I just finished making some cupcakes I am very proud of. Like I said before, holidays render excellent opportunities to bake fun and kitschy stuff and these cupcake are just that. I got the idea from Hello Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. To clarify, while wonderful, this is definitely more of an idea book versus a cookbook. The authors certainly don't give great cake or frosting recipes but the ideas are super cute and silly and the pictures are great. I made these by cutting graham crackers into egg shapes and pressing them onto a dollop of green icing ("grass") on top of chocolate cake ("dirt"). Before pressing, I spread vanilla frosting tinted with food coloring over the crackers. I decorated after with white chocolate chips and icing squeezed out of little plastic baggies.
Some notes:
Some notes:
- It is hard, if not impossible, to cut graham crackers straight out of the box. Even microwaving them for 25 seconds first only sort of made it easier.
- It is equally impossible to do this freehand, so my advice is to trace and cut a template out of a sheet of paper. Keep it for future use.
- Instead of using colored sugar, I just used colored icing to coat the graham crackers. You don't need a fancy icing spreader, but to achieve maximum egg smoothness, make sure you use the non-serrated edge of a knife to smooth.
- This took a long time. I wasn't making these for anyone/thing special, so I only made about eight eggs. I iced some other cupcakes with green icing speckled with sprinkles, more "grass," and placed everything in a baking dish. I still had a few extra cupcakes and I decorated them sort of haphazardly. Boyfriend and I proceeded to eat one each immediately after.
those cupcakes look sooo good!
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how hungry those pictures are making me!
ReplyDeletedo you make your own frosting? do you have a recipe? my mom had one that her friend used for wedding cake frosting/icing, but i can't find it!
ReplyDeleteI cheated and used canister frosting, boo. But my favorite frosting recipe includes cream cheese, a little vanilla, whole milk, and confectioner's sugar. I don't measure our, just start with the cream cheese and add the rest of the ingredients in that order and mix, adding as you go, to get the consistency you want. Milk to thin, sugar to thicken. This can be done without cream cheese of course, but you'll need a lot of confectioner's sugar and when I go that route, I like to add a bit of almond extract to balance things out.
ReplyDeleteyeah i think my mom's recipe was minus the cream cheese and it definitely had lemon extract in it- but only the slightest- it was perfect!
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