Marvelous Minis

• Stick a photo in a dollop of icing on top of cupcakes.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Use cheetahs as cupcake toppers. You can do this in several ways. Look on line for little plastic cheetahs to perch on the cupcakes. Add some grass or trees for variety, if you like. Or create an edible treat by lifelike by making little cheetahs out of fondant. An easier option to print out little color pictures of a cheetah or little drawings of a cheetah's face, glue them onto toothpicks, and insert it into dollop of icing atop the cupcakes.
  
  

Hue Review

• Use the cheetah's striking colorings on your cupcakes.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Use the animal's colorings on the cupcake. Cheetahs have very distinctive black spots on a beige-orange-yellow hide. Recreate this pattern by frosting cupcakes with lemon icing, then piping on small black circles. Or, drop food coloring into vanilla icing to make it the right color, frost cupcakes, and dot with black sprinkles. Or, bake cupcakes in spotted cheetah cupcake wrappers, or just find small cheetah-print plates at a party supply store and serve cupcakes on them.
  
  

Photo Finish

• Give bakers a picture of a cheetah to use.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Nowadays, most bakeries and even grocery store bakeries are able to personalize cakes and cupcakes with any picture you bring in for them to use. Provide them with a picture of an actual cheetah, or a clip art picture, or just an example of cheetah print, and have the image put on your cupcakes. This option costs a bit more, but the quality work and impressive look of the cupcakes will be well worth the expense.
  
  

Ship Shape

• Bake cupcakes, cut and carve them into cheetah shapes, and decorate.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Make 3-D cheetah cupcakes. With a little know-how and a lot of creativity, you can shape cakes to look like almost anything you like, from bicycles to bears and planes to penguins. Look in cookbooks or on line for a "how to make a cat-shaped birthday cake" guide, and simply recreate on a smaller scale. And when decorating, use the distinctive cheetah colorings and facial and tail markings to give the cheetah its identity.