We celebrated Alli’s third birthday over the weekend. I cannot believe it, I swear these have been the fastest three years of my life. It feels like she is going to be a teenager in the blink of an eye. In fact, she just informed me a few days ago that she was not a little kid anymore, she was a “teen”. Why, oh why, do kids want to grow up so fast?

We had a very small party over the weekend. She just wanted to have her grandparents over, and since I know that will not be the norm in a couple of years, I decided to go with it. Simple and small is fine and dandy with me! Her cupcakes are what took the most planning. I always let my kids pick the flavours and theme because they always come up with things that I would never think of, and that way it’s tailored to exactly who they are in that year, at that moment. And, if there’s one thing that will always be a constant in this house, it’s that I will make them any food of their choosing on their birthday. Her choice this year? White and pink strawberry-chocolate-puppy cupcakes. From the mind of a three year old.

I will be sharing the recipe for the cupcakes soon. With the theme of strawberries and chocolate they are perfectly suited for Valentine’s Day, so keep your eye out for them around that time. (Get a sneak peak here.)

The puppy part I wanted to keep simple. Since it was just us +2, I didn’t want to go through too much work, but I did want it to feel special. So, I whipped up a small batch of fondant and got to work. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out exactly how I wanted to make them but once I came up with these super simple cupcake toppers they were done in a flash. They are seriously so simple that anyone can make them, even if you don’t think you are capable of cake decorating.

While I worked, Alli made her own puppies with play dough and some of my cake decorating tools. We had a lot of fun and she loved the end results (and, that’s all that matters to me!). 🙂

The How-To

For the tools you will need:

• fondant, in two colours (or one, if you prefer) + a small amount of black fondant
• rolling pin
• knife
• toothpick
• small bowl of water
• black food colouring paste
• round cookie cutter (mine was 2 1/4 inches wide)
• large piping tip (I used Ateco #804)

*You can use whichever colours of fondant you like. I will describe the process with the colours that I used to avoid confusion.

1. Roll out a small bit of white fondant to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out a circle with the round cookie cutter.
2. Roll out a small bit of pink fondant in the same manner. Cut out two circles with the large base of the piping tip. Using your rolling pin, roll one circle into an oval. Cut the remaining circle in half and roll each half with the rolling pin, to flatten them and make them longer.
3. Roll a tiny piece of black fondant into a ball, and then an oval. Flatten slightly with fingers.

Now for the assembly.

*To make the pieces of fondant stick together, use your finger to swipe a small bit of water either on the back of the fondant piece that is going on, or on the base of the fondant circle before placing your piece.

1. Place the oval piece of pink fondant at the base of the white circle for the snout. Place the two halves that you cut and rolled at an angle along the top, to form ears. To make the floppy ears as shown in the picture at the top of the post, stick the cut halves to the back side of the white fondant circle and curl them over.
2. Using the tip end of your piping tip, press it into the snout, at an angle, making two half circles beside each other, to form a mouth. Use a knife to draw a straight line up to where you want to place the nose.
3. Place the small piece of black fondant above the mouth to form the nose.
4. Dip a toothpick into black food colouring paste and dab it above the snout to form eyes. And, you’re done!

You can make each puppy topper look quite different depending on your placement of each feature. These puppies can be made a few days before the party and kept, lightly covered, at room temperature. Simply place them on top of the cupcakes when you’re ready to serve.