Olivia cupcakes

As I have mentioned before, my sister lets my two nieces choose the theme for each birthday.

And, let me assure you that these themes are well thought out and chosen MONTHS in advance. So, I wasn't surprised that this year my oldest niece wanted an Olivia (the Nick Jr. pig) party for her big 5th birthday. If you don't know what I'm talking about here is Olivia:

It was decided that we wouldn't theme the food to match the party even though my mom and I thought serving hot dogs and pulled pork would be kind of funny :) My sister bought some Olivia themed items from online-cake plates and balloons. But, everything else was just red and white everything since those are Olivia's favorite colors. My niece even wore her Olivia t-shirt and of course she had to wear the Olivia tutu and hair bows from her dress up set and requested white and red striped tights like this one picture of Olivia she has so my sister bought her some leg warmers.

I have made EVERY birthday cake for her since year one. I am very proud of this. My other niece could care less who makes it as long as she gets it but my oldest niece won't take anything unless I make it. Of course she saw a picture over my sisters should on-line one day and it was the most ridiculous and time consuming two layer fondant covered cake and I somehow managed to say NO to that one. I am not that talented or patient either! I found these cupcakes on nickjr.com and we convinced her they would be great. You should have heard the squeals of excitement from both nieces when they saw the finished product. I didn't make the cupcake recipe but rather used a funfetti box mix which is what the birthday girl requested. I also used canned frosting and tinted it myself. The one thing I should have done but didn't read the recipe at that point was to make this in MUFFIN tins. They need to be a bit bigger than a cupcake for the template of the nose to work and still have room for the rest of the face. We made them work, mistake and all...Olivia just couldn't have a mouth and the ears had to go straight in the cupcake and stand up in the air instead of kind of off to the sides as in the pic on the website. It didn't look exactly like Olivia but it looked like a pig who may resemble Olivia :) Everyone loved them and enjoyed the extra bit of chocolate that the ears and nose provided.

A successful birthday treat if there ever was one!