Valentine's Baking: Angry Birds Cupcakes

If your Valentine is addicted to the game Angry Birds like mine is, here's a fun treat to whip up for him/her. I chose the red bird and used pictures off the internet for reference.

MATERIALS:
- cake mix and required ingredients or your favorite cake recipe and the ingredients
- oven, mixer, pans, bowls, measuring cups, etc.
- icing (canned, mix, recipe, whatever) in the following colors:

• white
• green
• red (use food coloring paste OR liquid coloring and cocoa powder OR red Jello power)
• brown (chocolate OR add cocoa powder to white) OR black

- butterscotch or peanut butter baking chips
- toothpicks
- a piece of styrofoam or florist foam
- icing bags and tips OR small plastic bags
- spherical candies (mine were sour cherry but gumballs or others would work, it's the shape and color you're worried about); you need at least one per cupcake

1. Make and bake your cupcakes. I used a chocolate fudge cake mix that made 24. I put some baking chips in with the batter. You can start on the next step while they are baking.

2. Stick a toothpick into each of your candies, then stick the other end of the toothpick into the foam. This is so they don't roll around while you decorate them.

3. Apply a circle of white icing to the lower front of the candy. Stick a baking chip (beak) onto the icing at the top of this circle. I iced 5 then stuck on the chips, then did the next 5, and so on.

4. Add two small dots of white icing (eyes) to each candy just above your baking chip beak.

5. Using your chocolate/black icing, draw a V over the eyes for eyebrows. Make sure they look angry. Dot a tiny bit of chocolate/black icing onto each white eye to make a pupil.

6. Blob some red icing on the top of the candy to make feathers.

7. I put my birds in the fridge while I waited for my cupcakes to cool. Once the cupcakes are cool, retrieve your birds. Apply green icing to the tops of your cupcakes. I did mine with a knife but you can use your decorating bags/tips if you want. It should be a bit messy as it's supposed to look like grass.

8. Stick your birds in the green icing.

9. DONE! Clean up all the evidence and hide your creations until the perfect moment to surprise your Valentine. 

Valentine's Day Gift Idea: eBook

Want to give someone a unique gift this Valentine's Day? How about a new eBook for their iPad or iPhone? It's a great way to say "I love you" without adding to their clutter or their waistlines and to show them that you're interested in what they're reading. eBooks come in a variety of price ranges and you don't have to leave home to get them - just download them straight from your computer. It's a perfect "last minute" gift or something you can shop for with your loved one while cuddled up together by the computer sharing hot chocolate in the candlelight.

Here's my favorite eBook (okay, so I wrote it, but it's still my favorite ☺) available from Blurb: The Phantom of Lone Pine Lake.

Don't forget that if you want to get a paper book  for that special someone you can make your own custom gift bag out of magazine pages by following my tutorial here: DIY Gift Bag from Magazine Pages.