Gumball Machine Cupcakes

I thought of this idea for a gumball machine cupcake a while ago.  I have seen similar ideas around, but nothing exactly like this.  Let me explain with lots of pictures how I made these cute edible favors.

I started by baking vanilla cupcakes in these cute individual paper liners.  I love these cupcake cups by Paper Eskimo.  These paper cups can be baked right on a baking sheet, no need for a special cupcake pan.

Once the cupcakes were cooled I covered the tops in royal icing and turned them directly onto these silver cardboard disks.  They are like tiny little cake boards.  I found them at my local craft store.  I allowed the icing to dry for a few hours to make sure the cupcakes were good and stuck.

I used a craft knife to slice holes into the bottom of the cupcake cups.  Then I poked a dowel through the slits to make the holes a little larger.  The final step is to fill a Christmas ornament with gumballs and fit it upside down into the hole of the cupcake.  I ordered my ornaments from Oriental Trading and didn’t realize they were very small.  The opening in the ornament was super tiny, and I couldn’t find gumballs small enough so I used candy coated chocolate Sixlets.

They looked super cute all wrapped up!  Wilton sells these treat bags with the silver board and a ribbon (I used silver twist ties instead) in a great little pack.  Everyone loved these cute little party favors and I can’t wait to make them again.  They can be made with any color cupcake cup and filled with any colors of candy to match every party color scheme!