Rock Climbing Party with Cupcakes

My oldest is in the process of creating a family cookbook and has been using my blog to kick start it, and she mentioned to me that I have a lot of photos on my computer, but that I’m missing recipes.  Busted.

So, this is me trying to play “catch up.”  Sigh.

This party was from last summer, not long ago (ahem), and I posted the picture of the rock climbing wall so you could see the inspiration for the cupcakes.

We purchased the chocolate rocks at our local Candy Craze store.  The walls were made by combining melted white candy melts with melted brown candy melts and then just spooning them onto parchment in the rustic shapes you see above.  We then placed the chocolate rocks on the candy melts while they were still wet and let them dry.

Once they were done drying, we added some more melted candy to the back of the wall and attached a pretzel stick to use to anchor the wall into the cupcake.  Added stability = less stressful transporting.

Once the backs were dry we frosted cupcakes, threw on some sprinkles and inserted the toppers.  Refrigerate uncovered until ready to serve.

I say uncovered for many reasons – 1) you don’t want to mess up your beautiful cupcakes and 2) if your cupcakes have liners and you’ve covered the tops with frosting then their surface areas are insulated and frosting doesn’t generally dry out so you’re good.  If you make these the day before, insert the walls before the party because the pretzel has the potential to become soggy after a prolonged period of exposure to moisture.

As for the party favor, we were lucky that our location offered water bottles for purchase.  So each child received a water bottle, an Aladdin color changing, or sparkly, straw (dishwasher safe – hooray), and key chain ring and carabiner clip.