Clever Cake Studio

How are these for cute baby shower cupcakes? The new mom and dad are both geeks and gamers, and babies are both adorable and delicious, so pikmin seemed a perfect choice.

The cake is a simple vanilla-almond with simple whipped icing. The pikmin themselves are made of marzipan, which is a nice sweet almond paste. It’s easy to mold, doesn’t dry hard, and is much more tasty than fondant (no matter how much flavoring you try and add).

The pikmin were a process to make. I had originally intended on them being much, much smaller and then ‘burying’ them into the center of the cupcake (digging a hole for them to fit) so that just their ’stems’ would be showing. It would be very true to the game, but I’d have to put floral wire in the stems to keep them upright. I didn’t want to put anything inedible in them, so I tried this instead. Ended up being fun to give them all some personality (for plantlike drones).

I used the same cake recipe I had been using for the past several cakes, which is a middle ground between standard cake and pound cake, so it’s denser and better able to withstand sculpting or the weight of tiers. In a slice of cake, you don’t always notice that, but in a cupcake, it stood out. But it was complimented, people liked that it was a richer, firmer cake. Coolness.