Octopart cupcakes

You’re probably wondering, what’s an Octopart? Well, it’s the company my husband started working for a little over a month ago. Octopart is a search engine for electronics components, so basically a google for geeks. They have a really cool logo, and I thought it would be fun to make them some company cupcakes to have in the office.

Their logo is a blue gear, with 8 cogs (hence OCTOpart), with a letter O showing underneath. I figured the best way to showcase their logo would be to make the gears out of blue fondant, and place them on top of white frosted cupcakes. Then I could use black gel to make the letter O underneath.

A quick search online showed that the only commercially available gear-shaped cookie cutter had 7 cogs, not 8. Luckily, I know a guy who makes custom cookie cutters. Even more luckily, he’s my dad. A little bit before he retired, my dad acquired a South Bend Lathe, which I’m told is the Cadillac of lathes. The man can make anything. He made my mom a circular cookie cutter a few years ago when she needed a specific diameter and couldn’t find it in any stores. I gave my dad the specifications, and he even made it so the center circle is cut out automatically.

I made lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream frosting. After frosting all the cupcakes and smoothing them with a hot knife, I went to work on the gears. Normally I pop the cupcakes in the fridge to harden up, but this time I left them out. I wanted the buttercream to be soft so that the gears would stick to it.

I made blue marshmallow fondant the previous day, and left it out on the counter top (wrapped in plastic wrap) since I was using it early the next day. I like this better than putting it in the fridge, since it is easier to roll out. I used my silicone mat and fondant rolling pin to roll out the fondant to 1/4 inch thickness. Then I cut out the shapes with the cookie cutter and placed them on the cupcakes. Lastly, I used Wilton black glitter gel to make the letter O that appears underneath the gear.