How about baking a yellow cake mix in cup cake papers. Then make a yummy cream cheese frosting, but skip the lemon, then decorate the cupcakes with various cra...'''er eh...candies! LOL!
Like Jelly Bellies, chocolate chips, smarties, sweet tarts, Gummy this and that....let your daughter help....they will be Bee you tea full!! and she will have helped.
Linda C

How about baking the cupcakes in ice cream cones. My kids always loved that with plenty of sprinkles on the icing. That is where they helped, with the sprinkles.

Cream cheese frosting...
1 stick of butter
1/2 an 8 oz block of cream cheese....4 oz
3 cups powdered sugrt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp of milk.
Beat all together and slap it onto the cake!

I would call the school and make sure they allow homemade items. Ours don't anymore. :-(

Hopefully yours does.
I second the idea of cupcakes baked in cones. LindaC's frosting and pop some of those premade sugary shapes and/or sprinkles on top.
Easy, cute, won't break the budget and no mess from liners...or lack thereof! LOL Just eat the whole thing and wash their sticky lil' hands.

Deanna

Or you could make carrot cupcakes, those can even have a bit of whole wheat and it's not noticeable. Frost them and make "carrots" out of those orange Circus Peanuts with some green sour straws for carrot tops. Just squeeze the peanuts at one end until they're pointy, put them on top of the cupcakes and just like that, carrot cupcakes. Your little one could make the "carrots".

Use LindaC's cream cheese frosting!

Annie

Thanks all--I could actually do every one of these suggestions in one food! So you just treat the cone like a muffin liner? And they eat that? Of course they do. They eat everything sweet. The cone really seems easy compared to cupcake liners!

Carrot cupcakes? I know better than that. I'd eat them all and have to do a grocery store run at the last minute for replacements. Do kids eat carrot cake? Mine does but she's weird. I know I do. So I forgot to mention the other requirement--can't be tempting to me. The more gummi worms the better! :) Actually circus peanuts might be a deterrent. That does sound awfully cute though.

(We already cleared bringing in stuff from the school--I'm sure once we get into public school it'll be forbidden.)

Hmmm... my kids haven't been preschoolers in about four years but I know carrot cake and cream cheese frosting would not have gone over well.

How about.... little "dirt" cups. Chocolate pudding with crushed oreos on top, then top it with a gummy worm?? You could put it in little disposable cups.

Well stir_fryi blew my idea ;) I loved the look of those carrot cake cookies and handheld seemed fun. To tell the truth, I save the special items for home and just send the "interesting" stuff to school. Just remember, kids in general, ask for something based on its colors, not the taste. That comes later. They don't know what they are missing!

I have four kids and every Valentines Day, Halloween, Christmas, Birthday, etc. I brought in homemade treats for the class. Roll out cookies decorated or cupcakes.The very last time....youngest son's birthday, I had a very busy schedule and couldn't bake so I ran out and bought candy bars for all the kids. That went over the biggest. I couldn't help think of all those times I rolled out cookies and decorated them spending hours and I could have just run out to the store and bought candy bars. Who knew?

Only one of my 7 grand children would have eaten carrot cake as preschoolers.
I agree, cutout cookiesw ould be Oohed over by the kids....but work for you and would your daughter consider them boring?

Hmmm. Even The Princess, who is the pickiest eater in the world, will eat carrot cupcakes. She even knows there are carrots in there and she still eats them. She won't eat pineapple though, and so I have to leave the pineapple out of the carrot cake.

Georgysmom is right, they'd rather have candy, so buy a bag of M&Ms or Hershey's and make the kids happy. No Snickers or Reeses, though, there's that pesky peanut thing going on.

Actually, cookies and cupcakes get too beaten up on the trip to school, unless you're going to deliver them personally. The Princess likes to make her own "trail mix" with raisins and M&Ms and chocolate Cheerios, no nuts, package them into little snack bags and it's ready to go.

If there isn't a peanut butter issue, she also really likes to take the rice krispie treats made with peanut butter with the chocolate topping, although we've managed to get away with making them with Cocoa Krispies and peanut butter and pressing a few M&Ms on the top and so there isn't the problem of melting chocolate if it's hot.

Both the grandkids also like to take those rice krispie treats, make them into balls and roll them in sprinkles, or cut the treats into shapes with cookie cutters.

Annie

If you have a bit of patience, dip Oreos in chocolate bark and add sprinkles on top, or m&ms. You could also dip pretzel rods in the chocolate and put sprinkles on those. Both go over huge with that crowd.
Be sure to use either almond bark (just the name;no nuts in it) or melting tabs. Quality chocolate just doesn't set up as well unless you add parafin.

Dirt cupcakes: sprinkle crumbled chocolate cookies over iced cupcakes and add gummy worms.

Thanks so much y'all. I won't say what my precious little angel decided she really wanted....but I'm saving all these ideas for next time!

Next: The Cake!