Wild Card Wednesday: Mini Olympic Torch Cupcakes

This post could also be titled "Great Idea Bad Execution" or "Why Not To Cook While You Are Sick". Yes, I crashed and burned a little bit yesterday making these cute cupcakes, but whats a torch without a little fire? :)

Let me back up a little- I saw this great idea for torch cupcakes in a recipe book about a year ago... sorry I don't remember the name of the cookbook, so I can't properly thank them for this wonderful idea. I thought I would tweak it a bit and share my creation with you all! I was THRILLED to find these adorable mini ice cream cones- I knew they would be the perfect size- I like a small cupcake I can just pop in my mouth all at once.

Ingredients:
1 box of Confetti Cake Mix
60-70 mini ice cream cone cups
frosting
yellow food coloring
orange fruit roll-up (I used "cherry orange wildfire".... perfect for a flame!)

1. Make cake mix as instructed on the package. My first attempt at making these failed after this step when I added 200% more water than instructed. Nice, right? Since I wasn't feeling very well my sweet husband ran to the store and grabbed another confetti cake mix for me. Phew. I guess this is what I get for trying to be creative when I am sick!!

2. Place mini ice cream cones in a cake pan. I only used 2/3 of a cake mix and therefore ended up only using 40 cones. Don't ask me why I made it so complicated!!!

3. Fill ice cream cones with cake batter. I didn't fill them to the top- I would say each cone was about 75% full.

 4. Bake as instructed on the cake mix box. For cupcakes I needed to bake mine for 18-20 minutes at 350 degrees. After about 23 minutes I pulled my little cupcakes out of the oven just SURE they were done- I mean, they were in the oven for longer than instructed and they were SMALL cupcakes. And I didn't use an entire cake mix. Well, they weren't done. The bottom of each of the cupcakes was nice and goopy. I didn't find that out until after they had cooled, and I checked to see how my little torches were doing and saw this:

 Yes, a hot mess of gooey cupcakes and deflated ice cream cones. But as you can see by the picture there were a handful of cupcakes that didn't LOOK too bad (although partially uncooked). In desperation and determination I decided to frost the good ones. Because I think the idea is fabulous. My execution- not my finest kitchen moment.

5. Use yellow frosting or add yellow food dye to white frosting and frost away! Can you just see my poor cupcakes leaning over....sigh.

 6. Cut flames out of an orange fruit roll up. I think Airheads would also work well.

 7. Attach the flames to the torch. Quickly snap a picture before the flames fall flat on the cupcake.

8.Give a cupcake to your eager four year old and watch her run around the kitchen holding her olympic torch. Wipe away the tears because you didn't give up and you were able to give your kiddo a few moments of sheer pleasure.

And isn't that what the Olympics are about, anyway? Doing your best, never giving up, and running around with a torch. Perfection.

Happy Teaching!

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties: