This was a cake arrangement I made for one of my teacher's birthdays. He's in Seminary and learning Hebrew so I thought I might try to incorporate that (though apparently my Hebrew wasn't that good and some of my characters were kinda messy; but it's the thought that counts, right?) Well, ignoring my bad Hebrew, the rest turned out pretty cute and the cakes were delicious!.. well, the first day, but by the time we brought them (3 days later) they were kinda dry.. Hehehe. If you do try out this recipe, you should serve it as soon as possible and makes sure that it stays in an airtight container when being stored. Well, into the process now!
First, I just made a batch of regular yellow cupcakes, but I added some matcha green tea mix (a few packets actually) into the mix to make it green tea flavored, because my teacher like green tea. The recipe will follow these directions, below.
Then, I made some marshmallow fondant and tinted it a pretty blue color. Marshmallow fondant is actually super easy to make and a lot cheaper than buying it from a store. I have a whole post on it, so if you want to check it out, here's the link: (coming soon!)
Once that's done, roll it out until it's about 1/8 inch thick. (I actually made mine thinner, but really, just the thickness you prefer to work with.) I looked around for the perfect circle cookie cutter to make circles to fit around the cupcakes, but I couldn't find one, so i ended up using a cup, which worked perfectly actually! Here's a picture of the process. I also used a paring knife to just trim around the circles.
When I finished cutting out all the fondant circles, I put them in a small bowl (you can see it in the top right corner of the picture above, in front next to the mug and bigger bowl) and dusted each with powdered sugar to make sure they wouldn't stick together. Next, I took each cupcake and frosted it lightly, using only enough to make sure the fondant would stick (and also cuz I only had a little bit of frosting left!).
And then you do that to each of the two dozen or so cupcakes you have...
I actually had another dozen still in the oven at this time. It took about 45 minutes to just get the fondant on them all. (And it was so boring!)
After all of the cupcakes were topped with the blue fondant, I piped some blue and white dots on just randomly, about 7-10 dots per cupcake. Taking the biggest cupcakes (as if some were actually larger; I just chose the seemingly bigger ones and topped them with a thick and a bit bigger piece of fondant to make them seem bigger), I stuck two mini candy canes, which I saved from Christmas, in the middle and made two large white dots at the front, then dotting the area behind the candy canes just as I did with the other cupcakes. With an edible red marker, I drew in the mouth, and Voila! The caterpillar was complete!
For the leaves, I took the leftover fondant, added a different shade of blue, and just randomly cut out some leaf-like shapes. Then, I took a ruffly heart cookie cutter to get some "bite marks." I also wrote "Happy Birthday, David!" (or something kinda like that) in Hebrew on the front leaf and left the rest just plain blue. I arranged the little guy in a zig-zag shape on top of the leaves.
Obviously, as I had a few dozen, this was only some of the cupcakes; the rest I took along with me to the birthday party, and as I made a few extra heads, there were quite a few cupcake caterpillars ready to be eaten.
"Green Tea" Cupcakes
(Actually just buttermilk cupcakes with green tea added)
3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
3-5 packets of GREENMAX Matcha Milk Tea mix (can be found at any Asian market, or just skip this completely. I only added it for the birthday boy's preference. The recipe did not originally contain it, anyway.
1 1/8 cups unsalted butter, room temp. (2 1/4 sticks)
2 1/4 cups sugar
5 large whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks
2 cups buttermilk (I just use regular milk with vinegar, recipe below)
2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line you cupcake tins with paper liners.
Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and Matcha mix.
With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium. Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add yolks, and beat until thoroughly combined.
Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Beat in vanilla.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely.
Buttermilk Substitute Recipe
Milk (just under 2 cups)
2 Tablespoons white vinegar (lemon juice can also be used)
Place two tablespoons of white vinegar (or lemon juice) in a liquid measuring cup.
Add enough milk to bring the liquid up to the two-cup line.
Let stand for five minutes, and then give it a stir. You can now use it in place of the buttermilk.
And...Voila! Now you can just hang your bows up and not be looking through drawers and drawers for one! I really love how it turned out and I'm so happy to have them all displayed in front of me so I don't have to go running around the house looking for one to match an outfit. Btw, I just hung this up with two tumbtacks and that seems to hold it very well. 
