Adventure Time Cupcakes

Adventure Time, come on bring some cupcakes

If you haven’t already seen it, Adventure Time is this amazing cartoon on Cartoon Network. It’s kid-appropriate but more importantly, endlessly entertaining for adults. I don’t even have kids, but I Tivo the shit out of it. It has this whole deep/dark theme of how the characters live in a post-apocalyptic world. The main antagonist has this great backstory of self-sacrifice. It’s beautiful storytelling that’s also hilarious and adorable.

So, if that didn’t sell it, here are cupcakes made after two of the characters. And if you ARE already a fan, holy shit… check out these cupcakes.

The Jake Cakes are maple bacon in honor of his bacon pancakes. And the Edible Lady Rainicorns are, obviously, rainbow.

I used marshmallow fondant for the forms. Don’t be scared of it. It’s really easy to work with, kind of like homemade Play Doh. And it tastes really good (not like Play Doh). I like it so much better than regular fondant. And I used a box-mix-base for the cupcakes to alleviate some of the pain in the ass that I cause by making you roll out fondant.

So do it up, guys! Your nerdy friends and/or your kids will love them.

Check out the full recipe over on Hobo Trashcan!

Below is the column as it appeared on HoboTrashcan.com.

The actual date of the Adventure Time season five finale hasn’t been announced, but there are only a few episodes left. (Never fear, it has been renewed for a sixth season!) But with the end on the horizon, I think we should pay tribute to our favorite newb parents, Lady and Jake. They have five new pups and I think they deserve food made in their likeness for that.

So without further ado, my Edible Lady Rainicorns (Rainbow Vanilla Cupcakes) and Jake Cakes (Maple Bacon Cupcakes). Makin’ cupcakes, makin’ bacon cupcakes … BACOONNN CUUUPPPCAAAKES.

So to get the right kind of cartoon look for these cupcakes, we’re going to use fondant, but do not fear: it’s easier than you think. And to make up for that increase in difficulty, we are using box cake mixes and sprucing them up a little for the cake itself.

For the love of Glob, let’s get started!

Easy Marshmallow Fondant
(Recipe adapted from AllRecipes.com)

For Jake and Lady cupcakes, prepare one batch of marshmallow fondant EACH. You’ll be dividing it up between all the colors you’ll need.

8 oz. mini marshmallows (4 cups, not packed)
4 cups powdered sugar (plus more for dusting)
2 tbsp water
Cooking spray, 
Crisco or rubber gloves
Food coloring; lots of food coloring

(It will be easy if you have special fondant tools and tiny circle cookie cutters, but you’ll do just fine with knives and the stencils provided here.)

Firstly, get prepared. Dust your work area with powdered sugar and get your tools out.

Place your marshmallows and water in a large microwave-safe bowl that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Microwave on high for about a minute until the marshmallows puff up. Stir them with a rubber spatula so that they are smooth. If it still looks like Lumpy Space Princess, microwave for another 30 seconds or so until there are no lumps.

Add in your powdered sugar and stir with the spatula. Stir ’til ya can’t stir no more, then scrape the whole thing out onto your work surface. (A lot of the sugar will still not be incorporated.)
Dust your hands with powdered sugar and knead it like bread. Work it until it is smooth and not sticky. You may add a little more powdered sugar, but be careful to not add too much or it will become too stiff.

Once you got a smooth-ass ball of fondant, divide it into sections. You’ll need the following sections: Rainicorn’s Hair (light yellow – a few drops of yellow food dye), Rainicorn’s Face (pinky lavender – equal parts of red and blue, but only a couple), Jake’s Snout (Jake-yellow, lots of yellow, and a little of red and green), Outsides of their Eyes, Jake’s Nose and Jake’s Smile (black – I bough black dye for this) and Insides of their Eyes (white). The white and Jake-yellow balls of fondant can be a little smaller and the lavender and light yellow balls a little bigger and the black one in the middle. You should be able to look at the template, at the pieces needed and eyeball it.

Pick your first color to work on. Flatten the fondant into a round disc with your rolling pin. Put on gloves, or rub crisco on your hands so they don’t get as-dyed. Add in your food coloring in the middle of the fondant. Fold it in half so they dye is enclosed. Begin to knead the ball, like you did before, until the color is incorporated.

Repeat for each color. White is cool. I left some extra white in case I screwed up anything, I could color it and continue on.

For each color, roll out fondant with your rolling pin again. Using your template, cut out each piece from it’s appropriate color. Set aside on a baking sheet to use on your cupcakes. Cover and store in a cool place until ready to use.

Roll stuff out to start cutting. Pretty thin. Probably thinner than you think. Place your stencil on the fondant and start cutting around it with a clean knife. A little note, if you rub a little Crisco on your knife it cuts a lot easier. After you’ve cut it out, mushing the rough edges in a little with the flat side of the knife makes to smooth it out to a nice refined finish.

Assemble by putting a tiny bit of frosting between fondant layers. You’ll get the hang of it.

Edible Lady Rainicorns
(Rainbow Vanilla Cupcakes)

1 box white cake mix
1 ¼ cups water
3 egg whites
⅓ cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla (I like using Madagascar vanilla here)
Food coloring; lots of food coloring
½ container store-bought vanilla frosting, dyed blue, like the sky
Lady fondant pieces, prepared as described above
Mystery-flavored Airheads, cut into unicorn horns according to the template

Prepare your cupcake pans with liners (24 of them) and preheat your oven to 350.

In a large mixing bowl, dump cake mix, water, egg whites, vegetable oil and vanilla. Beat for about two minutes.

Divide batter into six small bowls. Add food dye to each one so you have Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple.

Spoon into cupcake wrappers one at a time (in that order) until all of your cupcake wrappers have all six colors and are ½ – ⅔rds of the way full. It’ll be about one spoonful per wrapper and will not be a flat, full layer. DO NOT MIX COLORS. They will look cool when they bake up.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until done. Do the toothpick test to a middle one to make sure. Let cool.

Carefully and smoothly frost the cooled cupcakes with your blue frosting.

Take your mystery-flavored Airheads and cut out Lady’s horn (per the template). It’s much firmer than the fondant and will hold up better to sticking off the cupcake.

Assemble your Lady-part fondant pieces and horn on the cupcakes.