To quote Tessie...

"Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness!!!!!!!!!!!"

("Pipe down, all of you. 

Do you want Hannigan to hear you?")

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poster source

I just got very excited.

Thanks to Suzanne at RedKite, I was directed to cakecentral.com for ideas and inspiration. I started browsing through their extensive photo gallery and came first upon this:

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Then this:

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And then...

wait for it....

ta dah!!!!!

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Notice anything? Like, that it's almost exactly the same as my inspiration photo... but a smidge different?

That's because the woman who baked these cupcakes got the recipe from Woman's Day magazine - they're from Karen Tack and Alan Richardson's collection of amazing recipes.

I actually looked at Hello Cupcake at a bookstore a few weeks ago and didn't see this recipe - either it's not included in the book, or I missed it in my haste to look through every cupcake book on the shelf. (There were a lot.)

Now for the bad (perhaps just... odd) news. Here are some of the key ingredients. Remember - chocolate cupcakes.

1 stick mint chewing gum

9 green fruit chews (Jolly Rancher)

1 vanilla fruit chew (Tootsie Roll Midgee, AirHeads)

4 red fruit chews (Jolly Rancher)

8 orange fruit chews (Starburst)

Green apple and watermelon AirHeads

Yeah.......... I think I might, um, stay with the original plan. Does your gut - so to speak - tell you anything about this project?