Back To School Apple Cupcakes Tutorial

Can you even believe it? September is upon us. It happens every year (um, Lyndsay? Duh!) but what I mean is, you're stone cold cruising summer's sunny fun times, August is rolling along, hot as can be, and then suddenly BLAMMO you get a stint of cooler weather and you go, "no. It just can't be over. NO." And you cling to it and wear your shorts and sandals in defiance and you're all like, "oh yeah, I'm totally going swimming tomorrow" but then summer slips through your fingers like a melted ice cream ball fallen splat on the sidewalk.

But it's ALL COOL! Because it means back to school for so many! Fun, right? New clothes, new friends, learning stuff. Not for me, sadly. I loved school way too much. I was the biggest joiner. I played every sport, I was in art class, I was on the frigging student council. If I had known how to bake in high school, I probably would've come to class with these guys:

APPLE CUPCAKES!

So cute and simple. Top them off with a "back to cool" sign and an awesome nerdball bookworm and you've made at least 1.5 new friends.

You will need:

1 dozen cupcakes, baked and cooled.

2-3 cups of vanilla buttercream (or store bought canned icing)

1 piping bag fitted with a large open circle tip

1 package of red coloured sugar

A dark chocolate bar, chopped into "stems"

A 2 inch ball of green coloured fondant, rolled out and cut into leaves.

Optional: fancy leaf cutter, stripey cupcake liners

Pour your red coloured sugar into a small deep bowl. Sprinkle down a bit of cornstarch onto a piece of parchment paper and roll out your green fondant. Stamp or cut out a dozen leaf shapes.

Hold your piping bag filled with buttercream upright in the centre of your cupcake.

Squeeze out until you get a delightful puffy blobette.

Get ready to give your cupcake pal a little dip!

Yep. Face first right in the red coloured sugar. Rotate the cupcake to get a good covering of red sugar all over your frosted cupcake.

Tada! Kind of cool how the buttercream doesn't fall off into the sugar, right? Or maybe it did. No biggie. Just clean that out and on to the next.

Place one of your dark chocolate "stems" into the centre, and a little green leaf on its side!

Keep your assembly line going - don't stop till you get enough!

You can cut out a funny little bookworm shape and draw on a face and some lines like I did. A little sign of some kind is always fun too. Back to COOL, guys. Heh heh.