Turtle Cupcakes

No, not the candy with caramel and nuts, the animal!

I work in an after school program for kindergartners, and they’ve had a pretty intense fascination with turtles lately. I guess I can’t really blame them. Turtles are cool. Especially when they’re made out of frosting! These were a huge hit with the kids.

You will need:
Cupcakes (I used 12 chocolate and 12 yellow)
Frosting: I started with one stick of butter, 4 cups of powdered sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla, and added milk in 1 tsp increments until it had a good consistency for piping.
– blue (I used Wilton color gel in Sky Blue) – this will be used for covering the tops of the cupcakes
– light green (I used Wilton color gel in leaf green) – this will be used for the turtle shells
– slightly darker green (I added a little black gel and a little blue gel to my light green) – this will be used for the heads and feet
– brown frosting (only a few tablespoons) – this will be used for the faces on the turtles
A Piping bag and tips:
- small and medium round tips (Wilton 4 and 7)
- a small basketweave tip (Wilton 46)

Spread all your cupcakes with an even layer of blue frosting.

Put the light green frosting in a piping bag fitted with the #4 (small round) tip.
Pipe the outline of the turtle shell:

Using the same light green frosting, switch to the #46 (small basketweave) tip. Pipe a checkerboard pattern, rotating the tip 90 degrees to make alternating squares.

Put the darker green frosting in a piping bag with the #7 (medium round) tip. Hold the piping bag in place and pipe a large ball for the head, then smaller balls for the feet (pull away slightly at the end as you stop squeezing).

Put the brown frosting in a plastic ziploc bag and cut a TINY piece off the corner. You will want a very fine point for putting the faces on the turtles. Carefully pipe a mouth and two eyes onto each turtle head.