Wedding Barnyard Buttercream Cupcakes

So, I only helped decorate these.  I just returned from a few days in Denver, where I went to my friend Debbie's wedding.  She and her husband, Jose, served up these cute farm-themed cupcakes at their wedding.  They were a big hit at the reception, and I saw one little nephew snag a cupcake when everyone else was starting on appetizers.

The decorations were made almost entirely of buttercream.  Or, But-R-Creme, as Jose, a food scientist, informed me.  Apparently you can't legally call a product buttercream if it's made with shortening and no butter.  I only helped with the easy parts, namely the sheeps' wool, the pigs' mud, and the grass.  Debbie and Jose did the detailed work... the faces, tails, ears, etc.  Both the wool and mud were piped without a tip; you just keep piping bumps without lifting so you don't get points.  The "grass" was piped using a grass tip.  And Jose used a finer tip to make the pigs' curly tails.  The chickens got little chocolate buttercream eyes.  But the eyes for the pigs and sheep... mini chocolate chips!  The sheep are my favorite.  Tweezers would have been handy, since I felt like my fingers were melting the chips.  It was a fun, late-night, eve-of-wedding activity.

There was no stuffy, fondant-covered cake for the wedding.  It was a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, personalized with a marzipan family of figurines made by Debbie, an artist and art teacher.  The family member on the left is Pork Chop, their cat.  The marzipan was colored and then sculpted and molded around a pretzel to stick into the cake.  Debbie told me Jose was hollow, which I thought was some harsh criticism before I realized she meant marzipan Jose.  The real-life couple looked amazing on their wedding day.