As part of Burton’s school work this term he is learning all about Australia, and one of his core projects is to make a 3D Australian animal. After googling ideas I was going to suggest to him that he made a crocodile out of egg cartons and paint and bubble wrap. However, then yesterday I had a bit of a brainwave and suggested that as he also had a show and tell to present, and the fact that his class were having a special picnic lunch to celebrate Children In Need, that instead of making a crocodile from cardboard we made one from cake!
I turned to google again and found this image and decided this would be the easiest 3D cake crocodile to make with Burton, and as there are 26 in his class, including him and his teacher and assistant, this shape was perfect to accomodate this amount of cupcakes.Here is how we made a Crocodile Cupcake Cake
- *FOR THE CUPCAKES*
- 250g self raising flour
- 50g cocoa powder
- 300g caster sugar
- 300g Stork (or unslated butter)
- 6 eggs
- *FOR THE BUTTERCREAM*
- 1 tub of Betty Crocker vanilla flavoured buttercream
- 1 tub of cream cheese
- 1 tbsp white chocolate spread
- 1 tube of Dr Oetkar lime green liquid gel (food colouring)
- *FOR THE DECORATIONS*
- 12 mini white marshmallows
- 12 orange flavoured chocolate buttons (the Tate & Lyle ones), cut in half
- 2 white choc buttons
- milk chocolate icing tube - 2 blobs needed (so could use melted choc)
- 69 milk chocolate buttons
- Use brown paper cake cases
- *TO MAKE THE CUPCAKES*
- pre-heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC (fan)
- cream together the stork/butter and sugar for a few minutes until pale and creamy
- add the eggs and a spoonful of the sifted flour and beat well for another couple of minutes
- carefully fold in the flour and cocoa powder and mix to combine
- divide the batter between 26 cupcake cases and cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes , then leave to cool
- While they are cooking, make your buttercream
- Place all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until combinded - it is a little runnier than a normal buttercream - and place into piping bags and keep chilled until required.
- Once the cakes have been completely cooled and you are ready to serve them, top each cupcake with the green buttercream
- On 2 of the cupcakes, add 3 mini marshmallows on each side (6 in total per cake) to look like the teeth and one one add 1 chocolate button in the middle and on the other add 2
- On two other cupcakes, you need to pipe some more green buttercream across the middle of them both to join them together - these will make the crocodiles face. To make 2 eyes, add a small blob of the chocolate icing in the centre of each white choc button. Then stick one button at each end of the added buttercream you just piped on
- Take 4 more cupcakes and add 3 buttons in the centre of each one and then add 6 of the orange choc halves per cake - 3 on each side slightly over hanging to look like the crocodiles claws
- On the remaining cupcakes, add 3 choc buttons to the centre
- To position the cupcakes, I copied the formation used by the image I found on google and I drew around each cupcake to make a crocodile stencil to help Burton display the cakes for his show and tell.
- Thats it - your Crocodile Cupcake Cake is ready to be devoured!!
Considering almost all of this was decorated by Burton and Jenson, I think it looks really good and they did a grand job. Plus they really enjoyed helping to put this together – lets hope Burton’s class mates enjoy eating it.
I am entering this into the ‘POP’ Art blogger challenge , where I was asked to submit a creative 3D work which my boys and I got involved in together to make. Channel POP screens a variety of shows and activities which celebrate creativity and is available on Freeview channel 125, Sky Digital channel 616 and Freesat Channel 603.
That’s great! I did a snake like this for big man’s second.He will be very popular at school!
i saw this on instagram and think triple liked it! you are one clever lady xx
That is amazing, the detail is brilliant and I bet it went down brilliantly with the class? Love Jenson’s face when icing.
thank you i thought it looked good too considering they decorated it. x
This looks great! My son would love this. It is a really great idea. A perfect birthday treat.
I am inviting you to my “Let’s Party!” food blogging competition. You are very welcome to enter a recipe if you like!
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This is such a clever idea Jenny. You are so good with your two boys and just look at his face whilst he is icing. Perfect. Thanks for joining in
an amazing idea. Funnily enough our school dont allow home baking in to share with the children, for birthdays it must be a bought cake.
Well done boys on the decorating, it looks amazing.
Looks amazing – I bet Burton was very popular.
This is amazing, but after the parties you’ve thrown I wanted expect anything less from you and your fantastic boys 🙂
thank you lovely x x
Ideas for Wow Factor Cakes & Cupcakes - mummy mishaps
[…] Crocodile Cupcake Cake – lots of little chocolate cupcakes , topped with green frosting and then various chocolate buttons/marshamallows to make the body parts […]