Sugary Learnins'; Or, Cupcake Decorated Part the Third

The third week of my cupcake decorating class was a bit more challenging than the first two.
And I'll show you why.

What the sugary hell is that?

Oooo, a DUCK BUM!

Indeed, it is.

See him with his brethren.

I'm not particularly proud of these ducks, delicious though they may be have been.
But, here's how I did it nonetheless.

What you need

-a cupcake
-a timbit (what do people actually call these? Canadians, we know what timbits are. Are they "balls of fried dough"? "Spherical doughnuts"? Help me out here people. I'm flailing and failing)
-knife
-wide-mouthed bowl for icing
-white chocolate wafers (about 5 per duck)
-lollipop sticks
-icing (white, yellow, and an optional orange)
-raisins (for the eyes, but I think a chocolate chip would be MUCH more delicious. Just sayin)

How you do it

Chop your timbit in half. Dab a wee bit of yellow icing on the cupcake (where you want the head to go). Place the timbit here, securing it with a couple inches of lollipop stick.
Chop a chocolate wafer in half. This will be the bill. Dab some yellow icing between them to make a sandwich, and affix this to the front of the duckie face with, yes, some more icing.

Slide a chocolate wafer on each side of the duck body for wings, and one in the bum area for the tail.

Now, here comes the fun/scary part.

Nuke the yellow icing so it's all liquidy. Holding your breath, and going slooooowly, dip the whole duck in to the icing. This is the technique that makes them look all smooth.

Once this dries (and it doesn't take too long), dab some white icing onto your raisin/chocolate chip and affix to front of duck head for eyes.

Now, as for the bill, we all had a bit of a fail.

The nuked orange icing just made a hot mess. It's next to impossible to spread a non-nuked icing onto the beak without ruining it. The only other option was orange sprinkles, but I didn't care much for that look.

So, as you'll see, each of my three ducklings have different bills.

But they all have the same mama.

Cupcake number two!

COOOOOOKIE Monster!

What you need

-cupcake
-icing (blue and white)
-piping bag (with "star" tip. If this sounds stupid, I apologize. I'm not an expert!)
-chocolate icing (if you so choose, but I'll explain later)
-sprinkles
-two white chocolate wafers
-two raisins (and again, I prefer chocolate chips!)

How you do it

Super easy, my friends.

The blob of chocolate icing with sprinkles on top is supposed to be a cookie in his mouth. I'm not seeing it. At least, it's not readily apparent. While I love chocolate, and this seems so very counter-intuitive to type, I'd skip the blob of chocolate icing and just draw on a mouth. Or maybe not. Haven't decided what I would theoretically do.

With your piping bag filled with blue icing, dab dab dab dab across the whole surface of the cupcake.

Stick the chocolate chips to the top of the white wafers, slide into place for eyes, and tada! You're complete!

I've been told next week is all about making the actual cupcake ourselves. I'll have a report on the deliciousness index, and deliciousness-to-workload ratio.