The Squeaky Bunny: I Wanna Be The Very Best...

I choose you, first real blog post!

Today, I'm going to show how make Pokéball cupcakes. Pokémon is something super close to my heart. I started playing these games when I was a kiddo and I still pour hours into the games, both old and new. Pokémon Red was the first game I really got into on my Gameboy. Before that I only played Tetris and Super Mario World 2. My love for Pokémon is a burning flame that will not be easily be extinguished, that's for sure.

These cupcakes are really not hard at all to make, and the ingredients are not crazy rare or expensive either.

Tl;dr? Scroll on down to the bottom for a video tutorial!

Here's what you'll need in your inventory

For the candy clay

Wilton's Candy Melts in red, white, and black. you can also dye white candy melts, but red and black are such tough colors to dye, I really didn't want to deal with the headache.
Corn Syrup. You will need 1/4 cup per 12 oz. bag or candy melts.

For the Cake/Frosting

Box of Red Velvet Cake Mix. The kind I purchased also includes a packet to make cream cheese frosting, and even a piping bag to frost the cupcakes with. You can definitely use any red velvet cake mix, but if you do, you will also need to make your own cream cheese frosting

Trainer tip: A basic cream cheese frosting recipe is just 4 oz. butter, 4 oz. cream cheese, around 2 cups of powdered sugar (or less, depending on how sweet you like it), and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

2 eggs
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup oil
4 teaspoons water (for frosting)
1/2 stick of butter, softened (for frosting)

Recipe

To start, the candy clay recipe is from the Wilton website, so the credit is all theirs. I had never tried making this before. When I made Pokéball cupcakes in the past, I made marshmallow fondant (which I'm sure I'll make on here for something else someday) to top the cupcakes. However, marshmallow fondant, since it starts out white, is really hard to dye dark colors like red and black. You have to use a ton of dye to have the colors not looking like pink and gray, and even then, the colors aren't that vibrant. So I was super stoked when I read about candy clay and how I could just buy Wilton's candy melts in the specific colors I needed.

Okay, yeah, so here's the actual recipe.

1. Melt 12 oz. candy melts in a microwave safe bowl in 20-30 second bursts. Stir in between. 2. Once melted, add 1/4 cup corn syrup and stir until dough forms.

3. Set aside on wax paper/parchment paper to cool and harden (you can put it in fridge for a short amount of time).

4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin pans with baking cups.

5. Empty contents of cupcake pouch into a large bowl. Stir eggs, water and oil into cake mix until moistened. Spoon batter evenly into 12 cupcake liners (approx. 1/2 full).

6. Bake in center of oven at 350°F for 20-25 minutes. Cupcakes are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5-10 minutes in pan then remove and place on wire rack to cool completely.

7. Mix softened butter with electric mixer on high for 1 minute until light and fluffy. Slowly add frosting mix to butter while mixing on low speed. Add water while mixing. Scrape sides of bowl. Mix on high for 2 minutes. (More water may be added to obtain desired consistency).

8. Fill provided piping bag with frosting (place bag in tall glass to make filling bag with frosting easier). Cut approx. 1/2 inch from the tip of the piping bag. Insert cut piping bag into top of cupcake and squeeze gently to fill cupcake with approx. 1 tablespoon of frosting. Slowly remove piping bag and swirl approximately 1 tablespoon of frosting on top.

9. To assemble pokéballs, first flatten out a piece of white candy clay to desired thickness. Then cut out a circular shape using a cookie cutter or cup that is approx. the size of the top of the cupcake. Do this for all 12 pokéballs.

10. Flatten out red candy clay and make circles as well, except this time, cut them in half. Press the semicircle into the white circle.

11. Roll out the black candy clay into a snake (Ekans?) and then squish it flat. Straighten it out using a knife if necessary, then press this piece across the seam where the red and white candy clay meet.

12. Make a large black dot out of candy clay, and press it into the middle. Then make a slightly smaller white dot and press it into the middle of that.

13. Attach the pokéball to the frosted cupcake, using the frosting as glue to stick it on.

Done!

Now it's time for some FPS, or Food Porn Shots (awwwww yeah)