How To Make Owl Cupcakes

So I got busy and made the cupcakes for the Harvest Carnival Cake Walk.  I made 18 chocolate cupcakes and 18 yellow cupcakes.

In an earlier post, Harvest Carnival - It's a Piece of Cake!, I highlighted some of my favorite Halloween cupcakes that I had spotted on Pinterest.  I picked one of the Mummy versions and one of the Owl versions to make.

The most complicated of the cupcakes I chose were the Owl cupcakes.  A lot of steps!  I made Homemade Buttercream frosting using butter - no shortening.  And then I used the yellow cupcakes to make the Owls.

Here is the Link for the instructions and recipe for making the Owl Cupcakes.  

First I separated the Oreo cookies.  You use one of the cookie halves with the cream on it and press an m&m in the cream to make the eye.  You obviously need 2 for each cupcake.  I prepared all the eyes for the cupcakes first.

Then you take the other half of the Oreo cookie - the one that doesn't have the cream on it - and crush it up.  But not all the plain cookies!  You need to set aside some of the plain cookies for the Owl ears too!  You'll need one plain cookie for each cupcake.  All the rest of the plain cookies you can crush.  I used a zip lock bag and a meat tenderizer.  

Then take the reserved plain chocolate cookie halves and cut them in half for the ears.  Sorry.  No picture of that step.

So all the prep work is done.  Now it's time to decorate the cupcakes!  First ice the cupcakes with the buttercream icing.  

I used a pretty tip to make a swirl, but it doesn't matter cause it's fixing to get smushed!  :)  Put the chocolate cookie crumbs from the ziplock bag into a nice little bowl . . . and dip the cupcake - icing down into the crumbs.

And here is what it looks like at this stage:  messy crumbs everywhere!  Ha!

Then you stick in the chocolate halves for the ears . . .

And then you add the eyes . . .

I had to squeeze a little buttercream icing on the back of the eyes to make them stick to the cupcake.

Then I used a yellow m&m for the beak.  The recipe called for something else, but I think the m&m looks fine.

Whew!  Those 6 cupcakes took more time to put together than the other 30 cupcakes I decorated!  And a sweet girl in Zach's class (AMK) won my owl cupcakes at the cake walk!  So glad they went home with her.  :)

Cupcakes are a favorite here at our home . . . but my boys prefer that I don't put any icing on them!  But that's the best part!  Ha!

But iced or plain . . . there's nothing quite like the comfort of a cupcake to bring a little joy to  . . .

                               the Ferrell boys and me!

Check out my other posts from my 31 Day Writing Challenge in October on the topic of "Comfort and Home"  HERE.

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