April Fool's Cupcakes-- Mock Spaghetti and Meatballs

This is the other fake-out cupcake we decided to make for April Fool's Day. I've already shared the mock TV dinner cupcakes. I thought this spaghetti and meatballs platter turned out pretty fun, as well. It was far simpler to put together than it looks and I have to admit, the meatballs looked so realistic, it was almost gross! The added bonus of this recipe was that the cupcakes tasted so good with the extra strawberry jam. They looked and tasted great!

Recipe Source: Hello, Cupcake!

Serves10

Supplies needed:

10 vanilla cupcakes, baked in white liners

1 can vanilla frosting

1/2 tsp. cocoa powder

3 drops yellow food coloring

11 Ferrero Rocher chocolates, unwrapped

3/4 cup strawberry preserves (preferably the low sugar kind... it has a better, brighter red color)

2 Tbsp. grated white chocolate, plus a chunk of white chocolate for garnishing, if desired

1. Tint the vanilla frosting with the cocoa powder and yellow food coloring. You're going for a pale yellow, almost cream color. I actually added just a touch more cocoa powder for mine

2. Frost the cupcakes and arrange on a platter so they're touching.

3. Spoon the remaining frosting into a freezer duty Ziploc bag and snip off a small corner from the bag. Be sure to snip a very small opening. I found this to be the trickiest part of the whole cupcake. Somehow, I didn't snip my corner off just right and my noodles ended up being just a tad "flat." They looked more like Ramen noodles. Be sure to snip a nice clean, small corner, about 1/8 inch.

4. Pipe the frosting over the cupcakes, piling it slightly higher in the center of the platter, creating a mound of noodles. Be sure to allow some to hang over the edges. This part was really fun. The messier you pipe and the more you pipe, the better it looks. You want to cover as much of the cupcake surface as possible.

5. Place the chocolates in a small bowl and coat with some of the strawberry jam. Spoon some of the preserves onto the cupcakes. Then top each cupcake with a strawberry jam coated chocolate. It's cute if you leave one "meatball" to fall on the plate. Then spoon any remaining preserves over the chocolates and cupcakes.

6. Sprinkle the entire platter with the grated white chocolate. If you want, place a small chunk of white chocolate on a separate plate and serve it alongside the "spaghetti and meatballs" along with a cheese grater.