Hot off the grill cupcakes, great for a BBQ Party!
2 dozen cupcakes (or brownies, as the original idea suggests)
1 can store-bought chocolate frosting (omit if using brownies)
orange icing sugar
72 pieces Hot Tamales candy
black royal icing (piping consistency)
Hot Off the Grill Cupcakes.
As the cupcakes baked, I began to wonder if they wouldn’t look a little funny. After all, brownies bake up with a crusty, flaky top that looks rugged. Cupcakes – especially these! – bake up with perfect little domes. I wasn’t so sure the decoration would like “right” on the plain cupcake surface. Not only that, but what’s a cupcake without frosting?!
Instead, I chose to use a quick can of store-bought (*gasp*) chocolate frosting to jazz up the cakes. (Hey, I still get points for making the cupcakes from scratch, right?) The frosting helped to provide a better sticking surface for the orange icing sugar, too. Speaking of that, the orange sugar might just be my favorite little part of these cupcakes – it *really* does look like coals on a grill!
Hot Off the Grill Cupcakes.
Once I had frosted & sugared all of the cupcakes, I used a bit of black royal icing to pipe grill lines across the surface. As I finished each one, I topped the “grill” with three pieces of Hot Tamales candy. I added tiny grill lines to each candy “hot dog”, and then the cupcakes were finished! From beginning to end, I decorated all two dozen cupcakes in under 20 minutes!
