It’s so cold today, I can’t really believe it’s the middle of May. This morning we went to the annual May Fair at the toddlers new Nursery (he starts in September and I can’t wait!). When we got back he really wanted to have a picnic lunch in the garden but the chilly weather meant we enjoyed lunch looking at the garden rather than sitting in it.  To cheer ourselves up we thought we’d take part in the latest Centre Parcs challenge.

Creepy crawly cupcakes

We wanted to make something special for our picnic which meant making sure we had unpacked all our baking equipment. We turned to Pinterest for inspiration and decided to make Ant cupcakes. The toddler has been showing an increasing interest in the garden. In the last week he has learnt the difference between ants, spiders, flies and snails. He doesn’t like them, unlike his younger sister who has no qualms picking up creepy crawlies and taking a closer look, but at least he can identify them.

Anyway, we followed a basic vanilla cupcake recipe and after the cakes had cooled, cut the tops off to make them even.

They were then covered in a thin layer of marzipan dyed red with food colouring, and ‘ants’ made with maltesers with black icing legs.

The children loved them. What do you think?

Someone wanted to take a closer look

But I persuaded her to leave them until I had finished taking my photographs!

We also enjoyed gingerbread men, mini sausage rolls and sandwiches, and shared a bag of crisps but our Creepy crawly cupcakes were the biggest hit of lunch!