Birthday Cupcakes

Dav's birthday was May 18th. One of his gifts was a Pirate Gnome. He has a piratical tattoo, which is why I thought about a Pirate Gnome. But you know, dear readers, that I can't celebrate anything without baking something! I know exactly what kind of cake I want to make for him, but it's going to take time to practice and with VARF and all the related things I had to do that Thursday, I just didn't have any time. So I had to come up with something simpler. Simple, but still significant in some way. (And, if my past cakes are any indication, three hours is a pretty standard amount of time to spend decorating, so that is considered simple.)

Cupcakes! Cupcakes are easy, bake faster and are (usually) less of a pill to decorate than an entire cake. Dav said he doesn't have a favorite cake, so I just had to come up with something. At first, I thought I would go with chocolate cake and vanilla icing, but I decided to reverse that. I'll tell you why in a minute. And then I decided chocolate on chocolate was even better. 

Dav is a video gamer like me, so I thought a video game theme on the cupcakes would be perfect. But what game? I turned to Google for inspiration and came across these cupcakes. He has a tattoo of the crest of Hyrule, which he said had meaning for him and two of his friends, so I knew instantly this would be perfect. I began plotting items I could put on cupcakes! 

It's been a long time since I played the original Legend of Zelda, so I searched around for images and ideas and found this: an image of the map that came with the game. Notice all the items in the lower right corner, and how they're all on black backgrounds? That's why I needed chocolate icing. 

There were no bells or whistles about making the cupcakes. Just mix, pour, bake, cool, and ice. Tada!

Icing Cupcakes

For the item shapes, I used four colors of fondant; yellow, red, blue, and white, and a black icing marker for fine outlines. I got 24 cupcakes out of the mix so I planned out the images for each.

Cutting Rupees

The beauty of an 8-bit game is that pictures are blocky and simple, so cutting the fondant sheets into the images was way easy.

Drawing Details

Then I drew on some details and added a tiny bit of white for shine. Rupees have to sparkle!

Items Important to Your Quest

Look at all those shapes! The three triangles of the Triforce got brushed with pearl dust to give it a bit of luster.

Collect Your Items

And then onto cupcakes they go! I cut out all my shapes free-hand. Now that I've done it, if I were to do it again, I'd make some paper patterns first. That way at least the rupees and bombs and hearts would be more uniform.

Completed Cupcakes!

It looks like Link has taken a bit of damage, but he's got a fairly full rucksack! There are rupees and bombs, a bow and arrow, five hearts, two candles, the magic sword, the magic book, monster bait, a key, and the all-important Triforce.

Behold, the Triforce!

I'm told that the cupcakes were well-enjoyed. I had such fun making them! Happy birthday, my darling!