E is for Edible Teacups

I should have known when I was having trouble with the links that today's Pinterest Challenge was going to be, well, a challenge.

I found this picture on Pinterest of cute little edible teacups:

Found on coolmompicks.com

Cute and easy, right?

Well....

My first problem was trying to find a link to go with the edible teacups. The first few pins I looked at took me to a Disney site, but the Disney site had no instructions. The above pin had a link that was SUPPOSED to take me to a site with instructions, but guess what? The link took me to a blank page.

At this point, you might be wondering why I didn't just scrap it and go with something else for my "E" post, and I most certainly WOULD have, had I not waited until the last minute, per my usual M.O. I decided I could certainly figure out how to make something this simple on my own. After teaching preschool all morning, having a staff meeting that went until nearly 2:30, and before going to my side gig helping a local photographer shoot pictures of kids' sports teams at 4:30, I went to the store to get supplies (believe it or not, my supply list also included items to make not one, not two, but THREE other projects for my challenge, so there!). I picked up cake ice cream cones, peachy gummy rings, and shortbread cookies with scalloped edges.

I got home at 7:30 from the photography gig and got started. The first thing I needed to do was cut the bottoms off the ice cream cones. I hauled out my big serrated knife I use to cut homemade bread and went to work. Cut, cut, cut, cut, SNAP! And the bottom half of the cone came off, taking a big chunk out of the cone with it. This happened twice before I switched to a serrated steak knife. The steak knife worked much better, but I also sawed the cones more carefully than a diamond cutter would.

Not what I'd call a clean break.

Changed knives. A little better.

Careful... careful....

I made a little "glue" with some powdered sugar, water, and about a teaspoon of meringue powder (the stuff you would use to make royal icing, which is the kind that dries hard, hard, HARD. Remember those hard candies that are glued to a card that you can use to decorate a birthday cake? Those are made out of royal icing.). I cut two gummy rings in half to be handles for the teacups and glued each one to the side of a cut cone. And they fell off. I tried laying the cones on a rack. They rolled over and the handles fell off. I put them in a muffin tin. The flipped over and the handles fell off. Finally, I put a kleenex in the bottom of each cup as a cushion (the box of kleenex was closer to me than anything else and I was getting pissed at this point), and the cups stayed put, as did the handles.

Frosting glue.

Patiently holding the gummy ring handle onto the cup.

 Next, I glued a gummy ring to the center of each shortbread cookie. I let everything dry about fifteen minutes, then I dipped the cut edge of the cup into my frosting glue and gently (and I do mean GENTLY) pressed the cup against the gummy ring, then turned the whole thing upside down to dry, hoping the weight of the shortbread cookie would help seal the cup to the gummy ring.

Pricey shortbread cookies with a gummy ring glued on with frosting.

Upside down teacups.

After letting them dry for thirty minutes or so, I finally have the end result:

TA DAAAAAA!!!

Okay, I will admit they are darling. But what a pain! These were included as part of an entirely overblown Alice in Wonderland party on the Pinterest pin. I would maybe think about doing something like this for a small tea party birthday theme and then fill them with candy. Fortunately, we've grown past the tea party days, and I won't have to worry about making these ever again.

Pinterest win or fail? They are cute. But I had to come up with my own instructions. They were a pain in the ass to assemble. And they look better in a picture than they do in person. 

Can I call it a draw?