Farm Animal Cupcakes…
For RSPCA cupcake day this year I decided to go all Old Macdonald and make cute farm critters from my cupcakes!
I’ve been wanting to try to make mini marshmallow sheep cupcakes for a while, and to this I added and yellow coconut chicks, pink sugar pigs, and black and white Friesian cows.
Ee-i-ee-i-o Cupcakes
Making cuteness is a fun challenge. You need to think cartoon when it comes to animal cakes. The right googly eyes, the perfect placement of a nose, and of course goofy ears. Luckily, these are all really easy to make from coloured fondant.
With all those decorations, you want your cupcakes to be reasonably plain, but I think it’s a sin to make a cupcake that looks better than it tastes, so I like to use a vanilla cupcake base with white chocolate chips. It’s also got ground almonds in it, which makes the cakes nice and tender.
As for the frosting, vanilla buttercream is the best base. Remember to beat it for a few minutes to make it light and luscious.
Cow, Pig, Sheep and Chick!
The instructions below makes 20 farm animal cupcakes, 5 of each animal.
Ee-i ee-i o Farm Animal Cupcakes
White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
ingredients
1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp self raising flour
1 cup castor sugar
185g unsalted butter, softened
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup almond meal
3/4 cup white chocolate bits
mixing
Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Mix in flour and milk. Beat well until batter is fluffy. Fold in almond meal and white chocolate.
Spoon into muffin pans lined with 20 cupcake cases greased with non stick spray. If you like, use different coloured cases for each type of animal, for example, yellow for chicks, white for sheep, pink for pigs and black for cows.
Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for about 25 minutes. Let cool before decorating.
Animal frosting
components
300g vanilla buttercream
Flavourings if desired
Gel food colouring – black, pink, yellow, brown, red
About 150g white sugarpaste (supermarket variety is fine), see note.
1/2 cup thread coconut
2 tbsp cocoa, plus extra for colouring fondant
1 1/2 cups white mini marshmallows
1/4 cup approximately of pink sugar sprinkles. You can make your own if you like… See the Making pigs section.
Note: the quantities of fondant I have given below are intended to minimize waste. If you’re trying this for the first time by all means double the quantities!
Making eyes
Roll out some of the white fondant on a smooth surface dusted with icing sugar, until it’s about 2mm thick. Cut 30 circles about 8mm in diameter (I used a piping nozzle as the cutter). Cut 10 circles about 5mm across. Take the discarded white fondant and knead into the main piece, then wrap it with cling wrap to keep it from drying out.
Colour a lump of fondant (about 1.5 time the size of a golf ball) black, by first kneading in some black colour, then kneading in a tablespoon or so of cocoa powder – this helps the colour and soaks up some of the wetness of the gel colouring.
Take tiny pinches of the black fondant to make balls for pupils. Dampen the white circles with a dab of water on a paintbrush, and stick the pupils on, offsetting them from centre a little. Repeat for all 40 eyes. Wrap the rest of the black fondant in cling wrap until needed.
Farm Animal Cupcakes #1 – Making sheep
Marshmallow Sheep Cupcake
For the faces, colour a golf ball sized piece of fondant brown. Roll into a sausage shape about 1cm thick and 8cm long. Divide into 5 equal pieces. Roll each into an oblong ball and ease each ball into a slight cone shape, pinching in the centre. Flatten off the narrow lower end to make the muzzle, and, using a flower tool or a pointed dowel, make indentations for nostrils on either side of the muzzle. Moisten the wider forehead area with a little water and place two of the small eyes in the centre. Putting them close together makes the sheep look really cute.
Divide the buttercream into four even quantities. Place in individual bowls, and set three aside. Flavour the first quantity of buttercream with vanilla.
Place the mini marshmallows in a shallow bowl.
Cover five of the cupcakes with a layer of buttercream, using all of it. After you have covered each cupcake, immediately dip it into the marshmallows, sticking extra marshmallows in any of the gaps. Place a face towards the edge of the cupcake, moving stuck marshmallows away to make a space. Roll out a walnut sized lump of the reserved black fondant to about 3mm thick and cut squares of black fondant about 1cm wide. Collect the offcuts back into the main ball and wrap again. Make the ears by pinching the corners of one side together firmly and the other side more loosely. Stick the ears to the side of the sheeps head, tweaking the ends so they stick out sideways.
