Simple Angry Bird mini cupcakes

I was really disappointed recently when I looked up Angry Bird cupcakes to get ideas for my son's upcoming sixth birthday.  There were a ton of awesome fondant ones.... but I don't have any experience with fondant!  And we just moved 1200 miles less than a month ago, so let's just say I don't have a lot of extra time to learn a new food art.  Honestly, I barely have time to get the laundry done amidst all of the moving-across-country logistics.

I wanted a regular cupcake but with something reminiscent of Angry Birds on top.  No, I didn't want anything complicated, but I did want something that looked better than a flat face of a bird on top of a cupcake, and so far that's all I'd found online.  Even on Pinterest!  Can you believe it!? (Besides, of course, the really amazing fondant ones.  But, heck, there's always next year.)

I am luckily in the time of year for candy corn and carmel candy corn with orange ends act as great beaks.  And mini m&ms are perfect eyes, right?  Or at least, yummy ones.

So, here's what I did:

1) First cut the brown ends off your candy corn.  There's a few reasons I did this.  You can try without, but I'm pretty sure it won't work if you leave them with the bigger/longer ends.

2)  Bake some yummy cupcakes!  I used a white cake recipe and added almond extract, which I also did to the icing just to give it a nice flavor.  Simple!

3) Make some buttercream frosting and then add your colors!

4) At this point, you have all your materials ready, so get to decorating!  Once you ice your birds, be sure to decorate them quickly before the buttercream gets harder.  Buttercream will always stay "soft", but it *will* develop a nice top coat and you want to make sure you get your things stuck in before that happens.  I would suggest working on one group at a time so you don't end up missing your window of opportunity. :-)

5) Though they are pretty simple Angry Birds, I would recommend at least putting some angry eyebrows on them.  But, as my daughter pointed out, there are NO eyebrows on the blue birds.  Which ended up working out for me since I didn't have much space for them. ;-P  But if you play the game, you'll know why I had to make three of all the blue birds.... :-)

And then you're finished!  They are super yummy, not tricky, and at least to some degree resemble Angry Birds.  Or at least, I think so!  The real test will be when the birthday boy sees them and if he a) responds in joyful glee that I made Angry Bird cupcakes! or if he b) says to me despairingly, "it looks like you tried to make Angry Bird cupcakes, but they don't really look like Angry Birds...."

PS--I tried making the yellow ones in a square formation at the bottom when I was piping.  Didn't work out so well.  But I am really not very good at piping icing, so maybe others of you will have better luck!!  (Since the yellow one is more of a pyramid shape, not a circle/oval)

UPDATE!!

Upon seeing the cupcakes, my son told me that we could definitely give the blue ones to his friends, but not the red ones or the yellow ones.  "If my friends saw them they would laugh and say, 'those aren't Angry Birds--they have no feathers!'"  He instructed me to put brown feathers on the tops of their heads and on their backs.  Of course, I had to oblige.  Here's the updated picture: