Showing posts with label Wilton Cookie Icing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wilton Cookie Icing. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2011

"Hello, Cupcake!" and "What's New Cupcake?" Cupcakes!

It's Flashback Friday!
This is a weekly segment that I post to show you some of my past adventures...

(As time has passed I have found a couple more pictures that I forgot to add- Halloween project added 3/20/2011, Gingerbread Boys project added 4/17/2011)

Last year when I saw the "The What's New Cupcake!" book by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, I was immediately interested and also found that they had a previous book, "Hello, Cupcake!" These were cute, different cupcakes, that are more like artwork than food. These books are a must have, even if you don't bake, they are just fun to look at! If you do like to bake, these are certain to catch the eye of anyone that eats them! Anyways, I have re-created a few of there cupcake designs which are pictured below! I have changed each design slightly to fit my need. I hope you enjoy!

I made these Dog Cupcakes on 9/2/2010 for my Maltese Rex's birthday (of course he didn't eat them!)
I used funfetti cake mix and buttercream icing. For the nose and tongue I made some homemade fondant and colored it and molded the eyes, nose, and tongue instead of using the suggested candies.


"The House That Boo Built"...I made this for Halloween 2010. The trees were made from dark melting chocolate...yum! I did have to use a few toothpicks to hold up the trees. This was pretty fun to make!
I made these Turkey Cupcakes for Thanksgiving 2010!
It is a pumpkin cupcake with chocolate frosting. I used a box Spice Cake mix with a can of plain organic pumpkin, no eggs, no oil, no water, just the mix and a can of pumpkin. Yes it is super thick batter, but it works!
As far as the decoration, I had read many reviews about these falling apart, so I wanted to take extra care and time in making these. I started on Thanksgiving Eve. For the eyes I used that fabulous Wilton Cooking Icing, just dropped on a drop and put a sprinkle for the iris. The red waddle on the beak was made with Wilton Cookie Icing too! I let the mini cupcake face dry sitting normal overnight before assembling. I collected all the different colors of candy corn for the feathers around Halloween. The cookies were Anna's Thin Ginger cookies which I used *once again* Wilton Cookie Icing to glue on the candy corn the night before I needed them. When actually assembling the cupcakes o Thanksgiving Day, I put a toothpick into the face cupcake to stick it into the body cupcake. I also used a whole marshmallow to hold that cookie up, along with a couple strategically placed toothpicks.

I made these Cupcakes in Martini Cups for New Year's Eve 2010!
The cupcakes were not baked in the plastic martini cups. While the cupcakes were actually baking, I used corn syrup on the rim of each cup and dipped each in a different color sanding sugar to go with my color scheme. This dryed totally, pretty quickly. It took 2 containers of storebought frosting, melted in the microwave and then colored swirled in the cup until dried before placing the unwrapped cupcake into the martini cup to stop up the hole and then finished filling with the melted frosting. This is where an extra set of hands comes in handy to swirl that first spoonful of frosting in the cup until it is no longer trying to run down the cup. I used Jelly Belly's for these trying to coordinate colors with the frosting and the candies. For embellishments I used paper umbrellas I already hand on hand and gummy candies that I cut a small slit in and slid on the edge of the cup.

I made these "Gingerbread Boys" cupcakes in January this year. They were from the "Hello, Cupcake!" book. They were pretty easy just dipping the cupcakes into melted canned chocolate frosting, letting that dry, a few gum drops, and then outline. I used Wilton Cookie Icing to pipe on the outline. I was in a bit of a rush so didn't get the outline piped as well as I had hoped.

So far these are the only of the "Hello,Cupcake"/"What's New Cupcake" designs that I have re-created, but there are definately more in the plans!
A few months back I looked at a blog (before I knew about blogging really) where a girl works her way though this book...does anyone know the name of this blog? I would like to find it again.

"Hello,Cupcake"/"What's New Cupcake" has a monthly email newsletter on there blog to sign up for too with a new idea delivered right into your email box every month!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Rockin' Shamrock Cookies

We have been baking cut out cookies for years, well by we I mean my husband and oldest daughter. He grew up making cut out cookies with his Mom and....I didn't. For years this has just been something that they have done on Christmas Eve, while I watched and waited and sometimes slightly got in a little on the decorating part. A few years ago I began getting more involved in this cookie making...the cupcakes brought it out in me!...and now we bake and decorate cut out cookies for every holiday or season! We...meaning usually my daughter does all the mixing, rolling, baking, and I decorate,
but today I was nervously on my own!
The recipe that I like to use the most is adapted from Martha Stewart- Essential Recipe No. 2: Sugar Cookies (I have changed it slightly but you can follow the link to the original recipe, if you wish)
1 stick margarine (softened)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup regular granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1 tsp mint extract (or vanilla or whatever you want...they are your cookies!)
3-1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
Oven preheated to 350

(1) In my stand mixer with the regular paddle, first I mix the margarine, applesauce, and sugar until fluffy. Then, add in the egg, salt, and extract of your choice, until mixed. Slowly add in the flour, about a cup at a time. (2) Once this starts getting thicker I like to switch to the dough hook to finish up. (3) Once everything is in the bowl and combined, I put about a third to half of the dough on a piece of wax paper, and cover with another piece of wax paper. Martha Stewart showed this on her show a couple of years ago and while my daughter likes to flour the counter and make a mess and so may you, I like to roll the dough this way for less clean up!
(4)I then roll the dough to about a quarter of an inch or whatever suits my mood.  (5) I use my cookie cutter to cut as many shapes as possible. (6) Then I remove all the negative dough and put back in the pile to reroll.
Bake the cookies in a 350 degree preheated oven for 7-10 minutes, these particular cookies took 9 minutes. (7) Once removed from oven let them cool 2 or 3 minutes on the cookie sheet and then move carefully to wire rack. (8) When all cookies were baked and totally cool, I stacked them to prepare for decorating. Today this recipe made 42 shamrocks and 1 indeterminable shape...already devoured!
It took years for me to even figure out what type of icing should go on the cookies! I started with the little tubes at the grocery store and cake frosting, moving on to a messy glaze, then last summer discovered royal icing. However, last Christmas I learned about the Wilton Cookie Icing.  This stuff last forever, is microwavable, and quick and easy with no mess to clean up! I also had some St. Patrick's Day Sprinkles on hand so figured I may as well throw some of those on too!
The solid green cookie above I had to use a little paring knife to clean up the mess I made, that stayed put when I picked up the cookie...I had hoped it would not!
One of my favorite ways to decorate with this icing is with a little swirl, zig-zag, I don't know what to call it. (9) For this particular cookie I started by coloring 1/2 each heart shape in the leave and half the stem green, (10) then the other half white, (11) and then got a tooth pick and dragged it back and forth between the colors, not lifting up the toothpick until I am ready to go to the next little heart leaf.
Then I did some just half green and half white.
Below is a finished Shamrock
These take about 2 hours to dry, just touch them and see, if it isn't dry you can just eat it and pretend it never happened! Have fun with it!
Here are the 40 decorated Shamrocks!
(A few hours after the cookies posed for this picture...half disappeared!)


Here are some more cookies I have made with the Wilton Cookie Icing

Find more great St. Patricks Day Recipes at Luck of the Irish Holiday Party Blog!



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