Saturday, June 22, 2013

Vanilla Cupcakes with Ruffled Piped Buttercream



My colleague, Linda, asked me to make 36 cupcakes for her grand daughter's birthday party.  The party is princess themed, and Linda wanted the icing to be ruffled just like this, with 12 cupcakes each in light pink, light blue and light yellow.

I know that Linda likes the Crabapple Bakery Vanilla Daisy Cupcake recipe, so that is what I used for the base cakes.  It's an old reliable that yields consistent results and tastes good.  I was glad of that, because as part of the cake is left bare by the ruffled icing technique the cakes need to look good!

For the buttercream, I used the Primrose Bakery Vanilla Buttercream icing recipe for its taste and consistency. (Ignore the photo of the icing in the article - it looks nothing like the actual icing, and I suspect that the photo is just a stock photo of cupcakes bunged into the article.)  The trick is to ensure that the icing is stiff enough to stand up and hold its shape once piped.  For the colours, I used liquid colouring, added a drop at a time, for the pink and blue icing, and gel colouring (because I didn't have yellow liquid colouring!) for  the yellow icing.

The technique for the ruffled icing is shown in this video on Youtube.

I did order ribbon to make the princess flags on 3 June from an Australian supplier, but it is yet to arrive - so no flags.  However, I did find Multix pink princess cupcake papers in the supermarket (Woolworths came through for once!).

There is going to be some maxing out on sugar at Linda's party, as there is 1 1/2 kilos of icing sugar in the icing for the 36 cakes - yikes!  But as Linda says, the kids just eat the icing off the cake and the cake gets abandoned, so maximum icing is the way to go. 

Have a great weekend!

9 comments:

Choc Chip Uru @ Go Bake Yourself said...

You frosted them beautifully :D
Lovely job!

Cheers
Choc Chip Uru

Cindy said...

You cakes/cupcakes are always beautiful. You are an amazing baker!

Johanna GGG said...

They look very pretty - sylvia agrees - are these test ones as I notice they are not the colours requested

Kari said...

That icing is gorgeous! So much more appealing than the usual over-the-top quantity on cupcakes too. Although I suppose that doesn't fit with your comment about how much icing sugar went into them...I guess it's dense quantity ;)

Cakelaw said...

Hi Johanna, these were the real ones - it is probably the lighting in the photo that makes them look otherwise. I am glad Sylia thought they are pretty!

yummychunklet said...

I do love the piped buttercream!

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

Hehe it's quite scary when you do the numbers and see how much butter and sugar are in baked goods but I guess they have just one and as you say, they eat the top or the bottom off!

Unknown said...

That is absolutely true, the kids love the icing hahaha these look great!!

Kayte said...

Oh, those cupcakes are so pretty...you did such a nice job on the ruffling! Love the colors and I would have eaten both the cake and the icing, to leave one or the other would have been a shame! Nice job.