Smallville Extravaganza (★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆)

It was the summer of 2011 and I had fallen in love...

...with Superman!

This is not something I'm proud of--being in love with a character of fiction.  And I've never even picked up a comic, but Smallville hooked and reeled me in like nothing had in a long time.  I picked it up on a whim because I thought the lead actor was pretty cute and I ended up watching 10 years worth of television in 3 months.  Once again...all things I should probably keep to myself.  But this obsession led me to my next baking assignment, proving that everything does happen for a reason.

To celebrate the series finale, I decided to make some Superman inspired cupcakes.  I invited my fellow  Smallville enthusiasts (It's a real thing! The number of attendees outnumbered the fingers on my hand.)  to an outdoor screening of the last episode.

Now, I knew I wanted to do something awesome, but I didn't know exactly what that entailed.  There are just so many ways you can go with a broad theme like Superman.  I mean do you include bald cupcakes for Lex Luther who is such a big part of the show?  Do you make faces with eyes crossed out to signify what you wish they actually did to Lana's character?  Or do you throw everyone for a loop and make Brainac and Lois cupcakes from Earth 2?  But I digress...

Needless to say, I needed some outside help for this one.  I enlisted the help of my friends and together we agreed that sticking to the basics was best: The Superman Emblem and Kryptonite.

It became a group baking event.

Since we were making two sets of cupcakes, I split the cake batter and frosting recipe into two bowls.

For the Kryptonite cupcakes, I dyed the batter and frosting...guess what?  Green.  Yes, green.

The Superman cupcakes were dyed blue.

Now, here is where the real creativity came in.

For the Superman emblem we needed a yellow/gold diamond for the base.  I'm no chocolate molder and fondant doesn't taste good...so what on earth were we going to use? After scouring the grocery aisles, we came across these "Golden" Oreo Cakesters.  

The color was...close enough.  And since they were little "cakes," we decided it would be easy to scoop out the cream center and cut the remaining pieces into the needed five-sided diamond.

I picked up one of those red icing "bottles," which helped immensely with the emblem outline and "S."

For the evil...er...Kryptonite cupcakes, green rock candy ended up being the perfect topping.  I bought a couple sticks and my baking helpers turned them into perfectly sized bits of Superman's worst enemy.  

So what is the distance that must be maintained between these two cupcakes?  Did a strict 6-inch rule need to be enforced?

Since Smallville was always lax on the subject...I mean Clark Kent drank Kryptonite Gatorade...drank it...as in, it went into his blood stream...I decided taking this next picture couldn't possibly be all that cruel.

Our cupcake baking was a success!  They were fun to eat too.  Although the cakester was awful (picked it off) and a huge mouthful of rock candy wasn't the most pleasant experience (eat candy first, devour remaining cupcake after), as long as you knew the system they were thoroughly enjoyable.

The finale was fantastic as well...I knew you were wondering.  Watching it outside upped my excitement level ten-fold...AND Clark Kent flew.  

How can it get better than that?