Thanksgiving is a time to reflect and be thankful for our blessings, and many of us choose to do so by enjoying delicious food.
It's the warming, filling staples of a late fall harvest that leave us with a feeling of being slightly comatose, but in a good way: mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and, of course, turkey.
By the end of the meal, you might feel like you never need to eat again, and hibernation is suddenly making a lot of sense.
Unless, of course, it's time for dessert.
And when it comes to dessert, Instructables user Make.Bake.Celebrate has Thanksgiving covered. She's been known to create some pretty amazing holiday-themed treats, like the pop-up ghosts made from meringue for Halloween.
This time, she's turning cupcakes into a full Thanksgiving meal — a sweet version of one, that is.
Using colored buttercream frosting and fondant, she turned otherwise plain cupcakes. The cupcakes themselves were pumpkin to keep things seasonal and festive, and are a sweet way to end a Thanksgiving meal in miniature!
They'd also be great to share with someone you might be unable to see on Thanksgiving Day itself as a way to extend the festivities.
Check out how Make.Bake.Celebrate did it below, and see if you can come up with your own spin on these designs if you're inspired!
[H/T: Instructables]
For Thanksgiving, Instructables user and baking blogger Make.Bake.Celebrate created one adorable traditional meal — only not exactly.
These classic dishes, like mashed potatoes and stuffing, are actually all dessert, topped with delicious pumpkin cupcakes!
Everything you see here was created using buttercream icing and fondant.
Here's how it looked in the preparation stage.
Besides the frosting and fondant, she also used caramel syrup, mini marshmallows, walnuts, and colored sugar, along with some baking tools.
Of course, if you're going to try this at home, you don't need all of these exact tools. Get creative!
First, the buttercream icing was dyed into Thanksgiving colors like buttery yellow, golden brown, and a deep, autumnal orange.
The fondant was colored, too, in green and yellow.
While buttercream can have the color stirred into it, the color gets kneaded into fondant, so it was put into baggies first to prevent getting food dye everywhere.
First up: mashed potatoes. Using an ice cream scoop, white buttercream was heaped onto the cupcake, and a dent was made with a teaspoon on the top.
The dent was filled with caramel sauce to represent gravy, and a thin slice of yellow fondant served as butter.
The string beans were up next, created from a cut tube of dark green fondant.
She even incised a little seam line into them, just like the real thing.
Walnuts and black sugar were sprinkled on top to simulate fried onions and ground pepper.
Because of the shape of the cupcake, the corn couldn't be quite “on the cob,” but by using yellow fondant strips, she was able to create the look of kernels.
It was then topped with another “butter” slice and some white and black sugar for salt and pepper.
It's not Thanksgiving without turkey, and this one was actually super simple to make.
A tall swirl of tan buttercream was smoothed down into a turkey-like shape, and a bone was cut out of white fondant using a bone shaped cookie cutter.
If you don't happen to have a bone cookie cutter handy, Make.Bake.Celebrate suggests simply molding one out of fondant, or cutting one out of softened white chocolate.
She didn't forget about stuffing, either.
An extra pumpkin cupcake was cut into tiny squares and used to top a whole cupcake.
Light green fondant was used for celery pieces, and green sugar was sprinkled on top for the look of herbs.
Finally, an already sweet dish was recreated in cupcake form.
Blobs of orange buttercream created the look of sweet potato chunks, and then the cupcake was topped with brown sugar and mini marshmallows.
This was the only one that didn't need the toppings substituted!
And then the “meal” was all ready.
It's a pretty adorable way to celebrate Thanksgiving — just maybe a few days after the giant feast!
If you can't see everyone you'd like to this Thanksgiving, catch up with them later over coffee and some seasonal cupcakes.
You can also see more of Make.Bake.Celebrate's edible creations on her website, on Facebook, and Instagram.
SHARE this tiny take on a Thanksgiving meal with your friends!
