Candy Cupcakes Part III - Mini M&M Bite Sized Rainbow Fish Cupcakes

Oh how I *so*  love these little guys!!  Once again, I've been seeing them on blogs and Pinterest, so I don't even know who to give credit to for this idea...but whoever you are, well done!!  How great are these?  I even had a lot of fun putting them together.  And, it's so easy!  This would be a great activity to do with children.  Here is the first time I came across these cupcake fish.  I made a few slight changes - I did not place the M&M's on an angle and I added M&M tails.

To begin, you need either store bought or or make your own mini cupcakes.  You can find mini-muffin liners at the grocery store and they can be placed in a mini muffin pan.  Fill the liners about 2/3 full.  It's much easier to frost them if the cake is even with or a little above the top of the liner.  If they don't quite reach the top, you can put them aside to use for the "water".

To assemble these you need a bag of M&M Minis, White Icing (either a can or homemade.  I always recommend homemade.  It really makes a difference!), Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue food dye, and either 2 Ziploc baggies or  piping bags.

Split the white icing into five parts.  Dye one yellow, one orange, one green, one blue, and leave the last white.  Set the white aside.  Next, decide how many cupcake minis you would like to be fish and how many to be "water".  Set the water cupcakes aside.  Start icing the designated fish ones in each of the four dyed colors.  Once you have completed this step, it's time to add the M&Ms...the best part!

The photo below shows the first steps of placing the M&M's.  Coordinate the M&M colors with the cupcake icing color.  If you are anal like me, you will be careful to make sure the"M" logo is facing down.  Add two red M&Ms for the fish lips:

The next part of the transformation is to add the eye.  Fill a Ziploc bag or piping bag with 1/2 of the white icing.  Snip a very small bit off the corner of the baggie or  bottom of the piping bag.  I used a Wilton Tip #3, but realized I didn't need to after all.  Squeeze a dot of white icing where you would like the fish eye to be located:

Now take a brown M&M and gently push it into the center of the white icing dot:

Adorable!  Right?!  Next I made the "water" cupcakes to place randomly around the fish, as if they were swimming around.  In the second Ziploc bag or piping bag, I placed the white and blue icing together.  I squished the two colors a bit, careful not to fully blend them:

Snip the end of the bag again, a little wider this time to make more of a wave pattern, and ice the cupcakes.  I used a piping tip for a little more texture, but if you don't have one to use, it'll be just fine.  I used an up and down motion sort of like this ^^^^ in two or three layers on top of eachother until the cupcake was covered.    Then, I arranged the cupcakes and water on a Fish Platter:

So cute!  Yet, something was bothering me.  I realized it was missing tails!  The photo I first saw didn't have tails, and lots of others didn't, either.  A few I saw used flattened Starburst Candies shaped like a tail and placed on the end, but I didn't have any.  Instead, I decided to use some of the leftover white icing I'd used for the eyes as "glue" to add some M&Ms for tails.  This worked fantastic!  

Now I was happy!  The "gluing" of the tails worked because the M&M Minis are so light.  I'm not convinced this method would have worked with regular size M&M's.  I believe their weight would have made them fall off the edge.  However, this was a success and I just love these little guys!!  I like anything with fun, bright colors, really, though.

Well, tomorrow is my last day of Candy Cupcakes.  Stay tuned for M&M Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes!