Dress Your Cupcake
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Parenting
Birthday
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Food
Cookbook Excerpt
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Parenting
Birthday Parties
What you’ll need:
- Green food coloring
- Vanilla buttercream frosting
- 5 cupcakes in green baking cups
- Handful of pink mini marshmallows
- Pink, lilac and yellow mini candy-coated chocolates
- Tube of white decorator frosting
- Pearlized multicolored sprinkles
- Small spatula
- Scissors
- Muffin tin
- Paper baking cups
To make cupcakes:
-5 T. lightly salted butter, softened
-1/3 cup superfine sugar
-Generous 1/2 cup self-rising flour
-1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
1 t. vanilla extract
1. Line five sections of a muffin tin with paper baking cups and preheat over to 350 degrees.
2. Put al lingredients into a bowl and beat with a hand-held electric mixer until pale and creamy.
3. Divide batter between the baking cups and bake for about 25 minutes until risen and just firm. Leave for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool.
To make vanilla buttercream:
- 3 1/2 T. unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- 1 t. boiling water
1. Put the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl and beat with a hand-held electric mixer until smooth. Add the boiling water and beat again until light and fluffy.
How to decorate the cupcakes:
1. Beat green food coloring into the vanilla buttercream, adding a little at a time until the desired shade is reached. Spread over the cupcakes using a small spatula.
2. Use scissors to cut the marshmallows into thin slices. Make flower shapes on top of each cupcake by arranging five or six pieces of marshmallow in circles, pressing them gently into the buttercream. Press a small candy-coated chocolate into the centers. You'll want two or three completed flowers on each cupcake.
3. To make each candy flower, arrange five mini candy-coated chocolates of the same color in a circle, pressing them gently into the buttercream. Pipe large dots of white decorator frosting into the space in the center and then scatter the frosting with the multicolored sprinkles while the frosting is still soft.
Instructions adapted with permission from Dress Your Cupcake by Joanna Farrow
