We are going to start by preparing all of the gum paste elements (ears & horns). For this step, you will need a small paint brush, gold luster dust (see above for links to all my favorite products), an airplane bottle of vodka, toothpicks, 1 box of gum paste (prepared), and some sewing thread. I used a clay extruder to make the horns but this is not a necessary tool, you can also roll out a long snake of gum paste and cut it into 1½ inch portions. Make sure you keep the gum paste covered with a damp paper towel until you are ready to use it. It dries very fast, especially in dry climates. Take one of the 1½ inch sections of gum paste and roll it into a ball in your hands. Slowly start to create a cone shape with the ball and insert a toothpick into the larger end. Once the toothpick is inserted, refine the cone shape until it is the size and shape you want. When you are satisfied with the shape, take the sewing thread and hold it against the toothpick with your thumb, then, with your other hand, gently wrap the thread up the horn to create the swirl. I used an empty egg carton to hold the horns while they dried.
I just stabbed the toothpick through the top of the egg carton. You can just lay them on a flat surface to dry but because I’m super picky, I didn’t want them to dry with a flat spot which, let’s be honest, no one is going to see a flat spot so either way if perfectly fine. Allow them to dry. I let mine dry overnight.
Preheat the oven to 355°. While the oven is preheating, line a cupcake pan with the cupcake papers of your choice. Prepare the Perfect Vanilla Cupcake batter according to the instructions. Split the batter into 3 equal portions. Use gel food colors to color the batter. You can use as many colors as you want. I used Electric Pink, Regal Purple, Sky Blue, and Electric Yellow. The Sky Blue and Electric Yellow go together to make Teal. Next, spoon a bit of each color batter into the cupcake liners. Cupcake liners should only be ½ to ⅔ full, any more than that and they will overflow the liners while baking. Bake 20 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and allow to cool completely.
Make the Cotton Candy Meringue Cookies according to the instructions, color with same colors as cupcake batter. The only thing that will change from the instructions is that you aren’t going to pipe rosettes. The only shape we need for these cupcakes are stars. You will use star tips as in the instructions. Hold the piping bag straight up and down almost touching the parchment paper. Squeeze the piping bag until you have a quarter-sized star. Stop squeezing and lift your bag. That will give you the perfect star, but just like anything with piping, practice makes perfect.
Prepare the Easy Italian Meringue Buttercream. Split the finished buttercream into 3 equal parts and color with the same colors as meringues and cake batter. When you’ve colored all of the buttercream, load each color into its own piping bag. Make sure each piping bag is fitted with a different sized star tip.
Assembly. Now that we’ve made all of the elements for these adorable cupcakes, we are ready to assemble. The first step is piping the buttercream on the cupcakes. This can be done in any fashion you want. For speed and uniformity, I chose the teal color to make a single rosette off to one side. Then I used the other two colors to drop stars along the inside border of the rosette. See picture below. Once all the cupcakes had buttercream, I added the meringues at random. One to two meringues per cupcake. Next step in assembly is adding the ears and the horn. I tilted my horn slightly forward and placed one ear on either side of the horn. Voila! You are done! Sit back and enjoy a cupcake before you have to clean up the mess you made. LOL!