Whack-A-Mole Cupcakes

In our city, you know summer is just around the corner when our local amusement park opens up. It's nothing like Disneyland or Universal Studios or Walley World - it's small, compact, and has no giant animal mascots running around. Vancouver's Playland does boast an ACE Coaster Classic named, of course, "The Coaster". This beast may not look like much, but the last time I road it I came back with bruises, butterflies in my stomach, and the insane need to do it again.

Playland opens up in April, but summer in the city really gets rolling when the PNE officially opens it's doors. The Pacific National Exhibition is an urban county fair - you can buy deep fried chocolate bars, seven different types of things on a bun, and one of those Shamwows. It has horses, cows, ducks, and super dogs. It is also a place for our giant mainland community to come together and give back - because, lets face it, we're usually too busy sipping on our five dollar cups of coffee and arguing about the Olympics to think about people in need. Luckily, the PNE is host to the Vancouver chapter of Canstruction - a competition where teams gather canned goods and build giant sculptures that fill up the main lane within the PNE. When the Exhibition comes to a close, every sculpture competing donates their construction material (aka thousands and thousands of canned goods) to local food banks. Each sculpture brings in an average of $12,871.05 worth of food to these charities.

Pretty neat, huh?

A local company (that big one that keeps your lights going) contacted C&C to help with fundraising for their own Canstuction team. Their sculpture's theme is, of course, top secret, but they're muse lives within the PNE's arcade games. So, taking that as our inspiration, we whipped up six dozen Whack-A-Mole themed cupcakes:





Now, moles aren't very cute looking. Google it. No one would want those things coming out of their cupcakes. So we played with the design and made it a bit more cutesy - little pink noses, chocolate cheeks, and big ol' eyeballs. We made our vanilla beanie and chocolate yogurt cake, and covered them with naturally flavoured raspberry, blueberry and lemon cream cheese buttercream. Seriously yum.



The cupcakes were shipped up to the team's BBQ, where they sat at the dessert table being admired and cooed over. Until people started eating. Then, I was told, they were quickly demolished. Though the buttercream became soft in the summer heat, everyone enjoyed our little cupcakes. Especially the ones with moles inside.

So, if you're a Vancouver native and are in town during the PNE, make sure you take time to check out and vote for your favourite sculpture in the Canstruction competition. And keep a look out for moles made out of cans of soup.



one mole hides behind the leftovers - too bad these little guys can't tunnel.