Helicopter Cupcakes!

My girlfriend from work had the amazing idea to take her sons to the Helicopter Museum for their 3rd Birthday Party. Well, what is a party at the Helicopter Museum without Helicopter Cupcakes. That's right, individual helicopters for each little one at the party to enjoy. I was so happy and thankful that she asked me to do these cupcakes, but I was also excited to see that it would be testing my talents. For these cupcakes I used royal icing for the first time, as well as a star tip design across a whole cupcake, both things I have always wanted to do. The cupcakes were a vanilla cake with a hint of orange. A few days ahead of time I made royal icing and piped circles out on wax paper and let them harden for a day or so. Then I dyed some royal icing and made hair. I really enjoyed working with royal icing and I think that I will try to use it more often. Next, I made homemade buttercream icing in blue and red. With the red I had incredible difficulty with my first try to make it, which ended up with A at Acme getting me more food coloring. The second try was PERFECT and we moved on :) I iced the cupcakes one day ahead of time with white buttercream to keep the cupcakes fresh and the next day used the red and blue to create star designs over all of the cupcakes. I left a corner untouched by the colored icing for the window of the helicopters. On the day of the party I brought all of my things to the museum and finished them there because I did not want them to get messed up on the 35 minute drive. I used pieces of a Hershey bar as the tail of the helicopter, and iced them. Finally I placed fondant propellers that I cut out the night before on each cupcake, along with the faces. Everyone seemed to enjoy them and they turned out really cute. I am posting a few pictures of these because I they were so adorable! Thank you E, and Happy Birthday J & T!

I added a "3" to two cupcakes for the Birthday Boys

Enjoy :)