Puppy Dog Cupcakes (My 7th Blogiversary)

It's my blogiversary!  Seven years of blogging!  Closing in on 600 recipes.  Wow!  Thanks so much for reading!

Since a blogiversary is kind of like a birthday, I thought I would share some fun cupcakes today.  These are the cupcakes I made for my daughter's birthday party earlier this month.  Lena turned six and she loves puppy dogs and often makes a game out of pretending to be a puppy with her younger sister.  So I decided to a puppy dog theme for her party this year.  I saw some puppy dog cupcakes on Pinterest, and even though there wasn't a real recipe to go along with the picture, I used some commenters' suggestions and was able to create my own with the help of my mom.  Here's how we did it.

Puppy Dog Cupcakes

Ingredients:

24 prepared cupcakes, any flavor

White, off-white, or brown frosting

8-12 caramels

48 chocolate chips

24 brown peanut M&Ms

1 pkg Bubble Tape Gum

Directions:

Frost cupcakes with frosting.  You can use an icing bag, or you can just smear the frosting on and create a "furry" effect by touching a butter knife to the frosting and pulling it up.  You can also just kind of swirl the frosting around. 

For the ears, unwrap the caramels and soften one or two at a time in the microwave.  Don't completely melt the caramels; just soften them enough so you can mold them into ear shapes.  Cut each caramel into 2 or 3 pieces and mold them with your hands into floppy ear shapes.  Attach them onto the sides of the tops of the cupcakes.

Place two chocolate chips on each cupcake for eyes.  Place an M&M for the nose.  For the tongues, break off a 2" piece of Bubble Tape Gum and with a paring knife, round off one end into a tongue shape.  Stick the square end of the tongue up into the frosting at the bottom of the dog's face.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Aren't they adorable?  I was really impressed with how they turned out.  I have to give my mom most of the credit for these as she did the frosting and molded all of the ears.  She's more creative and artistic than I am.  I made the tongues and put on the eyes and noses.

 I love how they each turn out looking just slightly different.  Like real puppies, they are all unique!

We didn't have enough M&Ms for the noses (I forgot to get them at the store and we relied on a stash that Mom just happened to have in her car to snack on during the trip up here), so Mom got creative again and made the rest into dalmatian cupcakes using regular chocolate chips and mini chocolate chips.  They are super cute too!

The birthday girl blowing out her candle.  She loved her cupcakes.