I made these penguin cupcakes for Cara to celebrate her birthday in 3rd grade with her class at school. She was going to be having an animal themed birthday party that summer, but she didn't really have an idea of what she wanted for her school cupcakes, besides that she wanted it to be an animal. So we went on the Family Fun website, looked at some ideas, and this is what she picked.
I baked and cooled the cupcakes, then iced them with vanilla buttercream. I used round chocolate covered chocolate mint cookies for the body and the head (like the Keebler Grasshopper Fudge Mint cookies). For each penguin you will need 1 1/2 cookies (3 halves). For the eyes I used a little of the vanilla buttercream icing to make two large dots on the head, and then I placed an M&M Mini on each dot. I wanted to use all brown ones, but I ran out, so I used blue and green also. The beak and the feet are dried apricots cut into the appropriate sized triangles. You can put a small dot of icing under the beak to help it stick to the cookie.
I thought these cupcakes turned out really cute, but they're also pretty simple to do. Cara and her class really enjoyed them.
Parties I've posted this link to:
