Adventures in Cupcake Decorating - Baby Shower Cupcakes

I made some cupcakes for a baby shower in February using fondant to decorate them, but I wanted to try some with buttercream. One of my best friends had her baby shower last weekend, so it was a perfect opportunity to practice using buttercream. I've been watching a lot of a show called Cupcake Wars, and they all use buttercream, marscapone, cream cheese, and meringue icings with piping bags, and it didn't look too difficult.

 

I don't have a lot of experience with piping bags - the few times I've used them the icing hasn't been very good, but this time I allowed myself a lot of time to really get the buttercream to the right texture. The secret, I think, is to let it whip for a really long time until it's very light and fluffy. 

 

I let the buttercream whip for about twenty minutes, and piped the swirls on really carefully, then sprinkled edible rainbow confetti on to it. I'm quite pleased with the results! The only downside was the patty pans - they were gorgeous rainbow patterns, but they were too thin, so because the cake was chocolate mud, when it cooked, the colour of the cupcake penetrated through the patty pans (which you can see in the top photo) and the colours were totally lost. Luckily the pack had heaps of extra patty pans, so I double layered them and all was fine.

I'm still working on how to get the cupcakes to cook in that perfectly round cupcake shape. I find that mine always go slightly too high in the middle, or a bit lopsided, rising more on one side, but overall I am super happy with how these turned out!

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Adventures in Cupcake Decorating

After doing my cupcake decorating class about six weeks ago, I've been slowly creating a cupcake decorating kit with all the basic bits and pieces needed to start cupcake decorating. I bought a bunch of cool stuff, and today I made my first batch of cupcakes for a baby shower. 

I found the design by just searching google images for something simple, since the mother to be doesn't know the gender of the baby, and I had a lot of fun creating these!

It was also my first attempt at colouring fondant myself, which wasn't as difficult or messy as I thought it would be. I bought white fondant, and I used Wilton and Americolour dyes in yellow, pink, and blue to create the three colours. The lady at the shop told me to just dab some on the end of a toothpick, dab it onto the fondant and knead it, and I did. The less colour you use, the lighter the shade, so I used a very small amount of each, then added a bit more and got these lovely pastel colours.

The only downside is that the cupcakes themselves baked in a really strange shape, so I had to do a lot of shearing off the tops with a serrated knife. If anyone can offer tips on how to get that perfectly round cupcake shape, please let me know in the comments!

So, while they don't look as professional as I would have liked, I think they're okay for my first attempt! Pin It