Bringing the May Flowers

Cupcakes!

I had mentioned awhile back in this post that I was going to start taking Wilton cake decorating classes at my local Michael's craft store. It has been great fun so far and I've already signed up for the next class.

These cupcakes were our third lesson and the most intense. There were three different flowers to make (four if you consider star drop flowers and swirls drop flowers vastly different), along with leaves. May I just mention how much I love making leaves? Seriously, I could decorate a cupcake with just leaves. It would look a little funny, I suppose, but it could be great. They're so easy and can really finish a look. If I had another super villain party it could work... Poison Ivy cupcakes. Oh, the leafy possibilities.

Filling the cupcakes was something else we learned during this lesson and that was really easy too. These particular cupcakes were lemon flavored filled with lemon curd. The cupcakes themselves were not spectacular, in my opinion. I tried a new recipe and was not impressed with it. Everyone else who ate them enjoyed the cake; the cupcakes were dense yet moist and tasted like lemon so I shouldn't complain considering that's what they were supposed to taste like. They didn't satisfy me, though, so I won't be sharing that recipe here.


The first flower we learned were drop flowers. Simple and pretty. I felt I got the hang of these pretty quickly, but there really is nothing to them. A twist of the wrist and voila!

Next up, the pom pom flower. These are super cool. I know that mine looks a little goofy and is lopsided, but I blame soft frosting. That is my story and I'm sticking to it. Thin frosting or not they're really fun to make.

Then, the shaggy mum. Yes, that weird pile of noodle-things is supposed to be a delicate flower. This is one I'm going to have to practice because right now mine looks like a purple mop.
... but perhaps a delicate purple mop? At least the leaves are pretty rad.

These next ones? Well, these were just to play around with the extra frosting.

There was also that filling I was talking about. The lemon curd recipe is, yes again, from Martha Stewart and was so delicious. The lemon curd made the cupcake 10x better.
It's hard to see the yellow against yellow, but I assure you they're filled. I would suggest that you don't let the lemon curd get to room temperature if you want to use this recipe to fill cupcakes. By the time we filled the cupcakes in class it had gotten to that point and was ridiculously runny. I made a huge mess. I ended up filling the rest of the cupcakes at home once the curd had been chilled again.  

Speaking of cupcakes, this is a little something I did for our second decorating lesson.

Now this cake was good. Vanilla with raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream. Delicious. I took this baby to a BBQ and it was quite popular. The photos don't do it much justice; it was so cute in person. I made the cupcake in class and added the dots on the side later to finish it up.

So I still need work, but I'm feeling pretty good in my beginner status. I am learning so much from these lessons and am so grateful for them. It's been difficult to find a place for all this cake I'm making, but I'm managing. Thanks goodness for friends because I couldn't eat all this by myself.

I have my final cake coming up and then I'm moving up to the next class. I really can't wait for that one because that's actual flower making. That means I get to make even more leaves. Yay!

For real. I love making leaves.

xoxo

Stephanie