Owl Cupcakes

Yesterday I decorated some cupcakes for a friend's birthday today. I actually did not make the cupcakes, as another friend and I decided to share the work in making the cupcakes - she would do the baking and I would do the decorating. She really went all out with the cupcakes and made three different flavors: some chocolate, some vanilla, and some marble. We decided that I should attempt at decorating at least some of the cupcakes as owls, since our friend really likes owls. Owl cupcakes actually were not difficult to pull off at all. I found the idea for them in my cupcake wall calendar (yes, I have a cupcake wall calendar). They looked so adorable, so I followed that template. You can search "owl cupcakes" online, and get instructions very similar to those in the calendar I have. To make the owl, first you will need to split a lot of cream filled chocolate wafer cookies. You will need to split twice as many cookies as you have owls, as you need two halves with filling for each cupcake. Keep the filling intact on one side - this can be a bit tricky, so make sure you have a few extra cookies. You will need the half with no filling for the ears or feathers of the owls. Cut each half without filling into thirds, discarding (or eating) the middle part, so you have two round ends. Again, make sure you have extras, as these break very easily when they are being cut. You will also need some candy coated chocolate pieces, I used all brown for the eyes and all yellow for the beaks, but any colors are fine. Other candies, such as jelly beans or banana runts will also work for the beaks. Ice the cupcakes (chocolate will look the best) with chocolate icing. I just used my standard fudge frosting. If you need to, use a knife to level off any cupcakes with peaks before frosting. Cupcakes that rise are good, but the eyes will not stay on peaked cupcakes. Immediately press two cookie halves with filling in the middle of the cupcakes for the eyes. Press two cookie thirds into the top of the owl, and a yellow candy piece on its side between the two eyes for the beak. Try to do all of this quickly before the icing dries. Pipe two small dots of icing onto the eyes and press brown candies on for the pupils. The calendar featured big and small owls, the small owls featured miniature cupcakes and miniature cookies. And that is it! The owls are finished. I think these are quite adorable myself, and they were quite fun to make!