Tractor Cupcake Ideas

Many little boys (and some big boys, too) love large machines, such as dump trucks, cranes and bulldozers. However old your birthday boy is turning, he will be happy to have tractor cupcakes at his party. Because tractors are complicated vehicles, you might think it would be difficult to create one for a dessert, but there are many ways of conveying a tractor theme on your cupcakes. You don't have to be a master baker to create special tractor cupcakes. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Tractor Cutouts

The first idea to spring to your mind is probably to create a tractor on top of each cupcake. Do this by making a small tractor template on paper and tracing this onto rolled fondant. Fondant is a substance like sugary dough, which you can buy or make at home. Place one tractor on each cupcake and add junior mints for tires. You can also use a pastry bag and small icing tip to draw in details on each tractor.

Tractor Toppers

Instead of making an edible tractor on the cupcakes, you can make your own tractor cupcake picks. Buy large, round stickers of any color and long toothpicks. Cut out tractor shapes on construction paper and glue one to each sticker. Take two stickers and sandwich a toothpick in between them. You will need two dozen stickers to make one dozen toppers. Ice the cupcakes however you want before adding a pick in each one.

Tire Treads and Deer

If a tractor is too complicated to reproduce on your cupcakes, you can still make the cupcakes tractor-themed. Find a reindeer cookie cutter and use it as a stencil to make deer on some of the cupcakes, or trace the deer from the John Deere logo and use this as a stencil. On the other cupcakes, take a toy vehicle with plastic tires and roll one of the tires over the top of an iced cupcake. This will leave a tractor tread mark on the cupcake if you use a crusting icing, such as buttercream. Be sure the icing has set before driving the toy vehicle's tires on it.

Cupcake Cake

Make a cupcake cake into the shape of a tractor by arranging the cupcakes on a platter. Keep the shape as simple as you can. Try using four cupcakes for each wheel, iced black or brown, eight cupcakes for the body and four for the cab. Once the cupcakes are arranged how you want them, adhere them to the platter with a dab of icing under each one. Instead of icing the cupcakes in the appropriate colors ahead of time, you can also line them up and ice over all of them at once, but this requires a great deal of icing, so plan ahead.