Rose Carrot Cake and Cupcakes!

Tonight starts Course 2 in the Wilton Method Classes that I am taking and I haven't even worked on the Ribbon Rose from Course 1 that I learned! Today, I wanted to make a Carrot Cake using the Duncan Hines Decadent Classic Carrot Cake mix. I don't want all my carrot cakes to look the same and since I have wanted to practice the ribbon roses that I learned in Course 1 of the Wilton Method Classes, I decided to make orange ribbon roses instead of carrots on the carrot cake.

I made the cake according to the box directions, except, as usual, I replaced the oil with applesauce in the recipe and this time I added an additional small box of raisins. I poured the batter into 2- 6 inch pans and had a little batter left for cupcakes. I baked each according to box directions.

While the cakes were cooling, I added confectioners sugar one tablespoon at a time to about 1.5 cups of Wilton Decorator Icing to thicken it up to stiff consistency for the ribbon roses. You can tell when it is "stiff" by putting your straight spatula up right into your bowl of icing and it doesn't fall over. The leaves are made from thin consistency, which just a few drops of water are added to your icing to thin it out.

Once the icing was colored and to desired consistency, I began making my ribbon roses. I did this using a flower nail and flower squares. Flower squares are little pre-cut pieces of wax paper that you stick to your flower nail with a dab of icing and it allows you to remove the roses for later use. To make the rose, you first place tip 12 on your piping bag and make a Hershey Kiss type shape, then you switch to tip 104 and pipe a little "scarf" on the Hersey Kiss shape. Finally you make the ribbons around the rose with the large side of the tip facing downwards each time facing the tip farther and farther out. For better instructions and step by step photos can view Wilton's Ribbon Rose technique on the Wilton Website. The 1.5 cups made about 15 roses.

I decorated the cupcakes by first spreading a thin layer of the Duncan Hines Cream Cheese Frosting that came with the  Duncan Hines Decadent Classic Carrot Cake mix in a double package (from BJ's Wholesale). On top of the frosting I used my hand to coat with chopped walnuts. I piped the leaves on top of the walnuts with tip 352 and finished it off by gently placing on one of the ribbon roses that I had made. The roses were stiff enough that I was able to gently place them by hand.

For the cake: I leveled the 2- 6 inch cakes with a serrated knife and spread a layer of the Duncan Hines Cream Cheese Frosting in between layers. Once that was done, using my angled spatula, I frosted the entire cake. To get the cake smooth I did have to put the cake in the freezer about 8 minutes to thicken the frosting and then smooth over the cake with the angled spatula once again. I used my hands to press the chopped walnuts into the icing on the side of the cake. This part went really quick. Finally, I used a small angled spatula to gently place each rose that I had earlier made on top of the cake, and finished it off by piping leaves around the roses.

To view my other Carrot Cake Cupcakes visit my post Crazy for Carrots!

To view my other Ribbon Rose Cake visit my post Wilton Course 1: Decorating Basics Lesson 4

This Cupcake is linked to Cupcake Tuesdays!

Crazy for Carrots!

I have seen the Duncan Hines Decadent Classic Carrot Cake in the store for awhile now. The real whole raisins and carrots made this mix sound like it would really be good, not to mention quick and easy! Today I decided to make them...but first, I never make plain looking cupcakes, so I had to think of a quick and easy way to decorate them with stuff I have on hand and different than my last Carrot Cake Cupcakes (pictured below)

July 2010

For this Carrot Cake Cupcake, I used homemade cream cheese frosting and the carrot was piped on with buttercream icing.

For the cupcakes today, I chose to use Wilton Candy Melts to make a candy carrot to decorate the cupcake. I already had orange melts, but didn't have green so I used white and colored it with the Wilton Candy Color Green. I first melted the white candy melts in my Wilton Chocolate Pro and colored them green. I just used enough to cover the bottom of the Wilton Chocolate pro, about 1/4 inch. Since it was just a small amount I just used a zipper bag and cut a very tiny bit of the corner off. Freehand, I piped the carrot stems. I sat the stems aside (which my daughter called frog feet), put the orange melts into the Wilton Chocolate Pro to melt, and then mixed the Carrot Cake batter up (using applesauce instead of oil), and got those into the oven.  By then, the stems had set up and the orange melts were ready. Using the same zipper bag method, I piped the carrot right over the edge of the stem so they would stick together.

These carrots only took a few minutes to do, I could have probably taken longer and made them a little bit neater, but I am just trying to make a quick treat, not take all day!

Cupcakes are out of the oven and smelling good!

As soon as the cupcakes cooled, I frosted them with the Duncan Hines Cream Cheese Frosting that came in the kit and put one of the candy carrots on top.

Quick, easy, and from start to finish done in just a little over an hour!

March 2011
My 3 year old loves raisins and carrots, so she really loves the cupcakes!

I think the cupcake taste like homemade too, not the frosting so much, but the cake does! I may actually throw a couple little snack size boxes of raisins in them next time to add a few more, but this is really different from the other boxed Carrot Cake mixes in having real carrot and raisin in them!