Candy Carrots & Carrot Patch Cupcakes

Carrot TopIf you’re new around here, one thing you should know about Kate and me is that we don’t do very many fancy things, but we love to find un-fancy ways to make it look like we do fancy things.  Fake it till you make it?  Perhaps.  Take tiny molded edible objects, for example.  I am 98% certain you will never, ever find us making fondant and crafting tiny caricatures to adorn a cake people are going to tear apart.  But what I can do?  Roll a starburst between my hands and stick some licorice in it.  Boom.  Fancy.  People will instantly think you have mad skillz when you craft things like tiny carrots.  One of our favorite short-cut tricks for things like this is candy.  And I’m not talking bust-out-the-candy-thermometer candy.  I’m talking like, grab-a-pack-of-something-in-the-check-out-lane-at-Walmart candy.

Little Candy Carrots from Our Best Bites

I first made little orange candy carrots years and years  ago, but back then I put little parsley sprigs in the ends for the greens.  They look adorable, but people are always a little iffy about whether they’re supposed to eat them considering it’s candy with herbs sticking out of them.  Then last year when I was making these cute St. Patrick’s Day favors Kate posted, I realized the green Twizzlers would be perfect in place of my parsley.

You can use any orange colored pliable candy, and if you walk the candy aisle you might find more options than you knew of.  I’m using Starburst here, I’ve also used the orange tootsie rolls (my WinCo grocery store usually sells them in bulk), and orange airheads.  Starbursts are a good size because all you need to do is cut one in half and it’s the perfect size for 2 carrots.

Cut Starburst in half

Depending on how fresh your candy is, sometimes they can be a little hard.  If that’s the case, I’ve found that popping them in the microwave for just a few seconds (5 seconds in mine) softens them perfectly.  Use your hands to mold them into little carrot shapes.

Making Candy Carrots

Then use a skewer to poke down the top of the carrot and make an opening to insert the greens.  I stick the skewer pretty far down there and wiggle it around a bit.

Green Twizzler

The green Twizzlers are already in little line shapes, so just cut them into small pieces, and take 3 and press them together at one end, and then nestle them in the opening in your carrot.  I think it works best to cut all of the greens first, then make each carrot to completion before starting the next one.

Candy Carrots from Our Best Bites

You can gently press with a sharp knife to make little lines down the front of the carrots.

They look super cute adorning a carrot cake (try Kate’s Carrot Cake Supreme), or my favorite- on cupcakes that have been topped with cookie crumbs (I saw Disney posted these same carrots and they topped their cupcakes with cinnamon sugar- also cute) for the little garden patch.  I’ve also topped cupcakes with toasted green coconut for a little springy grass scene.

Carrot Top Cupcakes

Any way you do it,  tiny edible candy carrots make just about everything extra cute!

Now stay tuned Wednesday to see what I’m going to do with these next….

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Meet The Author

Sara Wells

Sara Wells co-founded Our Best Bites in 2008. She is the author of three Bestselling Cook Books, Best Bites: 150 Family Favorite RecipesSavoring the Seasons with Our Best Bites, and 400 Calories or Less from Our Best Bites. Sara’s work has been featured in many local and national news outlets and publications such as Parenting MagazineBetter Homes & GardensFine CookingThe Rachel Ray Show and the New York Times.

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Questions & Reviews

    1. You can use any cake and frosting recipe you like, Sarah. This is just a cute idea to top them!

  1. Can I just say I wish I was your neighbor so I could get all your cast-offs. These are so cute.

  2. So cute I think I just peed my pants (see yesterday’s Facebook post from Sara). Really, I might do this!

  3. The Dollar Tree near me (Vancouver, WA) has packages of Jelly Belly ‘Peas and Carrots’ candy. Now I know what I will be making with the carrots in the two bags I picked up. Cute!

  4. I cannot find the rainbow twizzlers anywhere. Where have you found them? I have looked at Smiths, Winco, Target, and Walmart. All I can find is the yellow and red filled ones.

  5. This is totally unrelated to your cute cupcakes… I have been looking at all of your chocolate cookie recipes wondering which would be best for the pizookies party I am hosting tomorrow night. My plan is to make a chocoalte chip cookie base without the chips, and a chocolate base, without anything in it, an then let guests add their own candy, chips, etc. suggestions on which recipe would be great!
    Thanks

      1. Thanks! Absolutely. Gilbert AZ is a little far from Boise, however… Too bad-it’s going to be a good time!

  6. Okay these are SERIOUSLY genius! They would be perfect for carrot cake and carrot cupcakes! Once, I used a vanilla tootsie roll to make a diploma and red fruit roll up to “tie” it–not my idea but it’s amazing what you could do with soft candy!

  7. OMG ADORABLE!!! I’m totally making these for Easter. My kids are going to love them. Thanks for sharing!!!

  8. I made Starburst carrots for my cupcakes last year, and the carrots actually melted into the frosting. 🙁 Anyone else have that problem?

    1. I had the same problem, I made some with starburst and some with orange tootsie rolls. The cupcakes weren’t warm or anything when I stuck the carrots in them. I made the cupcakes the night before and put the candies on in the morning. By the time we were ready to eat them in the afternoon, all the carrots were melty and leaning over like limp noodles. They were still cute and tasted good though.

  9. Wow! These might not be “fancy,” but they are so clever! Can’t wait to use this little trick…