Lady Abbies: 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.