Monday, May 19, 2008

Pug Cakes

My sister is totally in love with her pug dog Presley, so I knew she would love these pug cupcakes I made for her birthday. I got the instructions for them out of the excellent new cookbook Hello Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. Not only does this cookbook have some of the most creative and adorable cupcake decorations I have ever seen, many of the designs use some of my favorite candies. Take the pug cupcakes for example, the ears are made of flattened and shaped Tootsie Rolls and the tongue is made from a strawberry Starburst. The eyes are made out of brown mini M&M's with a dot of white frosting in the middle of them. (Oops! I forgot to mention that the nose is made from a black licorice Jelly Belly. The box I bought didn't have enough black ones to go around, so on some I used the brown Chocolate Pudding flavor which worked just fine.)

One of the great things about this cookbook is that you don't have to be an expert baker to achieve great results. All of the cupcakes in the book can be made with box cake mix and canned frosting. The candies used for decoration are also very common and readily available at most drugstores, gas stations...you get the picture. I really appreciate how this book made me look at candy in a new light. Before seeing this book, would I have ever pictured green Runts as green peas or a lemon Starburst as a pat of butter? Probably not. It's great to learn new things.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Joann

Your pugs look just great, hope your sister had a happy birthday. I am one of the authors of Hello, Cupcake! and love the way you think about candy. We are crazy about candy too. We love watching out for new candies and figuring out how to use them in our cupcake designs. I would love to excerpt your post about the pugs and your thought about them and use the photo on my blog at blog.hellocupcakebook.com I will definitely be sending our candy crazy readers your way.

Thanks for the comments and
Keep on cupcaking!
alan@hellocupcakebook.com

Anonymous said...

I must say-- these pug cupcakes were the highlight of my birthday!!! So realistic and adorable-- plus they tasted great... Thanks JOJO :) also, thanks for the HELLO CUPCAKE cookbook- can't wait to start baking!!!!!

theplussizepug said...

Hi JoAnn! I just posted about your pug cupcakes on my blog. They are AMAZING! You are so talented. I wish I were your sister. :D