Every year for the first day of school, I make my boys a special little treat. It all started with the pencil cake from a few years ago.
But I opened a whole can of worms with this one, because then they always expected a fun treat on the first day of school. Which is great, except I am starting to run out of ideas.
So this year, I turned to my usual inspiration, Pinterest, where I saw these notebook cupcakes from Dukes & Duchesses. And I about fell over, because they’re the cutest things ever.
Obviously, I had to make them, but I changed a few things up and used shortcuts in a few places {because that’s how I roll}.
First of all, I went to the bakery department at the grocery store and asked for some plain, non-frosted vanilla cupcakes. They had a bunch baked but not yet decorated, and they were happy to box them up for me. You could obviously bake your own, but this is a really great time-saving idea.
I also used {*gasp!*} a tub of store-bought frosting. It’s so not my favorite, but it’s great if you’re in a hurry. Plus, my kids love it, and since they were the ones who were going to be eating these, I was good with it. Just do a light coating of frosting on the top of each cupcake. It doesn’t need to be pretty, because you’ll be putting your “notebook paper” on top.
My inspiration tutorial used fondant for the notebook paper, but I went shortcut on that too. Instead of rolling out the fondant, then cutting the circles out, then drawing all the lines on, I used Wilton Sugar Sheets
To make the notebook paper, I just drew a red line down one side of the sugar sheet and then drew blue lines across with food coloring markers. I ended up needing to draw a second red line down the middle so that I could get all the circles on there. One sugar sheet had just enough room for 6 cupcakes.
{Now, let me take a minute to talk about food coloring markers. They are something that I think everyone should have in their cupboards. They are the most fun thing ever, and kids think you are pretty much the coolest mom in the world if you hand them some markers and let them color on their food. Wilton makes some that you can get at Michaels and other craft stores, but they are really bad. And I say that as a total lover of most Wilton products. The tips are too thick, they don’t write well, and after a few uses, they get all gummed up and unusable. Instead, I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend AmeriColor Gourmet Writer Food Decorator Pens
Anyway, so draw on your lines with your food coloring and then use scissors to cut out circles from your sugar sheets that are just slightly larger than the top of your cupcake {I used a drinking glass as a guide for my circles}. Then just use a food coloring marker to write whatever you want on them! Since my kids are in elementary school, I used simple math, spelling and writing, but if your kids are older you could drop some algebra or geometry on there too.
Once you have your equations on the circles, plop them on top of the cupcakes, and you’re done!
My boys really thought it was real paper on the top, and when I told them that it was sugar and they could eat it, they thought it was absolutely amazing. I have to say, I was kind of blown away too.
Do you have a special first-day-of-school tradition with your kids?
Don’t miss these other fun treats for kids!
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These are seriously adorable! I’m pinning them to remember for book club get togethers!