Sugar Decorations W' Royal Icing

  
Did you ever think about decorating a cake with some sugar decorations made out of royal icing?

Royal icing is the type of icing that gets hard when let sit long enough! With this icing you can decorate cookies! But you can also make pre-made sugar decorations just by piping a little icing on a piece of wax paper and let it dry out within hours! 

After these decorations dry out, they can be kept for a while in a container ad used when needed. 

The fun about this is that you can make a lot of colors and mixed colors! You can make flowers, stars, heart, beads etc. all in different shapes and sizes! 

Whenever you have a few hours to spare you can easily whip up a batch of his icing and make some cute decorations and go about your day and letting them dry for later use! 

The icing is very easy to make! All you need is eggs and icing sugar (optional is vanilla extract) 

For a small amount of frosting (perfect for first time try) I use 1 egg and 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar. 

Crack the egg open and take out the yolk, we only use egg whites in this icing. make sure u use a glass of metal bowl for it to work best. 
Beat the egg white until it's kind of foamy like.

After you have your egg whites all foamy start mixing in the icing sugar little by little... beat the mixture starting with the low and slowly increasing the speed to high! 

After 5 to 7 minutes of beating you should have nice thick icing which is ready for piping. 

Cover a board with wax paper and fill in your piping bags using any tip you want (it depends on what type of effect you want and depends if u want flowers, stars etc.)

Start piping on the wax paper and when you are finished let it sit and dry for a few hours of if you wanna be 100% sure leave it overnight! 

And this is how you make sugar decorations w' royal icing!!

Creative Wrappers

To make your cupcakes unique and fun, you can add some cupcake wrappers.

Wrappers can be set to different sizes and colors.
If you search online for templates you will get a lot of cute ones like i've shown in the pictures..

But there is also a wonderful and easy way to create your own. If you own a computer and a printer you can easily have your own wrappers within minutes.

Either you want your logo, name or just saying happy birthday it can all be done fast and easy and most importantly it's cheap to do.





By doing this little step you can 'up do' your cupcakes to look nice, fun, elegant or any other look you want to go for.

So if you want to do it your self there are a few steps you should consider. First of all you need to know what size of cupcakes you are making. Now there is a very easy way to determine that just by the store bought baking cups that you buy. If you have the paper ones like the ones in the picture


All you gotta do is flatten it out...

Cut the bottom part out.... so you are left with the circle (without a bottom or top)
Now you cut the circle, creating a long strip.

Now at this point there is 2 options you can do;

1. you either measure the length of that strip and design your own wrapper and print it out. But make sure to use a thicker paper and make sure that the cupcakes are fully cooled before you put on these wrappers.

* you can either frost the cupcakes with the wrappers on or you can put them on after you have frosted them (whatever you think works better for you)

To hold the wrapper together you can either use some transparent tape of some non toxic glue. (once you have the length measured you can pre-tape or pre-glue the wrappers for easy slip on later)

2. Now the other option I also find to be fun and easy is going to the local craft store. Every craft store should have some crafting or scrapbook paper. Look for the scrapbook paper that is a bit thicker than normal paper. Now this idea is so much fun because you can find all kinds of already designed paper, themed papers or any plain color papers.

So when you have the baking cup all cut out you can trace is back on the papers you bought at the craft store and make them into wrappers.


* You can even buy some cute stickers to put on those wrappers and individualize each wrapper.


There are so many ways to 'up do' your old boring cupcake baking cups

I did one recently for a popcorn themed party. I measured my cupcakes (and you only have to do this once because after that the size will stay the same). I had my image processed in the computer and printed them in just a few minutes and because i already knew the measurements for the wrappers I had them all done before I even started baking.

This is the design I ended up with.....

People fell in love with them... now they ask me to make these just because they where fun and cute.

so remember these little wrapper ideas really make a difference in the way your cupcakes are presented. always pay attention to details because everybody else will... <3

How To Make Marshmallow Fondant

This is a very easy and cheap way to make fondant if you don't have or can't afford the store bought fondant.

All you need are these.....

Some Icing sugar, water, mini marshmallows and some food coloring if desired.

The steps to making this marshmallow fondant is very simple..

First start of by putting your bag of marshmallows into a microwavable bowl.....
Add 3 tsp of water ... and microwave it for about 1 minute to 1 minute and a half. (with intervals of 30 seconds.. to stir the marshmallow)


After you have that done comes the messy part... I usually add some icing sugar in the bowl and mix it up a little so that it gets less messy afterwards..

After you added some icing sugar to the mix you will get a stiffer consistency to it.....

Now comes the really messy messy part... I prefer to put shortening on my hands to prevent marshmallow from really sticking to my hands...

Pour the mixture on your counter top and pour the icing sugar on top and start mixing it in with your hands... after a while it will get to a texture when you should start kneading it...

Keep kneading it for a few minutes or until the fondant is no longer sticky. Keep adding icing sugar if needed. If your fondant gets to dry, Don't Panic, you can just ad some water and you are good to go.

