″ thick. To make nice larger sized dots for a standard 2.5″ across cupcake – a nice tool is a standard piping tip. These make perfect dots. For smaller dots you can use the tiniest of cutters or simply take a dab of fondant, roll it around and flatten it to shape into a small circle. Once you’ve popped them all out, store them in an airtight container, sprinkle a little cornstarch in the bottom so that they don’t stick together.

Frost your cupcake and then dip it into the sanding sugar, coating evenly. Dyeing the frosting the same color as the sanding sugar helps give off a nice even color.

Now add your pre-made fondant dots, just add a touch of frosting on the back and pop them on.

This is the easiest of cupcake decorations and you can vary it any way you like. It is also a great way to get used to working with fondant. Now if you REALLY want to get into fondant…check out these other how-tos.

Like most boys, mine are into trains. I had some kids come over for playdates so I had to do something special for dessert of course. So I made up some Blue Velvet cupcakes and topped them with fondant Thomas faces.

With lots of inspiration around I dragged out some Thomas’ to help me out. I wanted it to be simple since I didn’t have a lot of time. Luckily the face is just gray, with white and black accents.

Even better…all the elements are circular, so there’s really no difficult shaping. I dyed fondant gray, and then made a bunch of black, to do that base of the face, which is Thomas’ smoke stack. I used a biscuit cutter to get the circles within a circle, and then freeformed the smoke stack on top.

Much like Hello Kitty’s whiskers, the key element for Thomas is the eyebrows, believe it or not. Once those were on it suddenly took shape.

The Kid complained that there was no blue and EVERYONE knows Thomas is blue. But I ran out of fondant! So, I made some red velvet cupcakes, but dyed them BLUE and turned them into blue velvet. Perfect for Thomas’ color. I tinted some cream cheese frosting with even more blue, and the Kid helped me put the Thomas faces on.

I could have gone overboard and did a full complicated version, but I just didn’t have time and these were rather quick. The kids were excited, which is always a plus. They also ate the WHOLE fondant face which I find a little gross, but sugar is sugar I suppose.

These are very quick and easy and are great for any little boys train birthday party!

If there’s one thing I know like the back of my hand, it’s Hello Kitty. So I’ve been wanting to do some Hello Kitty fondant work for a while.

you need:
white fondant
yellow gel dye
red gel dye
black gel dye
some delicious cupcakes!

Obviously you only need to dye VERY LITTLE of the fondant yellow, since it is just for the itty bitty noses. If you look at Hello Kitty’s head it’s basically an oval, so I started by making a roundish oval. I then made little pointy triangles for ears, oval nose, oval black eyes – and there you have the basic face.

The red bow is just two rounded end triangles put poit to point, with a big ‘ol circle in the middle. When you add the bow in red you know it’s Hello Kitty. The bow is rather large and takes up quite a bit of the side of the face.

What I never really realized is how much the whiskers make a difference. I sometimes forget they are there, but when you don’t put them on the face, it seems somehow incomplete.

I also made a few Pirate Kitty faces cause pirates make everything more awesome.

Hello Kitty is a great intro to fondant since the basics of the head is white. Along with small dyed pieces, the whole face comes together rather quickly.

As I was going through my pantry for ingredients for New Year’s, I noticed an unopened slab of fondant and realized that the white fondant looked just like mochi. Specifically, the kagami mochi, which is stacked just so – for New Year’s Day – with a little orange on top to signify generations of family.

ingredients:
fondant
orange gel dye
green gel dye

Since mochi is white and so is fondant, all you have to do is shape it into little slabs. SO EASY. I wish all fondant work was this easy. Pat them down to look like mochi and stack the smaller one on top.

Now dye a tiny bit to make little oranges. And a VERY small amount – dye green for the leaves. After you’ve shaped the oranges into balls, place them on top of the white mochi slabs, take a toothpick and poke a little hole in the top. That’s where we’ll add the leaf.

Take a teeeeny pinch of green and just freeform shape it into something that resembles a leaf. Poke that into the top of the ‘orange’ to stick.

When I made these they looked so cute but now that I had dozen of these things, now what? Cupcakes of course.

I made mochiko cupcakes and stuck these on top. Festive and fun for the new year!

Jodi loves hamsters so this was a natural choice for a birthday gift. I tried to convince the Kid that these were hamster flavored. He didn’t fall for it, smart kid.

ingredients:
fondant
orange gel dye
pink gel dye
black gel dye

This how-to kind of sucks. I made these at 4 in the morning cause I couldn’t sleep, but it was still dark out so there was no light. The pictures are lacking, but still, I think you get the gist of it.

I started out dyeing. Gel dyes are the ONLY thing I recommend, not only for fondant, but for frostings and cakes. Gloves are always recommended because any kind of dyeing can stain. A small ball of orange, and VERY small amounts of pink and black. The white just stays as is, which is helpful.

I started out like I did with the Curious George cupcakes, cut round circles to start, as the base. Then I cut another circle in orange, but cut that at an angle or half moon. That is the orange part of the fur. Lay that on top of the white circle. Then I just took some tiny balls of orange, flattened them and put them behind the circles for ears.

Like I said, this how to sucks, because I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the steps, but just pull off small balls of black and pink, and roll them out to finish it off. As you can tell from the pictures, making these is really easy because it’s just layering pieces.

Also, I was at the end of my fondant supply, so I only made two hamsters, then took the rest of the fondant and spelled out Jodi’s name. I just hand sculpted the letters, I don’t like using cookie cutters too much because they often stick and pull. I think making things by hand gives you much more control.

I made pumpkin cupcakes, and used a chocolate spread instead of a frosting. I am not a fan of BIG frostings, so just a little spread gave some flavor and made good ‘glue’ for the fondant. Playing with fondant is really easy, it just takes some practice, I encourage everyone to try it, it’s really easy!