Alligator Cupcake Cake

One of the primary reasons for our recent trip to Walt Disney World was to celebrate our son's 5th birthday. We didn't have a party at home for this reason but I knew that he still wanted to celebrate with his friends and teachers. I really wanted to make something special since to me, turning 5 is such big deal. Also, my son is just a really, really good kid who I love doing things like this for.

He actually picked out this alligator cupcake cake himself from the book Hello Cupcake! and I ended up making these for his PM preschool class. He actually goes to 2 preschools (a private, church preschool in the AM and a special ed. public school in the afternoons). We made rainbow cupcakes for the AM class that turned out really cute too. I'll post that recipe soon.

This cupcake cake might look complicated but it wasn't really that difficult. That's what I love about the Hello Cupcake book. It has so many amazing ideas that are totally doable!

Close-up!

You can see here one problem I had with these. I frosted the body of the alligator one day and finished the tail the next. However, the frosting color got more concentrated while refrigerated overnight...hence, the darker tail.

Where does the time go?....my son at about 5 months old... all chubby and cute!!

Today, a slimmed down, geography loving, animal expert, assistant chef,pop music fan, one man navigation system, too funny, sweet and smart 5 year old! Happy Birthday Peanut! I LOVE YOU!!!!


Ingredients:
18-24 vanilla or chocolate cupcakes in white paper liners
2 cans of white frosting or a large batch of homemade
green and yellow food coloring to make murky green color
1 bag square chocolate cookies
6 marshmallows
2 Junior mints *
12 banana shaped hard candies*
2 green jelly beans*

* These candies can easily be found in your local mall candy store.

You will need approximately 24 cupcakes but you can use more or less depending on how big you want the finished cupcake cake to be (I used 19). Make the body of the alligator two cupcakes wide with the tail and snout only one cupcake wide. One cupcake can be used for each of the four feet. Frost each cupcake with green frosting and use an open decorating tip to pipe scales onto each cupcake if you are so inclined. Banana shaped hard candies inserted into each foot create realistic looking claws while sharp teeth can be cut out of marshmallows or white taffy with scissors. The finishing touch is to connect two large marshmallows together with green frosting to create a cylinder. Frost the marshmallows with green frosting while leaving both ends un-frosted. Place these eyes on the head of the alligator and press a chocolate covered candy onto each end of the marshmallows to represent pupils.

Source: Hello Cupcake!