Farm Animal Cupcakes #2 – Making pigs
Pink Sugar Pig Cupcake
Colour a walnut sized piece of fondant pink. Roll out to about 4mm thick. Cut five 1.5 cm circles, and press two indentations for nostrils in each. Ball up off cuts of fondant and roll out to 2mm thick. Cut ten equilateral triangles about 2cm high for the ears. Cover any off cuts of fondant tightly with cling wrap.
Colour one of the three remaining quantities of buttercream pink, and flavour with strawberry essence if you like. Place about 1/4 cup of pink sugar sprinkles in a shallow bowl. You can make your own sprinkles if you need to. Place about half a cup of granulated sugar in a small plastic bag and add a touch of pink gel colour. Massage the sugar until evenly coloured. Spread on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake for 2 minutes at 180 degrees C. Watch it like a hawk… The sugar will melt fast leaving you with pink caramel! Set aside to cool and you are ready to go.
Cover five cupcakes with a layer of buttercream, using it all. After you have covered each cupcake, dip into the sugar sprinkles and pat down gently with your fingers to make a smooth coating over the cupcake.
Place a nose on each cupcake about 1/4 of the way from the bottom edge. Put eyes just above. Note that making the pupils point slightly inwards makes the pigs look kind of stupid… Very cute.
For the ears, take the triangles and shape one edge into an arc. Embed this edge into the buttercream about 1/3 of the way from the top edge. Tweak the tips of the ears to flop down a little.
Farm Animal Cupcakes #3 – Making chicks
Coconut Chick Cupcake
Take any leftover pink fondant and add white until you have a lump a bit smaller than a walnut. Colour half of this orange and half red. Roll each out to about 3mm thick. Using one edge of a pointed flower cutter or a leaf cutter, cut five “beaks” from the orange fondant – they should be about 1.3 cm long and 7mm wide. You can use pointed knife for this if you don’t have any flower cutters. For the “combs” I used a Wilton flower cutter as shown in the photo. You could also use a knife. Cut five combs from the red fondant, they should be about 2.5cm long and 6mm wide and have five pointy bits.
Colour the coconut yellow by placing it in a small plastic bag with a few drops of colouring (regular food colouring from the supermarket works well or dilute your gel colour in a tiny bit of water) and massage the coconut until it’s a pretty yellow and evenly coloured. Set the coconut in a shallow bowl.
Colour one of the two remaining quantities of buttercream yellow, and flavour with lemon or passionfruit essence if you like. Cover five cupcakes with a layer of buttercream, using it all. After you have covered each cupcake, dip into the coconut and pat down gently with your fingers to make a smooth coating over the cupcake.
Place a red “comb” in the centre if the cupcake, and a “beak” in the lower 1/4. Put an eye either side of the beak.
Farm Animal Cupcakes #4 – Making cows
Friesian Cow Cupcake
Take the reserved black fondant (the should be a golf ball size lump left) and divide into half. Roll half out to about 3mm thick and cut 10 rectangles about 8mm wide and 1.3mm long for the ears. Take the other half and roll into a ball. Make a ball of white fondant the same size. Roll each into a sausage about 1cm thick and place side by side. Now you’re going to make the Friesian cow faces. Twist the two strands together about 4 twists to “marble” the fondant. Then roll into a uniform sausage about 1.5 cm wide. Cut into 5 even pieces as for the sheeps faces. Roll each piece into an oblong ball, flatten it to about 8mm thick and pinch it slightly make in the centre and flattening the forehead and muzzle. Make nostril indentations in the muzzle. Moisten the forehead area with a little water and affix two eyes.
Divide the final quantity of buttercream in two. Flavour one half with vanilla. To the other half, add a couple of tablespoons of cocoa, mixing well. Add black coloring. You will need a lot (at least 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of gel) to make a black icing. It won’t look jet black in the bowl more like a dark grey, but will be fine on the cupcake.
With the vanilla buttercream, spread splodges of it onto each cupcake in a random manner, leaving some parts of the cake uncovered. Try to make the vanilla frosted parts smooth and about 5mm deep. Fill in the gaps with black. This is a messy job! Don’t worry if there is some mixing… It’s a Friesian cow after all!
As with the sheep, place each face towards the lower edge of the cupcake and repeat the same process for making the ears.
AND YOU’RE DONE! Congratulations on a great effort in creating your farm animal cupcakes.
Cupcakes ready to sing you “Old Macdonald”
With a baa baa here, and a baa baa there…
With a cheep cheep here, and a cheep cheep there…
Here a moo, there a moo….
Everywhere an oink oink!
Enjoy! xxx
