I was invited to a cupcake decorating party this weekend, so I decided to make some cupcakes for my new recipe. I have baked cakes before, with varying degrees of success, but never cupcakes. I tried a new recipe from the book,
Hello Cupcake. The decorating ideas came from the same book. The recipe was very easy to make. I would have taken some process pictures, but my camera battery died. Probably the hardest part was piping the batter into the cupcake cups. I had to put the batter in a Ziploc bag, cut off the corner and pipe. However, I had never done this before and overfilled the bag. I ended up with two very chocolatey hands and a large mess. The recipe was supposed to make 16, but I ended up with 12 perfect cupcakes. I can only imagine that the extra batter ended up all over my hands, clothes and kitchen :) Here is a picture of the completed cupcakes.
After allowing the cupcakes to cool, I packed them up to go to the party. I decided to use store-bought frosting, instead of making my own. I had so much fun at the party. The first design I tried was the penguin. I made three penguins. For the body, I stacked a cupcake, a small ring donut and a donut hole, all held together with chocolate frosting. After that the body is frozen so they will harden and stay together during the next stage. Next, we heated up some chocolate frosting with a little black food coloring and dipped the penguin body into it. After that the decoration begins. The white part of the body was supposed to be a marshmallow, but since marshmallows are not veggie friendly, I used vanilla frosting. The eyes are vanilla frosting with a mini chocolate chip, and the beak is a Starburst cut in half. I was supposed to make two feet with Starburst also, but I skipped the feet, since Starburst are also not veggie friendly. Here is one of my penguins:
Another design I made was a cat. This one is just piped vanilla frosting. I cut the corners off a wafer cookie to make the cat ears and used mini chocolate chips for eyes. The nose is a red cake decoration, and the other features are piped chocolate frosting. I made it to look like my kitty cat.
I also made the horse design. First, I cut a slit in the cupcake. I cut the corner off a wafer and then inserted it in the slit. I then frosted the cupcake with dark chocolate frosting. A Circus Peanut was attached to the wafer with frosting. The eyes, nostrils and mane were piped frosting, and the tail is part of a pretzel.
Unfortunately, traveling with cupcakes is not an easy feat, and there were some casualties. These three fell twice before they got home. Ooops!
The penguins were safely packed in a container, but still there were some injuries. Bob fell over and lost part of his stomach. Ouch.
Suzy suffered a small head injury. I don't envy her the headache, still she looks happy.
The cookies are really good alone. They taste like little brownies in cookie form. But the recipe called for some marshmallow cream sandwiched between two cookies.
I really liked them. My fiance thought they would be better with ice cream in the middle.
After allowing the cupcakes to cool, I packed them up to go to the party. I decided to use store-bought frosting, instead of making my own. I had so much fun at the party. The first design I tried was the penguin. I made three penguins. For the body, I stacked a cupcake, a small ring donut and a donut hole, all held together with chocolate frosting. After that the body is frozen so they will harden and stay together during the next stage. Next, we heated up some chocolate frosting with a little black food coloring and dipped the penguin body into it. After that the decoration begins. The white part of the body was supposed to be a marshmallow, but since marshmallows are not veggie friendly, I used vanilla frosting. The eyes are vanilla frosting with a mini chocolate chip, and the beak is a Starburst cut in half. I was supposed to make two feet with Starburst also, but I skipped the feet, since Starburst are also not veggie friendly. Here is one of my penguins:
Another design I made was a cat. This one is just piped vanilla frosting. I cut the corners off a wafer cookie to make the cat ears and used mini chocolate chips for eyes. The nose is a red cake decoration, and the other features are piped chocolate frosting. I made it to look like my kitty cat.
I also made the horse design. First, I cut a slit in the cupcake. I cut the corner off a wafer and then inserted it in the slit. I then frosted the cupcake with dark chocolate frosting. A Circus Peanut was attached to the wafer with frosting. The eyes, nostrils and mane were piped frosting, and the tail is part of a pretzel.
Unfortunately, traveling with cupcakes is not an easy feat, and there were some casualties. These three fell twice before they got home. Ooops!
The penguins were safely packed in a container, but still there were some injuries. Bob fell over and lost part of his stomach. Ouch.
Suzy suffered a small head injury. I don't envy her the headache, still she looks happy.
