Veggie Cupcakes

A few weeks ago, I got the book, "Hello Cupcake," which has fun ways to decorate cupcakes. I decided to try a few of the ideas that they suggested, so I started by making the "Peas and Carrots" and "Mashed Potatoes" cupcakes. I also used a cupcake recipe that they had listed in the book that tasted delicious, but was a little bit dry.

To decorate these cupcakes, we dyed some store-bought icing (regular, not whipped) green and spread it evenly over the cupcake. I picked the green Runts out of the box (2 boxes of runts had enough green for 6 cupcakes) and quartered some orange Starburst.  We stuck them on randomly, and they held well! For the mashed potatoes, Ian made a mound of icing on each cupcake and put an indentation in the top to hold the "gravy." I cut a yellow Starburst in half through the center to make a thin pat of butter, which we placed at a slant in the mound. To make the gravy, I heated up some sugar free caramel sauce, drizzled a bit in the center over the butter, and tilted the cupcake to get some drips. Be careful though - if there's too much sauce in the drips, the caramel will run off of the cupcake!

I took these cupcakes into work and everyone loved them! They're fun and easy to make!