Beach Day and Cupcakes

One of the favorite meetings of the German Shepherd Dog Club members is our annual Beach Day. We pack up our dogs and a potluck dish, then spend the day at the beach. We always draw a crowd and have waaay too much to eat. This year one club member brought her camera and took really nice "family" photos for everybody. This is my favorite:

Roxy, Me and Jedi at Hanna Park, 2015

As I mentioned, the food is always good. This year I thought I would be ambitious and try to make German Shepherd cupcakes. I saw a picture of some on Pinterest and thought they were really cute. I looked and looked but couldn't find directions. This was discouraging because I am NOT a crafty person. Fortunately, my mother is. Mom was able to dissect the picture and walk me through it from California. This is what we came up with:
 

 

Unlike the original poster, I'm sharing what I did in case anyone else wants to try. In fact, if you make German shepherd cupcakes and they turn out better than mine, please let me know what you do differently! Here's what I did:

1. Make cupcakes. (I used Duncan Hines cake mix and followed the directions. I got 24 cupcakes from each box.) Allow cupcakes to cool completely.
2. Add a little bit of Wilton brown icing color (I got it at Walmart) to a can of white frosting to get a tan color. Mix thoroughly. Frost each cupcake.
3. Cut a dozen regular marshmallows in half. Stick a marshmallow half -- tacky side down -- onto each cupcake near one edge. This will be the muzzle.
4. Frost the marshmallow with chocolate frosting.
5. Stick a black jelly bean sideways on the muzzle to form the nose. I used two round, black candies for the eyes.
6. Disassemble chocolate fudge sandwich cookies and gently scrape out the fudge filling. Cut each cookie into thirds, throwing out the middle. Stick the other two pieces into the cupcake at an angle so they look like ears. (The best way to cut the cookies was to use a serrated knife, gently sawing back and forth, otherwise the cookies crumble.)

Things I'll do differently next time:

• Use stiffer frosting. I bought a cream cheese frosting to tint, and the chocolate frosting came in a can, much like Reddi-Whip. Both were very soft, making it difficult to frost.
• Stick with yellow cake cupcakes. I made both chocolate and yellow, and the chocolate showed through the frosting.

I'm happy to report that the cupcakes were well-received, and everybody had a good time. Below are a few pictures of the fun.

 

Now you want to come to Beach Day too, don't you? It's OK, guests are always welcome! -- K