Since I’ve been craving a cupcake for several weeks now, it seems like a good day for a cupcake post. I’m a glutton for punishment, what can I say?

You just never know what kind of requests people will come up with when they order cupcakes, and some are a little “out there” if you know what I mean, but this was one of my favorite requests to date. They were so much fun to make, and adorable, if I do say so myself.

I love things you can do ahead of time so baking day can go quickly and your cupcakes are super fresh when they go out the door. If that’s how you like to work, these are the perfect cupcakes for you. I spent several days making sheep parts. My kitchen table, looked like a sheep factory for a while.

(Pretty sure one of my kiddos took this picture, because I hadn’t seen it before today.)

A word of warning, when you take a cupcake order, and it involves something with 4 legs, stop and calculate just how many appendages you’ll have to make before you agree to several dozen. I made 36 sheep…you do the math. Lesson learned? Never take an order for octopus cupcakes.

The pieces are simple. For the legs I rolled a snake with a thicker ball on the end, flattened the ball a bit with my thumb and cut a slit in the middle with a sharp knife. Bend them at the knee and dry them over the edge of a piece of styrofoam, or anything else you can get your hands on. For the head, you’ll need an egg-ish (that’s a word now, you know) shape, wider and thicker at the bottom, with small indentations for the nose and mouth. I dried them on short lollipop sticks and then added eyes and ears. No two sheep looked alike, but all were equally hilarious.

The icing is absolutely fool proof, as there isn’t much way to mess up a wooly sheep. You could do it a hundred different ways, but I used a Wilton tip #18 and piped little individual swirls until I had a sufficiently fluffy body. While the icing is still wet, just insert the legs in their appropriate places, then plop the head-on-a-stick right into the front edge and, poof!, a sheep is born!

These were for a birthday girl who was celebrating while she was at a sheep show, but they would be great for Spring, Easter or any farm themed party. They truly are very easy to make. So whether you need a sheepish little couple,

or even a whole flock,

I don’t want to hear any of this “there’s no way I could do that” business! Just get out your fondant and play. They don’t have to be perfect, so what better way to learn?

Have fun!