No, those aren't "Super Mario Mushroom-Flavored Cupcakes" (thank goodness!). I made these for the birthday celebration of Adam's best friend Devlin. Devlin turned 30 today and decided to celebrate by going back to his gaming roots. His quest took him from the original Nintendo through Super Nintendo up through Sega Genesis, which is where he's currently playing before he moves a little further into the 1990's. As he played this morning he mentioned to his wife, Laura, that it would be cool to have cupcakes that looked like the little mushroom in the Mario series. She passed this idea along to me and the mushroom cupcakes were started.
To be fair, I Googled "Mario Mushroom Cupcake" to get an idea of how to proceed and got some good visual aids. I wanted to make both the red and green mushrooms (since the 1-Up mushroom is the greatest of them all) and could have *sworn* I'd seen green and red tubs of frosting in the stores in the Christmas baking displays. I have the hardest time coloring icing to be really dark, bold colors and wanted to cheat with something that was already colored for me, especially with my time crunch. Instead I found cherry-flavored icing (pink) and Christmas sprinkle icing (light green) so I made those darker instead of starting from scratch. I used a boxed mix that appeared to be really nice but instead turned out really flat. The cupcakes were probably the lightest and fluffiest I've made but I really needed something that would puff up! Eh, at least they tasted good and looked cute.
Their eyes are made from chocolate squares that I melted down and piped on. The white circles on top are Wilton's candy melts (in their unmelted form), which just so happened to be part of a recent Christmas gift from Garrett and Amanda (thanks guys!). After packing up the cupcakes (and maybe sampling a little along the way) I saved one to put in another of my Christmas gifts: a single-serving cupcake display from one of my coworkers, Amanda. So pretty and whimsical all in one!
We're still waiting to see if anything happens if you eat the cupcakes. If I see anyone gain an extra life or suddenly double in size I'll let you know.
Adi
It's not just cute; it also looks delicious! I'm going to try making this for my kids. Would it work if I try to convince them that they'll grow taller and become more energetic when they eat those? I'd say they'd just be like Mario! LOL! I just hope I'd be able to make the cupcakes as good-looking as yours.
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