Chocolate Moose Cupcakes

These cupcakes are also from the book What's New, Cupcake? by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. These took more time than the polar bears, but they are well worth it.  They are easier than they look too.    Also, I think that if you freeze your cupcakes, they will separate themselves from the wrapper slightly; at least that's what happened with these.  I still highly recommend this book!!! 

Here are some pictures of individual moose.  They're almost too cute to eat!

We tried using different colored mini M&M's, but you could just do the brown as suggested in the book.

These cupcakes were decorated March 2011.

Sunflower Cupcakes

chocolate cupcakes, chocolate frosting, buttercream frosting, mini chocolate chips (or regular as shown above)

A friend and I worked on these (there were about 2 dozen) and although they are simple, we learned that the consistency of the frosting is really important.  If it is too thick, then the petals won't make a point.  To thin frosting, add between 1/2 a tsp. and a tsp. of water to a cup of frosting, and keep doing this until you get the right consistency.  By the way, we used freezer Ziploc bags to hold the frosting.  Sandwich bags aren't strong enough to handle the pressure. 

These cupcakes were decorated June 2009.

Treble Clef and Bass Clef Cakes

Left Cake-8" round chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream frosting, powdered sugar

Right Cake-8" round white cake, buttercream frosting, cinnamon

Techniques Used-Basketweave, Shell Border, Stencil

Focus-Stencil

Stenciling cakes is one fairly easy way to spice up a cake.  It can be really intricately patterned or one big icon (as above).  I know Wilton and other cake decorating companies have different stencils, and I figure you can probably buy regular stencils as long as they haven't been used for other things and are cleaned.  The ones above of the treble clef and bass clef aren't store bought, and you may be hard pressed to find them.  I will let you know how I made these after I explain stenciling.

Stenciling Materials-stencil; fine mesh sieve; powdered sugar, cocoa powder, or spice (left cake has powdered sugar, right cake has cinnamon)

Stenciling-I recommend waiting to put on your top border until after you've stenciled your design.  It is possible (but harder) to stencil after the border is on there.  I also recommend practicing on another surface before trying the cake, especially if this is your first time.

1.  Lightly place the stencil where desired, making sure it isn't going to move.  Be sure to wait until the frosting is slightly dry (put it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so), otherwise the frosting will stick to the stencil.

2.  Hold your fine mesh sieve directly above the stencil anywhere between 4 and 12 inches from the cake.  Pour a little bit of powdered sugar (or whatever you're using) into the sieve and shake the sieve up and down lightly (a light bouncing movement).  Don't worry about the sugar "leaking" under the stencil; as long your stencil is flat to the cake and you're shaking up and down instead of side to side, the sugar will just fall straight down.  Repeat this until you have a fairly thick and even layer of sugar.  

3.  Lift the stencil very carefully and evenly.  Try and lift as smoothly as possible to avoid sugar from falling onto the cake.  You're done!

Making Your Own Stencil

Materials-Xacto knife, manila folder (or something hard and can easily be cut), pen

1.  Draw design on Manila folder.  As you are drawing it, try to imagine where the holes will be to make sure that you don't accidentally cut off inner portions of your design.  For example, on the treble clef (left cake), there is a little break on the top portion so that the inner circle wouldn't get cut off later.  Also, the straight line going down the right side wouldn't normally have little breaks either.

2.  Use the Xacto knife and carefully cut the folder.  Once that's done, you can start stenciling on the cake!

These cakes were decorated May 2010.

Polar Bear Cupcakes

These Polar Bears are from a great book called What's New, Cupcake? by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  I highly recommend this book.  I believe you can get it on amazon.com for under $10.  The price on the back of the book is $16.95, and it would still be worth it if you had to pay the extra $7.  Anyway, there are other animals like whales, ducks (which are pictured on the front of the book), squirrels, moose(s?), flamingos, etc, and a whole section of April Fools cupcakes, and then of course, different holiday cupcakes that look pretty fun.  These cupcakes are the first ones I've done so I can't tell you if the others are as easy as these.  From the looks of them, most of them are pretty easy to do; you don't need a Masters in Culinary Arts to make these nor buy off-the-wall expensive ingredients.  Also, you might want to look at the prequel to this book, Hello, Cupcake!, which I don't have yet, but I'm sure it will have good cupcake ideas too.  Better yet, if you buy both of these on amazon, then you're almost to the free Super Saver Shipping amount.  Anyway, the polar bears were fun, easy, looked pretty cute, and even tasted good too!

These cupcakes were decorated February 2011.