May 26 2008
Jungle Party Cupcake Idea
Last summer we had a jungle theme birthday party for my nephews. My sister made jungle animal cupcakes with little palm trees. They weren’t too difficult to make, but they did take a little time.
The palm trees trunks are pretzel sticks, and the leaves were piped from icing onto wax paper with Wilton Leaf Decorating Tip #352 and allowed to dry. Then a little icing was added to the end of the pretzel stick to "glue" the leaves to the trunk.
The jungle or zoo animals were made of chocolate. You can use an animal shaped mold, but she used a round circle mold, then used a fine decorating tip to pipe the details onto their face. The ears, and the lions mane were piped around the heads, then left to dry. The animals are all on lollipop sticks, to hold them in the cupcakes.
The leaves around the animals were piped with the same #352 tip.
You could also use molded chocolate lollipops as party favors for almost any party theme.
More Jungle theme birthday party ideas
More on melting and molding chocolate
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Hello! I absolutely LOVE these cupcakes! I had a couple of questions about how you made these. I want to make them for my son’s zoo-themed birthday party. I think they will be a big hit! I wanted to know where you got the chocolate molds for the animal heads? Also with regard to the leaves, did you make each individual leaf and lay them out on wax paper? How far in advance do you think I could make the frosting leaves? Any info would be very helpful!! Thanks so much!
My sister used a round lollipop mold, then added the ears, stripes etc. You can also use an animal or jungle candy mold. Wilton has one, http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=93495952-423B-522D-F70B2AADAD84BA9E&fid=A22EDB32-423B-522D-F5A66A968A63D077
or you may be able to find one at your local craft store (JoAnn fabrics carries them in our area, or Amazon.
You should make the leaves all together, so they dry as one piece. Make the leaves a couple days ahead of time, and let them dry (make a few extra for breakage). Use a little fresh icing to stick the leaves to the pretzel stick.
Here’s my favorite icing recipe: http://kidsfunreviewed.com/my-favorite-icing-recipe-for-decorating/, but you may want to use royal icing for the palm tree leaves to make them sturdier.