Make your own cupcake toppers

Tonight I was making cupcakes for my oldest son's birthday and wanted to put something on top of the cupcakes. But we had been out of town and it was late Sunday night when I got around to making these. So I came up with a way to make my own cupcake toppers.

First I found an image of what I wanted to put on top of the cupcakes. My son LOVES transformers, so I used an autobot symbol. Then I got a sheet of waxed paper.

Next, place the waxed paper over the paper you printed the image on. You may want to tape the waxed paper to the paper so it doesn't move .

Then melt chocolate the chocolate in the microwave. I melted a lot more chocolate then I needed.

After that, spoon the chocolate into a sandwich bag. You could also use an icing bag, I just didn't have a small enough tip for my icing bag.

Next, cut a very small hole in the bag. It is always better to cut the hole too small at first and then re cut it bigger if you need it bigger.

Then you are ready to trace your image. It is ok for your image to have separate small pieces. When you transfer the topper it should all come off together.

I am not an artist at all, but I did attempt to free hand a flower, smiley face and a heart with I "heart" U. If you do any words make sure you do it as a mirror image.

If you make any small mistakes you can go back once the chocolate is dry with an exacto knife and touch up your chocolate image. Just be careful that you don't cut through the waxed paper.

Once the chocolate is all the way dry you are ready to apply the topper to the cupcake. First you will cut the waxed paper apart so that you have one image on each section of waxed paper. Then quickly flip the image face down on the cupcake. I found it was best to wait a few minutes for the frosting to dry a little, but to apply the image while the frosting was still a little moist so it would stick. Once the image is down, slowly pull off the waxed paper making sure your chocolate is still sticking to the cupcake and not the paper.

Then you are done. :) I liked that the topper it gave the cupcake a little bit more of a decoration.

Here are the images I free handed on the cupcakes.

I am sure if you wanted to get fancier and add color you could do the same technique using butter cream frosting and add food coloring to color you cupcake topper. Or you could use the colored chocolate melts. I would just recommend if you use frosting make sure the frosting is very dry and hardened all of the way before you apply it to the cupcake.

My son loved the finished cupcakes and can't wait to share them with his friends tomorrow at pre-school.