Bug Cupcakes!

I'd like to try to claim that I wait to post my baking activities until well after the event because I like to relive the moments months later... really I'm just a complete slacker and take my good ol' sweet time getting around to it.  The following was a project from my nephew's 7's birthday in June.  Yes, it's quite embarrassing how long it's been, but better late than never, right?
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For my nephew's 7th birthday I was tasked with making cupcakes.  But not cute cupcakes... that wouldn't be cool at all.  They had to be gross cupcakes.  So since the party was at a mini golf course with an Indiana Jones theme, I thought bugs would be perfect.  Big bugs like the creepy crawlies in the Jones trilogy (yes, I know there was a 4th Indiana Jones movie, but it was so bad that I refuse to acknowledge its existence).  Big, nasty, gross bugs...

Ok, so that guy is kinda cute.  The spider's body is a Ferrero Rocher with an M&M head.  Eyes are made of white sprinkles with two red food dye dots.  The legs are piped chosolate. 

Since the spider ended up not being gross enough, I had to work on some other bug options and came up with this one:

That is an edible cicada that looked a little too realistic for me to actually stomach eating.  The body is made from a date, the wings from caramels that were rolled out and cut into wing shapes the head is a half of an M&M and the antennae are piped frosting.

I couldn't decide on one over the other so I thought I'd top the cupcakes with all different types of bugs so the kids could choose which they wanted to devour.  The whole lot looked like this:

I liked how some spanned a few cupcakes to make it look like they were crawling all around.  However, I had planned to transfer them to a nicer looking plate (this is just my cupcake carrier), but after they were assembled I realized that because some were spread across two cupcakes that moving them would be impossible.  Plus it was a REALLY hot day in June and the bodies were assembled with chocolate, so too much handling meant they all fell apart.  So this is what the kids got.  Eh, they're 7 year old, I'm sure they won't notice!



The beetles:

Made of a Pretzel M&M, regular M&M and half a Raisinet for the head.

I made two different types of scorpions:

Both were made mostly with M&Ms (both whole and cut in half for the smaller parts of the legs) and a Pretzel M&M for the large part of the body and a half a Raisinet for the head.


The centipede:

The centipede was all M&Ms with chocolate legs.

A few of the happy customers:

They gobbled up the candy bugs, but hesitated once they got to the cupcakes.  They were red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  I thought the kids would think the color of the cupcakes was cool, but I think the cream cheese frosting weasn't sweet enough and they never really got past that.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Next time I'll stick to the super sweet Betty Crocker for the kids.