Rad Robot

by Joy Howard and Amy Kaldor-Bull

Take me to your eaters! Engineered from gummy rings, M&M's, chocolate doughnuts, and other sweets, this edible android is ready to party. The assembly will take some time, but it makes a fun team project for budding bakers. We used foil cupcake liners to create our shiny specimen.

Other cupcake cake ideas:

Night Owls
Treasure Map
School o'Fish
Sweet Shop

Ingredients

18 cupcakes
1 (16-ounce) can of vanilla frosting
dark-chocolate frosting
food coloring (orange, blue)
4 square cookies (we used Lorna Doones)
2 graham crackers
blue sugar

mini chocolate doughnuts
gummy rings (orange, yellow)
2 blue-lollipop sticks
Junior Mints
M&Ms
mini M&Ms
candy fruit slice

Instructions

From a 16-ounce can of vanilla frosting, spoon 1/3 cup into a ziplock bag, tint 1-1/2 cups with orange food coloring, and tint the rest blue. Place 1/2 cup dark-chocolate frosting in a ziplock bag.
Use a serrated knife to diagonally halve 4 square cookies (we used Lorna Doones). Snap 2 graham crackers into four rectangles each.
Apply blue frosting to 5 cupcakes (you'll need a total of 18), 5 square cookies, and 1 graham cracker piece, and coat all but the cupcakes with blue sugar.
Apply orange frosting to 11 cupcakes, 4 graham cracker pieces, and the cookie triangles, and coat all but the cupcakes with orange sugar. Apply white frosting to 2 cupcakes and roll their edges in blue sugar.
Arrange all the prepared pieces in place as shown. Press a mini chocolate doughnut in place for each eye and wheel. Cut a wedge from two more doughnuts and add them as claws.
Halve 7 yellow and 6 orange gummy rings and press them into place where shown. Thread orange and yellow gummies onto 2 blue-lollipop sticks, then insert one above each eye.
Snip a corner from each frosting bag. Use the vanilla to attach Junior Mint pupils and blue M&M wheel centers. Use the chocolate frosting to attach candy buttons and gauges (we used mini M&Ms, gummy rings,and a candy fruit slice), then pipe on bolts and other details, as shown.