Every March Break my work offers a Friendship Camp for children with high functioning Autism or Aspergers.  I had the pleasure of running the camp last year and we ran it again this week.  Our theme this year was pirates so for our last day of camp I thought I would make some cupcakes (surprise, surprise!).  I saw chocolate coins at the Bulk Barn so I decided to experiment with buried treasure.  These cupcakes are really simple to put together and look totally adorable.

To assemble these cupcakes you will need:

• 12 vanilla cupcakes
• approx. 1.5 cups vanilla butter cream icing tinted a light tan colour
• 12 long & flat red jelly candies (I used Big Foot candies but you could also use Pull and Peel, Fruit by the Foot, Licorice etc.)
• tooth picks
• Mini black and white print outs of the Jolly Roger flag
• 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 12 foil covered chocolate gold coins
• Pirate cupcake liners (optional)

Directions:

• Bake cupcakes according to recipe directions and let cool completely.
• Once your cupcakes have cooled, cut a small slit into each cupcake being careful not too go too close to the edge (your cupcake might split).
• Gently run the knife back and forth in the slit to release some of the crumbs.  Turn the cupcake upside down and shake out the crumbs.  Note: it is important your slit be wide enough to hold the coin or your cupcake will split when you push the coin in.
• Gently push a coin into each of the 12 slits you cut.

• Ice cupcakes as desired (I suggest swirling the icing to best cover up any piece of coin that may be poking through)
• Sprinkle a few teaspoons of graham cracker crumbs on each cupcake to resemble sand.
• Put together your pirate flags by gluing/taping the pirate flags onto the end of your toothpicks (I added a piece of black card stock to the back of the flags for a bit of extra stability).  Gently push the toothpick flags into your cupcakes.
• Using a pair of scissors, cut strips of red candy and arrange them into the shape of an X.  Place a candy X on each cupcake roughly above where the coin is “buried”.

Yarrr…. Enjoy!