Simple Cupcake Decoration

When it comes to kids, I've realised that it doesn't really matter how fluffy your cupcake is, or how many fresh blueberries you add to it.  All that matters is a reasonably tasting cupcake, topped with sweet and pretty icing.  If there's something colourful on the icing (or dinosaurs), all the better!

I'm an amateur at piping icing, but Big One was more than happy to munch on this:

Cupcake

Search for the Perfect Cupcake

Recently, there have been cupcake stores popping up everywhere.  With swirls of frosting, topped with chocolates or candy sprinkles... they look so tempting!  BUT at $3 a piece, I just can't bring myself to buy any.... it's just a cupcake!  Or isn't it?

Even though I've been baking since young with my mum, we didn't do much fancy stuff.  Most of the focus was also getting in more of the good stuff into what we bake (think loads of chocolate chips, or double the amount of walnuts!), rather than appearance.  Apparently, it's not trivial to bake and frost a cupcake just like those you see in the store.

I turned to my favourite teacher -- the internet, and finally found this "Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes" post.  Doesn't this make you drool?

Image posted with permission from www.glorioustreats.com

This post doesn't just tell you how to bake perfect cupcakes, it also showed the failed attempts/experiments.  I was like, "Hey, some of my cupcakes look like that!".  So if you want the PERFECT cupcake, give this a try =)

Dinosaur Cupcakes

My big one requested for a dinosaur cake.  As the YouTube video only showed how to decorate the cake, I went in search for recipes for both the cake as well as the frosting.  I even went to raid my Mum's well stocked baking equipment cabinet(s) and brought home a few cake tins.  However, the icing bag with different tips that I remember using as a kid was no where to be found.

After lots of thought, I decided to abandon the dinosaur cake... What if the cake doesn't turn out right? What if the icing is horrible?  Assuming I'm successful, how will I bring the cake to big one's school?  Yes, yes, as you can see, I'm a worrier type...

So, I planned something different.  It still involved dinosaurs, and if it failed, I wouldn't feel so bad about wasting (throwing away) everything I was going to make.  Here's my plan: cupcakes with dinosaur decoration!

Step 1: Make chocolate dinosaurs

Chocolate Dinosaurs

Step 2: Make cupcakes

Vanilla cupcakes

Step 3: Make icing and ice

Iced cupcake

Step 4: Top with dinosaurs!

Dinosaur cupcakes!!

Note: Cupcake and icing recipe can be found here

Big one was very happy to see these when he came home from school!!  A few days later, there was only one dinosaur cup cake left but big one kept saying he didn't want to eat it.  Why?  "I want to keep it for my birthday!", he said.

"Don't worry, you can eat it.  I'll make more of this again for your birthday".  (Birthday is a few months away) *tired but happy Mummy*