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.