It was my student teacher's birthday so I thought that I would quickly whip up some cupcakes for the class. I was totally swamped with work though so I decided to whip up something quick.
I baked some chocolate cupcakes and debated about my frosting choice. I broke down and bought butter cream and decided to use some candy melts for the base. I chose candy melts because I knew it would be too complicated and messy to try and transport mountain high iced cupcakes to school.
Ingredients:
Butter cream
Candy Melts (or you could probably use another type of chocolate or icing glaze)
Cupcakes of your choice
Method:
Make sure that all of your cupcakes are completely cooled before icing.
Heat up some of the candy melts in 30 second intervals. Don't microwave for too long as the chocolate can seize up. Spoon the candy melts onto the top of the cupcakes. Use the back of your spoon to even out the topping. Do this quickly or else you will end up with lumps and bumps like I did! If you can't spoon the candy melts on fast enough, don't worry because you can reheat the candy melts (that's the upside of using these special melts; regular chocolate can be a little bit more difficult to work with).
The candy melts dry fairly quickly so you can add the butter cream pretty soon after you apply the candy melts to the cupcakes.
You know what I notice about buying butter cream from the store? It's always way too floppy and doesn't ever produce the nice thickness that a homemade butter cream produces. Here's a small and easy tip: add icing sugar. Make sure to actually test the thickness though before you start piping, because mine was still too floppy which is why you can see little peaks and flops everywhere on the finished product.
*Tip: do not use anything else except for a piping bag or parchment triangle to ice cupcakes or cookies because plastic baggies will explode on you
Use a small tip to pipe the butter cream. Make sure to use a good amount of pressure and stop squeezing the piping bag when you would like to end a line. Single lined letters are nice, but I decided to op for the double line as it looks a little bit more stylized and fancy. Don't worry if you mess up, because the candy melts provide a hard and shiny texture, you can easily wipe away butter cream mistakes.
My students loved presenting these cupcakes and singing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs. They also requested that I "make them special cupcakes everyday". Oh how I wish I could!
Beautiful Baking Sweeties
Ingredients:
Butter cream
Candy Melts (or you could probably use another type of chocolate or icing glaze)
Cupcakes of your choice
Method:
Make sure that all of your cupcakes are completely cooled before icing.
Heat up some of the candy melts in 30 second intervals. Don't microwave for too long as the chocolate can seize up. Spoon the candy melts onto the top of the cupcakes. Use the back of your spoon to even out the topping. Do this quickly or else you will end up with lumps and bumps like I did! If you can't spoon the candy melts on fast enough, don't worry because you can reheat the candy melts (that's the upside of using these special melts; regular chocolate can be a little bit more difficult to work with).
The candy melts dry fairly quickly so you can add the butter cream pretty soon after you apply the candy melts to the cupcakes.
You know what I notice about buying butter cream from the store? It's always way too floppy and doesn't ever produce the nice thickness that a homemade butter cream produces. Here's a small and easy tip: add icing sugar. Make sure to actually test the thickness though before you start piping, because mine was still too floppy which is why you can see little peaks and flops everywhere on the finished product.
Use a small tip to pipe the butter cream. Make sure to use a good amount of pressure and stop squeezing the piping bag when you would like to end a line. Single lined letters are nice, but I decided to op for the double line as it looks a little bit more stylized and fancy. Don't worry if you mess up, because the candy melts provide a hard and shiny texture, you can easily wipe away butter cream mistakes.
My students loved presenting these cupcakes and singing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs. They also requested that I "make them special cupcakes everyday". Oh how I wish I could!
Beautiful Baking Sweeties