Trick your guests with cupcakes that look like rice bowls

This might look like a simple bowl of rice, but look twice — it’s actually cake.

The rice texture of the frosting is created by using a handheld potato ricer. Just squeeze and shake it over a cupcake in a bowl to make drops of icing that look like white rice. And if you’d rather fool someone with a bowl of fried rice, just add some yellow food coloring and a few assorted candies.

Bake or buy the correct size of cupcakes that will fit inside your rice bowls. My bowls were fairly large, so I needed jumbo cupcakes.

You can use store-bought or homemade buttercream frosting. Lightly frost the tops of the cupcakes so the frosting rice will stay in place when it’s sprinkled on.

The frosting needs to be stiffer to go through the potato ricer. Crumble up an extra cupcake, and add some powdered sugar.

Test your frosting in your potato ricer. If it’s too soft, then it won’t sprinkle correctly. Mix in more powdered sugar if necessary. (Don’t worry, it won’t make the frosting taste too dry. Amazingly enough, it stays very moist.)

To get the frosting to sprinkle, shake your potato ricer. You can also use a knife to loosen the bits of frosting.

Use a toothpick to adjust the “rice” and fill in spots that need more coverage.

You can leave your rice plain or make fried rice by coloring the frosting and using candy as accents. I heated Starburst candy in the microwave for about 10 seconds to soften it before I tore it apart to make it look like bits of a fried egg, and added other candies as vegetables. You could also dust it with cocoa powder for a more realistic appearance.

Give someone a set of chopsticks, and watch them try to eat their rice bowl cake.

For some additional food-fooling fun, you can also fill a clean soy sauce bottle with caramel or chocolate sauce.

You can fool the eyes, but not the taste buds.

These delicious bowls of rice really take the cake.

Rice bowl cake recipe

Yields 4

Ingredients:

• 5 vanilla cupcakes
• 3 cups buttercream frosting
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• Yellow food coloring
• 8 orange Life Savers Gummies
• 15-20 green Sixlets candies
• 4 yellow Starburst candies

Directions:

1. Place 4 cupcakes inside rice bowls.
2. Lightly frost the tops of the cupcakes with buttercream icing.
3. Add the powdered sugar and 1 crumbled cupcake to the frosting, and mix well. (If you want to make “fried rice” instead of white rice, then add yellow food coloring at this point too.)
4. Put some of the frosting mixture inside a potato ricer, and gently squeeze the handle until the frosting starts to come out.
5. Shake the potato ricer, and let the bits of frosting that emerge fall off onto your cupcakes. You can also use a knife to cut the frosting bits from the ricer. Continue to squeeze, shake and sprinkle until your cupcake is mostly covered.
6. Using a toothpick, arrange your bits of frosting rice around the bowl as desired.
7. If making fried rice bowl cakes, add your candies to the top. Cut the orange Life Saver Gummies to look like bits of carrot. Add the green Sixlets candies to look like peas. And tear apart the yellow Starburst candies to look like flat bits of fried egg.

More fun food crafts

Cocktail critters to garnish your beverages
Snorkeler cookie treats
Fantastical Fruit Roll-Ups flowers