Sweet Jems: Quack Quack... duck cupcakes

Standard size cupcakes with fondant ducks

I had my first custom cupcake order this week, for a lovely little girls 4th Birthday. I was actually very much honoured to be asked to make her cupcakes, and was extremely excited to find out that she just adores ducks. So, to be given a couple of details I had to come up with a design that I could execute with one weeks notice.

The details I was given - ducks, purple, cookies & cream and vanilla/choc marble cupcakes.

As I have never had an order like this before, I started to do my research. I searched the web for pictures of cupcakes that other people had done with ducks. In my mind, I was looking for a duck pond. I had thought buttercream frosting, with gel icing to mimick the water of the pond, and then a little rubber ducky style 3D sculpture sitting in the middle of the pond. So the search began for pictures, not so much for me, but to send to my customer to gain approval for what she might like. Its hard to have a vision and try to explain that vision to someone else without a little bit of visual prompting.

After I found the style of ducks to make, and gained approval that this was also what she had invisioned for her daughter, I completed my first test run of ducks, and cupcakes, along with the decorating.

This was my initial design:-

The duck shape was actually my third attempt at a decent looking duck, and I still did a little more tweaking which you see in the final results. This was a very rough practice run, and used it to test how the fondant would handle being in the gel icing for 24 hours. I discovered that it became a little sticky on the outside, but otherwise, my official taste tester declared it was quite tasty and other then some slight discoloration of where it sat in the gel, it was as good as when it went on.

I spent close to 6 hours working on the fondant ducks. I went from my initial, yellow rubber ducky style - to a selection of different vibrant colours so that I could incoroprate purple in the design.

I did a lot more tweaking of the design of the cupcake and trialed a few different options on the day of the final product. I decided that the cake just seemed to be missing something and after finally working out what it was, I fixed it. You can see for yourself the final result and can make your own judgement, however I really think they turned out pretty good! I was super proud of myself with the end result and after 3 hours of baking and decorating, I was well deserving of a night out with my husband to celebrate with margaritas! :)