Avengers Birthday Cupcakes

My baby boy is turning 4 today.  It's so hard to believe how much he's grown and how much time has gone by since seeing his sweet little face for the first time but I really can't remember life without him.  His arrival created our family and I'm beyond happy to call him my own.

Monkey can not get enough of Iron Man, Hulk or any of the other Avengers.  You've got to give it to the kid.  He loves his superheroes!  While he wanted a dinosaur birthday cake (more on that later), he wanted to bring Avengers cupcakes into school with him.  After scouring the internet for ideas, I came across cupcake toppers.  Of course! Why didn't I think of this at first?  Well let me tell you my friend, this was a first time project for me.  I bought all of the fondant and played around a little to see if I had any hopes of putting these things together.  As long as you have all the primary colors (along with black and white), you can make almost any color under the sun.

Captain America?  Got it - he was all cookie cutters (LOVE these and these).  Easy Peasy.  Thor? Yep.  Just roll up fondant and shape into a box and roll the handle.  Iron Man?  The whole reason why I'm making these things to begin with?  Ugh, he was a pain in my behind!  Every topper I found on Pinterest or Etsy was either a version that looked like an alien or someone had used an iron man cookie cutter.  Because I live overseas, it takes forever a while to get mail so I was out of time.  Then it came to me.  Why not print out the simplest Iron Man mask I could find on card stock, cut it out and use it as a template?  So that's what I did.  After the 3rd topper, I thought, "Man, I've got this.  I'm an expert."  After the 5th topper, I thought, "Thank God I'm only making 5 of each."

Ok, with Captain America, Thor and Iron Man down, I had 3 more designs to make.  I decided to give myself a little break and use a "4" cookie cutter for one of the designs.  It fits, right?  Ok, 2 more designs to go.  You can't have the Avengers with Hulk.  I made a Hulk face (quite cartoon-y but so easy) and a Hulk fist punching through a (purple) brick wall.  Realistic, right?  The face topper just didn't go with the others so I went with the fist.  Oh man, those took some time.  A little hint if you want to make the punching fist...watch a bunch of tutorials on youtube and practice practice practice.  You could use your kids' play-dough (there's no shame) or go right into it and use fondant but I'd have to say those took the most time.

The last design was the Avengers symbol.  The "A's" were all cut out by hand and the circle around the A was cut using the same cookie cutters I used to cut out the white "stripe" in the Captain America shield.  Annnnnd DONE!  Pop those bad boys on top of cupcakes in some foil liners (I think silver really finishes off the superhero vibe) and send them off. Whew!  I'll tell you, after having never made anything like this before, my mind was constantly going to "what is plan B if ____ doesn't work?" and when I closed the box of FINISHED cupcakes for the hubs to bring to Monkey's preschool, I felt on top of the world!  I did it!

If you're looking for an American buttercream that tastes AMAZING and is stiff enough to hold these toppers, Glorious Treats has a wonderful recipe and I'll definitely be using it again for Sister's smash cake.  Ok, enough relaxing!  Off to bake Monkey's Dinosaur birthday cake!