Dear super creative and majorly talented moms of Pinterest,

Thanks for sharing your awesomeness with the rest of us.

I’ll bet your kids had an amazing summer.

From the looks of things in your perfectly lit photographs, you made tons of awesome crafts, ate lots of healthy yet delicious recipes, and participated in loads of fun activities.

I’ll bet there were no kids whining at your house about how bored they were over the last three months or refusing to get out of their pajamas.

Nope, those kids were at my house.

Let me paint you a picture of what a typical day looks like at my house during the summer…

Kids complain of boredom and/or hunger. I suggest an activity and/or food idea to eliminate their boredom and/or hunger. Kids refuse any and all suggestions and take off on a new tangent about how we never go anywhere and how they don’t get enough milkshakes.

There can never be enough milkshakes!

We are counting the days with glee until school starts.

Occasionally, when my kids aren’t being extra picante, I’ll make them a little treat.

About three years ago when cupcakes were all the rage (do people even say “all the rage” anymore?) my kids were really into them so I made cupcakes all the time.

I even had a cupcake business based out of my home for a while but quickly realized that the best way to suck all of the joy out of something you love is to start charging people money for it.

I used to love when people would contact me for an estimate on something crazy like ninety cupcakes with ninety precisely detailed fondant parrots perched on top and then have the nerve to ask me “It’s just flour and eggs, why does it cost so much?”

Really? Like, are you for real?

Also the idea of strangers coming to my house for pick-ups or me going to theirs for drop-offs always seemed a bit too murdery to me, so my cupcake business was short-lived.

What I’m sharing with you today is one of the cupcakes that I made way back in August of 2010, before I started my business and before Pinterest squashed all my dreams of ever having an original idea again. Ever.

To make it really easy on yourself use store-bought cake mix and frosting.

Sure, you could make cupcakes and frosting from scratch but I’m showing you the easy way today.

Make these for your kiddos and their friends or make them for yourself to eat for breakfast after the kids shove off to school.

I think the fact that there are eggs in the cupcakes and eggs on top more than justifies them as breakfast food.

Ingredients

cupcakes (cooled) – from a mix or homemade

white frosting – store-bought or homemade

vanilla Tootsie Rolls *

light pink, dark pink, and orange Starburst candies *

blue food coloring – enough drops to turn the frosting sky blue

rolling pin, sauce jar, wine bottle – whatever you’ve got that will flatten the candy

For the cupcakes:

Add 4-5 drops of blue food coloring to the frosting and stir. Add more if needed until the frosting is sky blue.

Frost the cupcakes and set aside.

For a smooth frosted top like the cupcake in the picture, just heat up your store-bought frosting in the microwave for 8-10 seconds, stir, then spoon on top.

For the eggs:

Roll out a vanilla Tootsie Roll until flattened. Cut a small circle using a cookie cutter, shot glass, or freehand with a knife. Tap the sides gently with your finger tip to get a smooth edge. Then use the back of a butter knife to push in on the sides a bit to create an egg-white like shape. You can also keep it round if you like.

Roll out an orange Starburst and cut into a smaller circle. Tap sides down with your finger tip to smooth the edges.

Place the orange circle on top of the white circle.

Ta da! You’ve made a candy egg!

Now let’s make candy bacon!!

For the bacon:

Roll out a piece of dark pink Starburst until it’s fairly flat. Don’t go too far though because you’ll be rolling it out again soon.

Pinch off a piece of the light pink Starburst and roll it into a log or snake shape with your hands, like you used to do with play-doh when you were little.

Repeat this process with various sizes of the light pink candy and then lay them on top of the dark pink candy going in various directions. This is your bacon fat.

At this point you should have a flattened piece of dark pink candy with smaller strips of light pink on top. Make sense? I sure hope so.

Now flatten everything out with your rolling pin and it should all fuse into one even mass.

Use a knife or a pizza cutter to cut out strips.

Crimp the candy and gently press in the sides until it resembles bacon.

Place your adorable and delicious bacon and eggs on your cupcakes and enjoy!

*Use any candy/color combo you like. As long as it’s pliable, it will work.