An Apple a Day Keeps the Teacher At Bay

See? I'm getting a little more creative with the titles here! This blog is already working its magic!

So here I'm going to share with you a super easy and cute recipe I found online that makes a great gift for teachers! I made them last year for teacher appreciation week, and this year they will probably be my daughter's Christmas gift to her teacher. The best part is they are so inexpensive and you can almost guarantee no one else will be gifting the same thing.

Ingredients:
Cupcake mix (of your choice) & whatever the box calls for (eggs, vegetable oil..)
white icing (vanilla, cream cheese, whatever you prefer)
red food coloring
red sugar crystals (in sprinkle section)
tootsie rolls
green jolly rancher fruit chews
chocolate donuts (I prefer the Hostess brand)
red cupcake liners

 

 

Step-by-Step Instructions:

 

1. Follow directions on cake mix box and make the cupcakes. Then let cool.

 

2. Mix red food coloring with the white icing.

 

3. Dump red sugar crystals onto a plate or in a bowl.

 

4. Put a thin layer of icing on the tops of the cupcakes.

 

5. Cut a little bit of the donuts off across the bottom, so that their bottoms are flat.

 

6. Place the cut donuts ontop of the cupcakes, to give them a rounded effect like an apple would have.

 

7. Cover the donut cupcakes with the red icing and smooth.

 

8. Gently dip and roll the cupcakes in the bowl or plate of red sugar crystals, until every spot is covered (but incase you missed a spot, it's red underneath and won't be as noticeable).

 

9. Cut a tootsie roll in half length-wise and place ontop of the cupcake for the stem. There will be a spot it'll fit into perfectly in the middle, where the hole in the donut is.

 

10. This part takes a little bit of effort. Take the green jolly rancher fruit chews (can use green tootsie rolls too) and roll and flatten with a rolling pin. This candy is incredibly sticky so you'll constantly have to carefully peel it off of the rolling pin.

 

11. Take the flattened piece of candy and use a knife to kind of shape it into a leaf. Use the non-sharp side of the knife to make a line indent in the middle of the candy leaf, and use your fingers to pinch the tip to help mold it to look like a leaf. Then place on the cupcake.

 

 

Around Thanksgiving I found some apple tissue paper on clearance at Target, so I bought that and I'm going to get those little baskets from the dollar store, line them with the tissue paper, and place the apple cupcakes in them with a ribbon tied to the handle. :) And since you only need a handful of tootsie rolls you'll have plenty left over to munch on.