Koi Cupcakes

As I was surfing the Net for some crafting inspiration the other night, I stumbled across an announcement that the sequel to the cookbook, "Hello, Cupcake!" that my sweet cousin Mel had sent me was now available.  "What's New, Cupcake?" is purportedly packed with new cupcake recipes and adorable decorating ideas.  I'm adding the book to my Christmas wish list, but to tide me over til then, I found one of the tutorials online and just couldn't pass it up.  Koi cupcakes, as posted on iVillage Food. 

After some searching at the BX, the Commissary, and the Makeman 100-Yen section I finally found the ingredients I needed.  I even got to talk to my Mama on Skype while I started decorating the cupcakes!

Here's an in-process shot of some Circus Peanuts being made into koi bodies and fins.  (Warning: some Circus Peanuts were harmed in the making of these cupcakes...but don't worry, they were then quickly eaten.)

One of the more time-consuming parts of this cupcake was sorting out specifically colored M&Ms and Apple Jacks.  (I made us some homemade trail mix with the remaining bag of dark chocolate M&Ms [sans orange M&Ms], mixed nuts and Craisins.  Yummy!)  Once I figured out a few tricks to working with the humidity (frosting gets tricky when it's humid out), the decorating went together fairly quickly.

My finished school of koi, with their adorable Circus Peanut bodies and fins, two sizes of M&Ms eyes, and cute little Apple Jacks mouths.

I took these to Sky Housing, Seaside Housing, and our favorite librarian.  Everyone was thoroughly peached.  Hope they make you smile, too!  :)

---Arielle