After all the kneading is done, you can plastic wrap it and let it sit overnight before you start using it.



If you are using the whole batch of fondant for the same color it is smart to just add the food coloring before hand.

But if you are going to use it for different colors you can always drop some food coloring drops on the white fondant and knead it in until you have on solid color with no color streaks.

Butter Cream Frosting

This Buttercream Icing recipe is perfect for spreading or decorating. Follow our instructions to make it the ideal consistency you need.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened
• 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract(or you can use any other extract to get other flavors)
• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
• 2 tablespoons milk

Makes:

About 3 cups of icing.

Instructions:

Step 1

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Step 2

For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.

Step 3

For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk.

Step 4

For Pure White Icing (stiff consistency), omit butter; substitute an additional 1/2 cup shortening for butter and add 1/2 teaspoon No-Color Butter Flavor. Add up to 4 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk to thin for icing cakes.

The Famous Red Velvet Cupcakes

 This is the famous red velvet cupcakes that everybody keeps
ordering. It is topped with some cream cheese frosting. 


Both the cupcake and the frosting were very easy to make.
For these cupcakes I used

For the frosting i used some cream cheese, icing sugar, a little bit of milk and some Crisco. Now I don't have the exact measurements because I eye ball it most of the time. I go by the best taste and not the measurements. Because with cream cheese it is difficult not to get that sour taste so I go by tasting the frosting until I get the best taste of it.




For the piping of the frosting again I just used a Ziploc bag and cut a piece on the end. Filled it up and went to it. Now as you can see my swirls are pretty big and round, this is all depending on the size of the piece you cut out at the Ziploc. The smaller the piece the smaller you swirls will be. 

For this kind of cupcakes I like it nice and big. I think it gives it a nice elegant look to it.

As you can see on the picture I also did the personalized wrappers. These were shinny black and some were shinny zebra printed paper which I cut and shaped to cute cupcake wrappers.

As for the toppers I just made some little fondant hearts and balls and went creative with it. 

The overall look is very nice and neat. I had some really good comments about these Red Velvet cupcakes.

The Batman Cake (My First MMF Cake)

I have a cousin who's recent boyfriend is a super huge fan of batman. since it was his b-day my cousins asked mi too help her make a batman cake and at the same time teach her how things are done in the kitchen. 

so we went to the store next door and bought the supplies and some aluminum baking pans. (the kind you just throw away when you are done)

We got some round ones and some squared ones because we didn't want the tears to be in the same shape. 

So at home we made the cake from my recipe and pour them into the pans. 2x of each.

For in between I just did some buttercream frosting to give the cake some texture and moist in the middle parts. Click Here To See The Buttercream Recipe

After stacking up my cakes and crumb coated it with butter cream, I let it sit for a while so i can tend to knead in the wanted colors to the fondant.

*for the fondant I made some marshmallow fondant, which is very easy and cheap and taste so much better than the store bought fondants. See how to make some marshmallow fondant

So now that i had all my wanted colors it was time for the fun part, covering the cake and DECORATE <3 

After a few hours at work the cake was finally complete...... 

Cute Gift Ideas

Recently I have been running out of ideas on what to buy people on their birthday or any other kind of occasion.

It then came to me; you love to bake... how about baking a cute, personalized little sweet.

So I went off on my baking frenzy. I got some cheap ribbons, some cheap plastic bowls and I went to work.
Since at that time I had a friend's mother to thank for a few things I decided to make a Red Velvet cupcake and decorate it with some red roses. Now because this person's health wasn't a 100% i decided to make a mini sized cupcake. Not too much sugar but still sweet and tasty.

The roses where made out of marshmallow fondant that a made myself at home (is cheaper and tastes better than the store bought kind).

I covered the top of the cupcake with some butter cream and put on the roses and leaf.

I took my cheap plastic bowl (that has it's attachable lid) and put some mini marshmallows on the bottom. I rested the cupcakes in the bowl and covered it with the lid.

To make it all come together I got some ribbon, tied it around the bowl and made a bow on top.




I also made one for a baby shower I had to attend. It was a baby boy, so It had a blue blanket.


It was really a party hit with all the guests. I got a few orders of this same baby but only for it to be with a pink blanket. Happy Baby Girl coming.....

This doesn't even have to be for a shower, imagine you got the news that you are pregnant. Wouldn't it be cute to spread the word in a different way? How about giving out a couple of these and see who guesses what the news is.

It can be blue, pink or a neutral color.


You cupcake doesn't even have to be themed... It can be a plain simple cupcake
and still be a unique and awesome gift.

But think about it for a while, wouldn't it be fun to see what theme somebody would pick for you? wouldn't it be fun and romantic if a guy proposes with a ring on a cupcake? How about a dozen roses on a cupcake?

There are thousands of things you can celebrate... why not make it sweeter with a cupcake?