Hero Cupcakes, of the Super Kind! Part 2, Completion

     Finally, after months of planning, it was time for the real deal! I made the cookie dough a few days ahead, rolled, cut out, and baked the cookies the next day, and a couple of days later I began icing them. This took me all day (and a couple hours the next day), even with my sister helping me to mix the colors, get the icing to run sugar consistency, and she also helped outline and fill in some of the base colors. 

So here we are at the very early stages, already looking bright and colorful! The hulk head, seen at the bottom of the above pic, was the first to get a second color added and I was already loving the contrast between the green and black. Next are several in progress shots and, again, a part of me loves the simplicity of these without all of the details as seen in later pics.

 

But layer by layer, they did get more and more detail added.

My husband took these shots of me and the workspace. Glad I set myself up at the kitchen table for this one, I so often stand at the counter while working on projects and later wonder why my back hurts so much!

 

 He also got some pics of me detailing spiderman.

 

 

 

The first finished hero (at least in terms of this photo gallery, not really sure who was actually finished first!).

 

And his friends: (hopefully identifiable to those who know their superheroes at least reasonably well).

Just in case - Here's Batman! 

Because it was for a baby shower, I wanted to make Batman a little more colorful,

so I went with his older costume that mixed a blue mask with a gray body suit.

 

 Hulk (My personal favorite, I think he's so cute!)

 

Iron Man

Captain America

Green Lantern, there were two but guess I forgot to get a pic right after completion.

Heck, I completely forgot Flash:/

Superman

 

Wolverine - the baby's name-to-be is Logan, so this character was very fitting.

 

Thor - Sorry Thor, but you are my least favorite and he almost didn't make the cut.

He has too much going on with his costume that doesn't really do anything

 special to identify him. Keep your eyes out for the addition of his hammer in the

final pics of the setup at the shower.

 

I ended up making two each of 10 heroes, which translated to forty cookies.

I needed about 50 so I filled in with a few other elements that would add to the overall comic element. Such as sound bite cookies, the letter "L" for Logan encapsulated in the

Superman logo, and a city scape (which I liked more than I thought I would and ended up

wishing I had made more of!). And, of course, I spelled out Logan twice for a colorful display.

And here are a few shots of the finished cookies, not necessarily with all heads

and bodies where they should be:

 

 

If you recall from part 1, all of these cookies were created to be toppers for cupcakes,

so each cookie tops one cupcake, and then the two cupcakes are presented together

to make up one superhero (a little disturbing when it's time to eat!). So I also had to

 think about how I would display the cupcakes at the venue as the typical cupcake

 towers are not designed to hold two cupcakes together. I had a lot of thoughts about

what to do, mostly surrounding trying to get several sizes of boxes and covering them

to make them look like buildings. That would have been cute,

but I did not end up with enough time to get it together.

All I really knew was that I wanted at least a few different height levels.
I ended up at a party store, and they had primary colored buckets in different
heights and large round trays also in primary colors, and I thought, voila!, that will work!
So a couple of trays sat on the table, two more topped the lower buckets,
and one tray went on the highest bucket. My sister, one of the shower organizers,
had made a cute backdrop of buildings that the cupcakes sat in front of
(well due to a high powered heater at the venue the cupcakes ended up

a little more to the side of the backdrop). All in all, I was quite pleased with the final

presentation and here are the final shots from the display all set up.  

 

 

 

 I didn't intentionally set the following two trays up like this, but I really like how they ended up looking with the name above, a sound effect cookie, and then a few heroes below.

 

Also, I added Wolverine's claws on site, made for a cute little 3D element.

Also added Flash's lightening bolt details to his temple on site (these extra elements were made out of the royal icing, piped onto parchment and left to dry - then attached with more royal icing.)

And Thor got his hammer as well.

 

So that is pretty much that! I loved making these cookies/cupcakes! It was a lot of fun

and I was really delighted with how they turned out. I am a bit of a perfectionist so I

had my moments of thinking they were not good enough, but when they all came,

quite literally, together, I was thrilled with the end result. And, as is always the most

important part, the guest of honor loved them, as did all of her family and friends.

I actually attended the shower so I received a lot of wonderful comments from people

throughout it,  and overheard some oohing and ahhing over them. 

So that's always the best feeling!

 

I also learned how to get around fondant in this instance, as mentioned in part 1,

these cupcakes were inspired by bride and groom cupcakes done this way but with

fondant, as seen in a Craftsy class. I think changing that over to cookies was a good

 decision for me, and I am excited about the possibilities this

technique presents for future creations!

 

Thanks for checking out my post!

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hero Cupcakes, of the Super Kind! Part One, Conception

     I made cupcakes for a superhero themed baby shower this past weekend. Each character was created with two cupcakes, one for the head and one for the body. Having first seen this technique done with fondant, which I'm not a big fan of, I decided to find a different way to make my version. What I came up with was making sugar cookies, cut to be slightly larger than the top of a cupcake, and then I iced them with royal icing, mostly in the "run sugar" consistency, and then piped in details with a medium consistency. I was really happy with how they came out, and based on all of the comments, so were the shower guests, and the guest of honor, mommy-to-be.

     This first post includes pictures of the conception of the cupcakes, once I decided that that was what I would make over a cake. The main shower décor was going to be superheroes, with the majority of printouts coming from a store on etsy (which unfortunately at last look did not still have this set available, maybe due to copyright issues - a good time to point out that there was no charge for these cupcakes as I made them for a friend).

My first concept involved having the superhero characters wear bibs

and diapers, and I even had binkies in their mouths

But then I drew them out more simply, and overall this was the favorite design.

I am certainly happy about this after the fact as they were plenty of work without

all of the additional little details making them babies would have entailed! :)

 

So, as mentioned, I had decided that instead of fondant, as I had originally seen this idea done with brides and grooms in a Craftsy class, I decided to go with sugar cookies. One problem, I had never made sugar cookies, or worked with run icing before. So I had to practice, which is the nice part of having a goal in mind, because I had a book about sugar cookie making and decorating that I had only briefly flipped through before now (also available as a Craftsy class!).

  

Here are some images from my first attempt at sugar cookies and run icing, not too shabby.

I was so thrilled with this cookie dough recipe, every shape I cut out of it 

(and I practiced with all sorts, such as the snowflake) held its shape beautifully.

Next step was practicing more of the details within the superhero characters. I have just been getting back into cake decorating and so I felt I'd be more comfortable getting in some practice with piping. To do this I baked a sheet cake and cut out circles of it in the same size as the final cookies would be. I covered the cakes with white and milk chocolate ganache just to give them a smooth surface. I then used a typical buttercream icing to create the characters, hence the rather rough finish:

       

Hulk

 

Batman (wanted to go a little more old school with his blue costume)

Wolverine. I was originally trying to keep his head in a round because I was concerned about attaching his ears, if that's what they are called, but then I had a light bulb moment that I could just

cut out the whole shape of his head, ears and all, from the dough...as seen in the finished cookie.

The baby's name will be Logan, so Wolverine was important to include and get right.

 

Iron Man, not from the original collection from etsy, but I wanted to include him.

Spider man, I'm very happy with the freehand logo.

 

And last, but not least, from the practice session is Superman. His curly-q really makes him a cute character. The final collection included several more characters, as seen in the above drawings, but I was just aiming to get a handle on them here, so I did not make them all.

 

Lastly, I compared my drawings to my practice cakes, happy that they all looked pretty spot on.

 

And there ends part one.

Part two is about the creation of the final cookies and the display at the shower.