Goombas are naturally cupcake shaped. Coincidence? I think not.

Goomba cupcakes involve baking chocolate cupcakes, then covering them with lots of frosting and sugary treats. Good times lay ahead.

The cupcake recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water

Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

I'll warn you right now that you're only going to get eight cupcakes out of this batter. You'll most likely get tired of decorating after eight, but if you want more, better double up the ingredients.

Dump everything together in one big bowl and mix. Ladle up the batter and drop into a cupcake tray that's lined with those paper cupcake thingies.

You're not supposed to take food images with a flash, but doesn't that look delicious?

Pop in the oven for 25 minutes. You'll know they're done when you stick a knife (or a toothpick) into one and it comes out clean.

Brought to you by shaky cam. If you can squint, you can see how the cupcakes are nice and puffy.

For this next part, you can substitute quite a few ingredients for this. Let your imagination go wild. Here's what I did -

The dressings:

Head: Chocolate frosting
Eyes: Chocolate chips with a backing of white frosting
Teeth: Silvered almonds
Eyebrows and Mouth: Black licorice
Shoes: Fudge Nut Goodies

My choice of goodies!

There was much internal debate over what to use for the shoes. Chocolate covered raisins? Tootsie rolls? I discovered the Fudge Nut Goodies in the candy aisle. Feeling the bag, the size and shape felt right for little goomba booties, so I decided to give it a shot. Plus, they're called "Fudge Nut Goodies." That was the main selling point for me.

Lured by the tasty title.

Goomba booties!

The head frosting was half a stick of butter with a couple cups of powdered sugar, plus a few teaspoons of cocoa power to turn it dark. The eyeball frosting was three tablespoons of butter plus a cup of powdered sugar. The frosting for the eyes should be really thick, you don't want it running.

Looks like popcorn, but it's just really thick frosting.

Once the muffins are done in the oven, let them cool. If you start in with the dressings right away, the frosting will run. Faces will be melted.

After the muffins are cool, drop the chocolate frosting on. Use your hands to fashion ovals for the goomba eyes. Add the chocolate chips to finish the eyeballs.

Chop up the black licorice into two larger pieces (for the eyebrows) and a small piece for the mouth. I tried using one single piece of licorice for the eyebrows, but it wasn't working well. The licorice would slip right out of the frosting. But your frosting might be more powerful than mine, allowing for the eyebrow curve to hold. Personally I find black licorice is rather stinky, so I don't like working with it too much.

After adding the eyebrows and mouth, chop the silvered almonds in half. Add to the top of mouth. Goombas have a reverse snaggletooth so point the teeth upwards.

The goomba in all its glory.

Some booties were rested next to the cupcake wrapper, while other cupcakes had the wrapper cut at the bottom and the booties placed halfway inside the cupcake. The latter gets a little messy, but it's not too bad. You do chance ripping up the cupcake wrapper more than you'd like with the latter method. Once you've decided your shoe style, you're done!

With any cupcakes you don't finish eating, you know what to do.