Kitchen Shower Cupcakes

For Deliah's kitchen-themed bridal shower, I made vanilla cupcakes with white cocoa frosting and marshmallow fondant kitchen utensils!

The recipe for the cupcakes were from the Big Book of Cupcakes and featured in a previous post.  The White Chocolate Frosting recipe is an altered version of the chocolate frosting recipe from "1001 Cupcake, Cookie, and Sweet Ideas".

White Chocolate Frosting

3 1/2 oz or 100 g of white chocolate chips
2/3 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whip the butter, melt the chocolate chips, add the chocolate chips to the butter, add the vanilla, add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until light and fluffy.


Marshmallow Fondant Kitchen Utensils
Home-made Cupcake Sculptures

Before the art was added.

Wooden spoon

Plate

Spatula

Colander 

Supposed to be a ladle, but it looks more like Sherlock Holmes pipe

Knife

Teacup and saucer

Frying Pan

Rolling Pin

Toaster

Wilton Cupcake Stand:

et viola! :)  happy cupcaking!

Red Velvet Tira Misu Cupcakes

Red Velvet Tira Misu Cupcakes

(Alter the batter recipe to reflect a red velvet cupcake)

Mama Bear got me this beautiful GSF Cupcake Platter!

Happy cupcaking! ^.^

Easter Cupcakes

I used the yellow cake recipe and vanilla frosting recipe from The Big Book of Cupcakes.
This is my first order!  2 dozen Easter themed cupcakes for a bake sale.  Yippee!

Wooden Cross and Sprinkled Flower

Cross: Gum paste and brown food coloring (mixed it all one color and then added more brown coloring to make the wooden look) , used fondant tools to make wood markings
Flower: Gum paste and orange/yellow coloring,  covered in meringue powder/water mixture and then yellow sprinkles
Grass: Frosting with green food coloring, star tip 

Sugar Chick and Eggs

Chick: Gum paste with yellow/orange coloring, covered in meringue paste and then sprinkles
Eggs: Mini Robins Eggs candy
Grass: Frosting with green coloring, star tip 

Daffodils

Flowers: Gum paste with yellow/orange coloring, fondant shape cutters
Grass: Frosting with green coloring, star tip
See more info below

How to make gum paste daffodils:

 

Use food coloring to make the gum paste the desired color ( I used yellow and orange for daffodils).
Roll the gum paste into a thin layer, about 1/8" thick.

Remember- gum paste is VERY sticky!  Make sure to put cornstarch or powdered sugar down before you try to roll it.  Oops!

Once your gum paste is rolled, use the flower cutter.  For layered flower, cut multiple sizes for the different layers.

Use your fondant tool with the tapered edge (or a toothpick works as a substitution)  and roll the edges of the flower petals to make them thin and it also gives the ruffly effect.  

Place in a flower shaping cup to dry!

To put the layers together, use a dot of meringue paste as adhesive.

Bunny Butts

Bunny: Marshmallow fondant shaped into a smooth ball (butt), a small ball with tip marks to make it look fuzzy (tail), 2 ovular feet.  Pink gum paste for the pads of the feet.
Dirt: Mixture of brown sugar and cocoa powder
Grass: Frosting with green coloring, star tip

Cupcake Chicks

Chick: Frosting with yellow coloring, spiky look when you put the spatula down and lift up (repeat all over)
Beak: Orange colored gum paste
Eyes: Melted chocolate

Happy cupcaking! <3

Assignment #3

Springtime Vanilla Cupcakes

An exercise in different frosting tips and techniques!

Yellow Cupcakes Recipe

--The Big Book of Cupcakes

Ingredients

• Flour mixture
• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Butter mixture
• 1 cup room temperature butter
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Mix your flour ingredients and place aside.
3. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until it's is soft and whipped.  Note: I used a medium size stainless steel mixing bowl and it worked much better than the large.  
4. Add sugar 1/4 cup at a time until all is incorporated into the butter.
5. Add 1 egg at a time to the mixture, mixing on low.
6. Add the vanilla to the butter mixture.
7. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture, on low. Mix on high until all ingredients are blended together.  Note: Batter is super thick so I added 2 Tbsp more milk, seemed to do the trick.
8. Fill cups in tin 2/3 full.
9. Bake 20-25 minutes. Note: 20 minutes was perfect.

Results: Turned out really good! Could be more moist though, add more milk or maybe oil next time!

Easy Vanilla Buttercream frosting
--The Big Book of Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 6 cups powdered sugar
• 2/3 cup room temperature butter 
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 4 Tbsp milk  Note: In the purple frosting, I added french vanilla coffee creamer instead of milk.  Mmmm..
• Pink and purple gel ice coloring

1. Beat butter with electric mixer until smooth and whipped.  
2. Stir in vanilla and milk.  Blend until smooth.
3. Add icing gel colors until desired hue.

Results: OMG the frosting turned out perfect! Finally! A success! It is sweet and creamy, it tasted like cookie icing from my boyfriend's mother's christmas cookies.  So good.  

Different Frosting Tips and Techniques

I mixed meringue powder and water and used a soft bristled pain brush to apply design and then used sprinkles... like glitter and glue!

This is a technique for the chrysanthemum flowers.  I started in the center with a petal tip horizontally, applying steady pressure and then lifting up at the edge of the petal.  I spiraled around to the edge and then tidied up the edge petals.  Then I used the meringue glue and sprinkles to look like the centers.

This was done with the star tip, quickly, vertically and starting at the center.  I spiraled outward.  It looks like a  rose!  Fun :)

The chrysanthemum technique with no center.   

I used the star tip at the center and spiraled until the edge.  I used the meringue glue around the edges and then the  green sprinkles.

I used the star tip here to place a dollop and wiggle the tip to get this effect.

Petal tip, not as quickly as the purple rose, starting at the center and spiraling to the edge.  Looks more like fabric than the star tip.

The pink cupcake on the left is spiky! I used a small fondant spatula: touch the frosting in a spot and quickly lift up, do this all over the cupcake!  A little bit of sprinkles and viola!

This is the same technique as the other flower with the star tip wiggling maneuver but I used the meringue  glue and sprinkles to make a middle!

This was just the traditional spiral technique with a large round tip.  I used the meringue glue and sprinkles around the edge of the spiral.

I used the star tip and spiral from the center then I used meringue glue to add spots of color.