Friday Night Treat/Tutorial: Frosting Swirl Cupcakes

Tonight's Friday Night Treat is focused on this frosting recipe. I am going to show you how to use it in a fun way!

I am actually not a huge fan of cake (I know, I don't love cake or chocolate)...but when cake is in the form of a cupcake, it is totally different. I can't really explain why, but I think it has to do with the ratio of cake to frosting, the fun cupcake liners, and the circle shape that are just so much more appetizing than a square slice of cake. And, you don't have to use utensils or plates. That is genius all by itself.

I love to look around at cupcakes (I have a Pinterest board devoted mostly to cupcakes - although a few cakes have snuck their way in). You can get very complex and spend hours decorating a set of cupcakes, or you can go a simple route. Today, I want to show you a simple cupcake design that anyone can make. It looks great, and it is so fast!

I just made a simple chocolate cupcake (from a box mix) paired with my frosting recipe. In order to make a chocolate buttercream frosting, I melted 3 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate and mixed that in towards the end of the mixing time.

The frosting swirl cupcake uses a large tip - Wilton 1M. You can find Wilton tips for sale in sets at places like Wal-Mart, or sold individually at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. A large tip like this will cost around $2. Place your tip in a decorating bag (or a Ziploc bag with the corner cut out), and load it about 2/3 full of frosting, twisting the top closed. I like to squeeze the bag and make sure the frosting is coming out nice and even before I get near a cupcake.

Placing my decorating tip close to the cupcake, but not touching it, I start on one edge and swirl my way around. When I get to the point I started, I continue with the same string of frosting making an inside row. I like to finish in the center of the cupcake, squeezing out a star shape. To do this, you make sure your bag is completely vertical. Squeeze a little frosting, stop squeezing, and lift up your tip. For these cupcakes, I chose to use a white pearl sprinkle. Another one of my favorite sprinkles lately is a large sugar granule. It gives the cupcake a nice sparkle.

The great thing about decorating cupcakes (or cake in general) is that if you make a mistake, you can just scrape off the frosting (trying not to scrape any cake crumbs), and try again. You also can make the cupcakes any color to match whatever party you are throwing (or whatever color you love). I commonly make at least some basic frosting swirl cupcakes when I am baking for a baby shower. They go great with a color theme, and it allows 'fancy' (also known as time-consuming) cupcakes to be showcased.

Here is a picture of a baby shower I baked for where 1/2 of the cupcakes were a swirl design:

All of the blue and purple cupcakes in this case were swirled.

The pink and the yellow cupcakes were a large flower design (which I will be showing you soon).

I hope this helps you!

Now for the important questions:

Is there anyone else who loves a good cupcake but doesn't love a slice of cake?

Is it only me?

Blogs I link to: CraftOManiac, Brassy Apple, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, Tip Junkie, Shwin and Shwin, Home Stories A to Z, Creative Itch, Sugar Bee Crafts, Coastal Charm, Not Just a Housewife, Hope Studios, Chef in Training, Mommy By Day Crafter By Night, Southern Lovely, Passionately Artistic, Sew Woodsy, Savvy Southern Style, Ginger Snaps, Someday Crafts, Creations by Kara, Rae Gun Ramblings, Delightful Order, House of Hepworths, The CSI Project, Remodelaholic, Tatertots & Jello, Shabby Nest, Chic on a Shoestring, Simple Home Life, 30 Handmade Days, Family Ever After, Craftionary, I Heart Nap Time, Positively Splendid, Nifty Thrifty Things

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Fun Gift: Ice Cream Toppings

I know we are after Christmas - but I had to share what I made for my brother and his wife for Christmas. My sister-in-law is a huge fan of nighttime snacks, ice cream being the favorite. I decided I was going to spend some of the budgeted money for their gift in order to buy some fun toppings. I spent $20 total.

I bought three types of sauces - a caramel sauce, a raspberry sauce, and A&W's root beer float topping (I had never seen that one before - and my brother loves a good pop float!).

The first topping I made was a chocolate-peanut butter flavor.

First, I chopped up some peanut butter M&Ms.

Then, I chopped up some peanut butter cups.

And mixed them altogether. mmmmm...

I then made two other bags of toppings - 

a chocolate-caramel pretzel bark found here, 

and a chocolate-Oreo bark found here.

I broke up the bark into smaller pieces than suggested so that way they were all ready to go on top of the ice cream!

I packaged them up in cellophane bags and boxed them up with the three jars of sauces. 

One of my goals next Christmas is to really work on packaging things beautifully - I think that this gift could look really nice. I am glad I used the cellophane bags; I just couldn't capture a good picture of them.

I had fun putting it together - and I hope that my brother and his new wife have been enjoying the fun toppings!

Linking up to: Tatertots & Jello

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