Video Game Treats for Genre's Kids with Cancer

In support of Genre's Kids with Cancer Fund, I pulled an all nighter in the kitchen baking 50 cupcakes and 50 cookies based on a variety of children's video games.

Why video games?

Genre loves them. He particularly realized how helpful playing his Nintendo DS system helped him through his initial 14-day hospital stay when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) last year when he was 8 years old.

Inspired by this very simple thing, Genre wanted to make sure all the children at the Children's Hospital (Pittsburgh) could have a video game system to help them pull through the long hours of chemotherapy and hospitalization. This is how Genre's Kids with Cancer Fund was born in Fall of 2009.

Meet Genre and watch for more info

Genre's Kids with Cancer Fund works to provide a handheld video game system for every child diagnosed with cancer at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh but also works to provide help to families living through childhood cancer in a variety of ways financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

Just yesterday, Saturday, Dec. 11th, the Pittsburgh Chapter of the International Game Developers Association (PIGDA) hosted their 4th Annual Gamers Give Back event and held a charity auction to support Genre's Kids with Cancer Fund. I was asked to bake video game cupcakes and treats for the event.

I decided to post the event on Facebook to raise awareness and ask for the support of friends and family, and only after two days of posting the event, $100 was raised to cover the costs for the treats! We raised a total of $120 to support Genre's Kids with Cancer thanks to Liam from the United Kingdom, Chris from California, and Ivy from New Mexico!

Mrs. Baker, Genre's mother, told me some of Genre's favorite video games - he especially loves anything Super Marios Bros. and Lego Star Wars. I also got tons of feedback from friends and fans on various nonviolent, child-friendly video games to help me make these!:

Clockwise starting from left: Princess Peach cupcakes were chocolate with buttercream frosting tinted pink and a mini sugar cookie crown decorated with blue and red mini M&Ms. Mushroom cupcakes were vanilla with buttercream frosting tinted light blue; mushroom face is a marshmallow dipped in vanilla candy coating tinted light peach, and its head is made from shaped hazelnut cake dipped in red candy coating and dotted with white candy coating (both vanilla flavor); the mushroom is standing up by the support of a chocolate Pocky stick in the middle! Luigi cupcakes were vanilla with green-tinted buttercream frosting; mustache made from dark chocolate and Luigi logo made with white candy and piped buttercream. Mario cupcakes were chocolate with red-tinted buttercream frosting, and the Mario logo was piped with red icing.

I got the inspiration for the Princess Peach, Mario, and Luigi cupcakes from some absolutely adorable items on an Etsy store by creator The Bird & The Bee. 

Lego Star Wars cupcakes were all chocolate with buttercream tinted gray. I drew and cut out the face shapes on cardstock to use as stencils to make mini sugar cookies piped with tinted royal icing for each character. The light sabers are soda flavored candy sticks I found at a local Japanese foods store; I googled and saw that you can get them here - Soda Kendo Candy Sticks.

I got the lovely brown cupcake wrappers from Simply Caked - I highly recommend their site for baking supplies; their customer service is excellent! 

Disney's Epic Mickey cupcakes were also chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting. The Mickey heads were made by halving regular-sized Oreo cookies, and the ears were made with leftover Mini Oreo halves I had from a bunch of owl cupcakes I made the day before. The paintbrushes were made with dark chocolate and painted with white, yellow, and blue candy melts. I got the inspiration for decorating these cupcakes here.

These Pokeball cupcakes were also inspired by an item I saw on The Bird & The Bee Etsy Store. Vanilla cupcakes with red-tinted buttercream; base iced with Wilton Black Icing and circle is a Mini Oreo half. (For anything black on my treats, I tend to always use the Wilton Black Icing both to save time and because the taste and piping consistency are great. I found that trying to tint my own icing black takes a whole lot of time and food coloring!!)

The Petz cupcakes were vanilla with the same gray-tinted buttercream frosting I used for the Lego Star Wars cupcakes. The ears were mini cookies that I made with mini Christmas cookie cutters I found at my local Michaels store (that I shop at ALL THE TIME) and iced with tinted royal icing. The dog ears are mini stocking-shaped cutters, and the cat/bunny ears are made from mini Christmas light-shaped cutters! You never know what you can do if you just use your imagination and think outside the box a little!

I originally planned to be just as elaborate with the cookies, but I unfortunately had a setback after falling under the weather health-wise and only got to make Super Mario Bros. stars and coins:

These were sugar cookies (different recipe from the mini ones I made for the cupcakes) with yellow-tinted royal icing and the same Wilton Black Icing I used on some of the cupcakes. 

Even though I loved how they all turned out, I was super disappointed that I didn't get to complete all the treats that I had sketched and planned for. So, I'm hoping to still follow through with the rest of the cookies and cake pops I originally wanted to make by taking them on a visit to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh as a Christmas gift to the children and families there.

Miss Strawberry's Cafe sweets on display at PIGDA's 4th Annual Gamers Give Back event

Thank you so much to everyone who showed their support in the smallest and largest of ways!! None of these treats would have been possible without everyone's encouragement and participation! A very special thank you especially to Jia who made this opportunity possible!

If you'd like to support Genre's Kids with Cancer Fund, you can make donations directly on their site!

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