Super Mario Cupcake Extravaganza

For those of you yet unawares of my birthday surprise for my cousin's 26th, my grandma, my other cousin, and Dustin's fiancée combined efforts to create a Super Mario and mushroom made of 176 mini-cupcakes.

My grandma and I baked the cupcakes ahead of time (two days ahead of time) and it only took about three-ish hours from start to finish. We were making batches of 48 at a time, one pan of 24 and two pans of twelve. We made Funfetti, Classic Yellow, and Devil's Food for a variety of flavors. Three Pillsbury cake mix boxes makes about 200 so you have some leftover to snack on until the BIG DAY.

On said day, Brianne, Vicky and I mixed frostings and frosted all these cupcakes and set them up in about 1 hour and 15 minutes. We had three containers of white frosting and one of chocolate. We set aside some for the yellow and "black" which were only required for 6 cupcakes. We had loads of frosting leftover afterwards though so if you got two containers of white and just split it up into bowls you would be fine.

As for food coloring, I suggest either getting the large bottles instead of small ones specifically for this project or just being content with a somewhat pink and pastel Mario. The blue came out okay even though it was supposed to be darker but the red ended up a deep shade of hot pink.

When Dustin walked into the house, we played the Mario theme song as an introduction and then had him stand on a chair by the table, thereby getting an aerial view of the Mario, which also happens to be the best way to view it. A party consisting of about 12 people (including one person eating for two<3) ate about 150 of the cupcakes that night. It seems like a lot of cupcakes but each one is around one bite each and you can eat four before you really realize it.

Want to do something like this yourself or with another character? I suggest using the mini-cupcakes, because the large cupcakes would add some poundage to the scale and more importantly, would require a MUCH larger surface to create any type of design. Thanks and props to this blog for setting out the how-to and all the complex work.