When my 6 year old grand daughter asked for “Car Colored Cupcakes” – there was really no question! I was on that idea in a heartbeat! She wanted them to be colored black, red, and white. Well, that describes Lightening McQueen, from the movie CARS. I started looking at pictures of the iconic car, and before you know it – I had the image and the technique I wanted to use in my mind.

I’m a buttercream girl – no fondant for me. I don’t care for the taste, and most of the fondant designs I see are quite flat when it comes to a cupcake. Nope, this needed to be a very 3-D design. I’m always up for a challenge, and this is what I came up with:

I made 18 cupcakes, 1/2 chocolate, and 1/2 vanilla.

I made the windshield and the mouth using white candy melts, melted in the microwave. I just drew the shapes I wanted on parchment paper – 18 of each – then filled them in with a small paint brush. I turned over the windshields once hardened, to work with the smooth flat surface on the back. The eyes were purchased, but I painted them with some diluted light blue food coloring. I attached them using a tiny bit of the melted white chocolate.

I made 2 batches of my butter cream cheese frosting. The first batch I colored as red as I could get, using SUPER RED paste food coloring. I colored 1/2 of the second batch black, and the other 1/2 bright yellow, again using paste food coloring. I swirled a nice circle for the car body.

Then I assembled them using the pre-formed windshields, piped on black tires, M&Ms in the center of each tire, mouth (grill), piped on yellow headlights, and then outlined the windshield with more red frosting. I sprinkled all of them with red non-pariels.

SO DARNED CUTE!