Rose Cupcakes

                I thought I’d continue this week with another cupcake from the What’s New, Cupcake, the sequel to Hello, Cupcake book!  I made these the weekend of my sister's wedding (they were for those of us staying at a beach house together).

                Make your favorite cupcakes.  Again, it doesn’t matter what kind, but I did specifically bake them in red cupcake liners.  It helps with the flower effect.

                To ice the cupcakes and make the flowers, you will need to gather a few things.

Ingredients

Swedish fish

Red sugar

White icing (doesn’t matter what kind)

Green tootsie roll fruit rolls

White sugar**

Rolling pin

                Start by icing the top of the cupcake with white icing.  You don’t need a tremendous amount of icing, but don’t really skimp on it either.

                Carefully roll the edge of each cupcake in the red sugar so that you have a thin sugar line just above the cupcake liner.

                Place some white sugar on the counter and put a Swedish fish in it.  Roll the fish with the rolling pin so that it flattens out, doesn’t look much like a fish anymore, and the gooey inside starts sticking to all the sugar.

** - I used both cubed white sugar and granulated white sugar for these.  In the picture above, the left hand flowers were rolled in cubed white sugar while the right hand ones were rolled in granulated sugar.  I personally think the cubed white sugar looks better.

                For each cupcake, roll out 3 - 5 fish.

                Roll one flattened fish up into a spiral and place it in the center of the iced cupcake.

                Add other flattened fish around it to create a flower.  Keep adding flattened fish around the center spiral until you feel the look is finished.

                To make the leaves, find the green tootsie roll in your fruity tootsie roll bag.  Unwrap several and microwave them for a few seconds so that they soften.  Cut each in half and roll out each half with the rolling pin.  Pick up either side of a rolled tootsie roll and pinch the ends together.  Stick inside the icing so it is held in place.

                The What’s New, Cupcake book has you also make some cupcakes in green liners.  These can be used to make stems with green jelly beans and more green tootsie roll leaves.  I didn’t have a large enough box (the book suggests placing them all in a rose box) to make the stems so I just went with all roses.

                It’s a lot of sugary stuff on one little cupcake, but they look so cute!

Marshmallow Flower Cupcakes

                For my 2011 finale, I wanted to show you my favorite cupcakes!

                The idea comes directly from the book “What’s New, Cupcake?” which is the sequel to “Hello, Cupcake!”  The ideas are so cute and some are easy to implement (some are actually a bit difficult, sadly).  But this one is really easy!

                Make whatever cupcakes you like.  I’m a big fan of chocolate or red velvet, myself.  Once they are cool, gather the following things:

Ingredients

Icing

Bag of mini marshmallows

Cutting board

Sharp knife

Individual bowls of colored sugar

                Frost the top of one cupcake with a minimal amount of icing.  You don’t need too much because its main purpose is to hold the marshmallows on.  Because the marshmallows are white, I usually use a white frosting, but there’s no rule that says you have to!

                Now, take one mini marshmallow and cut it in half along the diagonal (as shown in the diagram below).  

                Drop both halves in the colored sugar.  Be sure that the sticky inside of the marshmallow has a lot of sugar stuck to it.  Place the marshmallow half on the outer edge of the cupcake.  Continue to add marshmallow halves dipped in sugar all around the edge.  Once the edge is complete, start a new circle of marshmallow halves just inside the first circle.  Make as many circles as you can.

                For the center of the flower, I cut a marshmallow in half directly across the middle (as shown in the diagram below), dip it in sugar, and stick it on.

                The cupcakes come out gorgeous!  So gorgeous, in fact, that if you enter them in a baking contest, people will be too scared to eat one (true story).  I’ve made many versions of these – all the pictures are below.  Enjoy!!

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

                These are fabulous and easy to make.  Also?  No need for them to be pink – you can make them any color!

                The recipe can also be found on Betty Crocker’s website (linky).

Cupcakes

1 box Betty Crocker white cake mix

1 ¼ cup champagne

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 egg whites

4 – 5 drops red food coloring

Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Line baking pan with paper baking cups. (I bought some fun ones from KitchenKapers.)

In a large bowl, mix dry cake mix and champagne.  Add oil, egg whites and food coloring.  You are really free to make the cupcakes whatever color you want – the batter is white and a blank slate!

Fill each cupcake liner ~ 2/3 full.

Bake 17 – 22 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  Place on baking rack to cool.

Icing

Betty Crocker offers a champagne frosting based on butter, powdered sugar and champagne.  I’m super duper picky about icing and really think that only cream cheese frosting should exist.  I purchased some cream cheese frosting because I was in a rush, but several recipes are out there to make your own! 

I added a few drops of red food coloring to the frosting and mixed until it was nearly the same color as the cupcakes.

Then, I used a pastry bag with a star tip: 

I have a mechanical pastry bag (like this) from Target, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth.  I only break it out for certain things and would much prefer a real pastry bag.  You can even make your own star tip by cutting the tip of a Ziploc bag.  

Anyway, I started from the outside of the cupcake and moved in a spiral inward.  To give it a nice tip at the end, I held the bag upright in the center, pushed a bit more icing out, stopped and pulled directly upward.

I then sprinkled clear sugar on the pink icing as a finishing touch!

Eat me.