Chocolate Cupcake Toppers

For cake decorators, cupcakes have a versatility that large cakes lack, since each cupcake in the batch can be customized. This Father's Day I made cupcakes for my dad, who is an enormously talented musician, for my grandpa, who still rides a motorcycle at the age of 89, and my sister, who is still a Winnie-the-Pooh fan.

To please the gluten-free foodies in my family as well as the chocolate lovers, I baked cupcakes from a Betty Crocker gluten-free devil's food cake mix. I designed cupcakes to suit each of the three honorees at our party. I ordered two candy molds from Amazon: a musical instrument mold and a motorcycle mold. This seemed a little like cheating, but for two dollars, how could I pass it up?

 Using the professional molds, I ended up with cupcakes that looked like this:

And some like this:

For my sister's cupcakes, I traced three different Winnie-the-Pooh headshots in melting chocolate, which I think turned out really cute!

Considering that, with a pencil, I draw about as well as most 6-year-olds, I was impressed I could draw this well in chocolate. Not to toot my own horn--or strum my own guitar.

Additionally, my cousin graduated from the University of Washington the week before Father's Day, so I made some Husky cupcakes for her party. These were apple-cinnamon cupcakes made using a Betty Crocker gluten-free yellow cake mix plus some additions to spice it up. I'll post the yummy modified recipe sometime.

I used chocolate chips and Milk Duds (both were naturally gluten-free) for the Husky paws.

Whew, now that June is mostly over, I think my cupcake extravaganza has finally come to an end. But I enjoy making cupcakes at least as much as making full-size cakes, so there may be many more cupcake posts in the future!