While watching the Nailed It! episode about the Cereal mug cake, I’m all — hey, I can build that. Given that it is around Easter time, I one-upped it with Peeps cereal.
For this project, I went as “off the shelf” as I could — bought the cake mix, bought the frosting. I did not buy fondant because it is a specialty item that my grocery store does not carry, and I’ve made marshmallow fondant before.
Baking the cupcakes was a breeze. Meringue and extra vanilla improve boxed cake mix, so the cake component was on point.
I thought it would be fun to use Peeps instead of traditional marshmallows to make fondant. That DID NOT work out as well as expected when I rolled some out to cover the cereal treat shoes, so only one pair of shoes got fondant. I adjusted the marshmallow-powdered sugar ratio, and got just enough fondant to cover the main cake.
Marshmallow Peeps are NOT good ingredients for making fondant.
#valuablelessonlearned
I experimented with a custard buttercream, which was a bit too loose to securely hold the fondant to the cake. It *mostly* held the Peeps cereal in place. The cake bowl didn’t balance well on the shoes. When I reached for the cake to rescue it after it fell, the fondant slid and smooshed the whole thing.
My original plan was to create a cereal bowl cake brigade. When it started approaching midnight, I left the cupcake sides bare, piped some stars, topped them with cereal, and called it a night.
Nailed it! Learned a lot. They’ll be much better next time.
Jenn Likes to Make Things 