Who, Who, Who Made This Owl?

Okay, I know that was corny and that you already know that I made this owl.  It's from the book Hello, Cupcake!, which I received as a birthday gift last year.  I tremendously enjoyed looking through it and picking out designs I wanted to do.  It's full of so many creative designs, and many are fairly easy to carry out, judging by the pictures and instructions.  But a year passed and I hadn't done any of them.  Then this year's birthday arrived and I received the sequel, What's New, Cupcake?, and I figured that I'd better get started actually making some of the designs.

Our pumpkin carving party last month provided the perfect opportunity to make some chocolate owls.  I had planned to make some carrot cake pumpkins, too, but ended up having to just improvise a much more simple design of my own instead of the really cool pumpkins from the book. so I'll just be blogging about the owls this time.

If you'd like to make these yourself, you'll need to start with chocolate (or another flavor) cupcakes and chocolate frosting.  I believe the book recommends using about 2 cans, but I made some from scratch because I didn't have enough of the canned frosting.  And boy, did that frosting turn out well!  You can click this link to find the recipe for Chocolate Frosting from the Hello, Cupcake! book.  It's thick and tastes like a semisweet fudge.  You'll need to use it pretty quickly after making it since it sets once it cools, or you can add milk to thin it to a spreadable consistency if you make it ahead of time.  FYI, getting a flatter cupcake actually works in your favor for these, since the owl eyes will sit flatter that way - something I figured out after I'd already gotten started with mine.  I used brownie mix for mine and added an extra egg to make it more cakey, but I think leaving out the extra egg would have given me flatter cupcakes with which to work.

Next you'll take a package of Oreos and, half a dozen or so at a time, microwave them for a few seconds to soften the cream filling.  Twist them apart.  The sides with the cream will be the base of the owl eyes, and the plain sides will be used to form the ears:

Take the plain sides and cut about 1/2 inch into each side.  If you use a serrated knife and saw carefully back and forth, you'll get a better result and less breakage:

Frost your cupcakes, getting one side as smooth as possible since that part will not be covered:

Place two of the cream-side Oreos on each cupcake and two of the ear pieces at the top:

I cut a bit off of each end of the ear pieces since they seemed to fit better that way.  Then you'll take chocolate frosting in a pastry bag with a small round piping tip (or fill a ziploc bag with some and snip off a small bit at the corner) and use it to cover the ears and to make "feathers" at the top and just underneath the eyes on each owl:

Using yellow Runts candies, push one into each cupcake to form the owl's beak:

I got enough of the yellow candies in 3 bags of Runts to make 18 cupcakes.  Then you'll pipe a small dot of vanilla frosting (canned, or you can make some by scaling down this recipe for buttercream frosting) onto each cream side and use it to attach a Junior Caramel (or Junior Mint, if you prefer those) to finish the eyes:

Hello, Cupcake! also suggests that you pipe a little vanilla onto the chocolate candy to make a highlight, but I found that it looked fine without it.

I was pretty happy with how these turned out, and now I'm excited to make more fun cupcakes!