Inspired by a tiny blurb I saw in a Parenting Magazine article on creative cupcake toppers, I made balloon bunch cupcakes out of tiny dum dum lollipops using my favorite buttercream icing and rainbow nonpareils.
Balloon Bunch Sprinkle Cupcakes
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Materials: Cooled cupcakes, icing
(store bought or homemade – see recipe below), rainbow nonpareils (round
sprinkles) – any color would be fun!, dum dum lollipops, ribbon
I usually love a great homemade
cupcake but on this particular day I saved myself a bit of time by using
a boxed mix (a delicious lemon raspberry or homemade red velvet would
have been very fun for this particular design!). To make things a little
interesting, I split my cupcake batter into two different portions,
half with a few drops of red food coloring and half as the original
vanilla mix.
Plop of vanilla, plop of pink, plop of
vanilla plus a toothpick to swirl it up! I recommend filling cupcake
liners to just over half way so that you have a nice flat icing surface
to work with.
While these guys are in the oven, it’s on
to the frosting. I didn’t skimp here, this is my favorite homemade
buttercream and it’s buttery delicious! Sweet enough to bring out a
great flavor but a version that won’t immediately melt in the sun on
you, which is important for buttercream icing + outdoor parties. Though
I’m not sure I’d be daring enough to use it on a cake in direct
sunlight…
Vanilla Bean Buttercream
a
2 cups unsalted butter (room temperature, cut into small pieces), 3
1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar, pinch of salt, 1 vanilla bean,
scraped, 1 t pure vanilla extract, 1/4 cup milk
a
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment,
beat butter until creamy. Slowly add confectioners’ sugar; beat to
combine, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Add vanilla bean
seeds and vanilla extract, and beat to combine. Slowly add milk and
continue beating on medium-low speed until smooth and creamy, about 5
minutes.
Pastry bags are wonderful, but I tend to use a gallon zip lock bag 99%
of the time because of easy clean up (just toss that bag out when you’re
through!). I simply cut a 1/3 of an inch off the end of the bag and
fill it up with buttercream using a spatula.
These cupcakes involve two layers of icing, the bottom layer is a disk
of buttercream and the top layer will be smooshed into sprinkles so that
it is completely covered. To achieve that effect, pipe a single layer
onto each cupcake by gently squeezing the ziplock bag to create an even
spiral of icing, working from the outside in. You might try practicing
on a paper plate if you’re limited on cupcakes.
Moving one circular ring from the outside in, I added a second smaller icing disk for that second layer.hen upside down it goes into the sprinkle bath. You really want to
smooth that top layer flat so don’t be afraid to apply a bit of
pressure. Of course you could also skip the idea of two layers and just
smoosh it all the way around the icing for a fun look!
The last step is to add three unwrapped dum dums lollipops in a bunch, tying a ribbon around one before hand.
and Viola!
