St Patrick's Day Cupcakes

I haven't played around with fondant in a while and I decided at very last minute to make some cupcakes for St. Patrick's day. I thought for some reason that my husband was working on Wed ( he normally has that day off) and or I thought today ( Tuesday the 16th) was actually the 17th of March. I am chalking it up to pregnancy brain. Ha ha. So I made a vanilla cupcake, separated the batter into 3 equal portions to color yellow and green ( I left one white) so it would be the same as the Irish flag and then frosted with a basic vanilla buttercream.  I had a BLAST making the fondant toppers. I found fabulous tutorials online at the blog, The Frosted Cake and Cookie for the Leprechaun hat and the shamrock, I googled images of fondant St Patty's day cupcakes, beer mugs, pots of gold. Not for the rainbow. I went to Kindergarten and so if I couldn't remember what a rainbow looks like I would be in big trouble. ha ha. 

I made the same recipe as I did in my Tagalong cupcakes for the cupcake batter but I used all egg whites and increased the milk a little. I will post the recipe for this and the buttercream at the end of this post. Like always! I used Wilton gel colors, leaf green and golden yellow.

Yellow first. I used my small scoop or melon baller scoop so I made sure I had an even amount in each cup

Then the white. I used a toothpick to carefully spread the white over the yellow and made sure they didn't swirl

Then finally the green. Not sure why my pic is so bright. The batter really wasn't THIS neon!!

You can't really see the white as well as I would have hoped. I probably should have had the white layer be more batter than the other two. I had doubled my recipe but only made 18 cupcakes so they would puff up more. I made just 3 plain vanilla ones no coloring for a tutorial on filling and frosting cupcakes I am going to do soon.

Some of the batter on the bottom made its way to the top but then again that's what extra frosting is for. To cover up the blemishes and OOPS!

Fondant Shamrocks. I added pearl shimmer dust to make them sparkle a little. So hard to capture in the pictures. But they look great up close

Fondant pot of gold. I recommend making things with black fondant LAST. You get black all over your fingers, tools, mats etc. I made "gold" coins out of yellow fondant by rolling small balls, flattening with my fondant smoother and then dusted with gold luster dust after I put them in the pot.

Fondant rainbow. Rolled out small balls of fondant into ropes, "glued" together with water and curved as I added each color.

Fondant green beer in mug with green beer foam pouring out. The foam is colored buttercream. I tried making the foam with fondant but I never got the look I wanted.

Fondant Leprechaun hats. Step by step tutorial for these is here

All my toppers ready to go

Swirled on vanilla buttercream with my Ateco 7T tip. Big plain round tip. I like the reflection of the cupcakes in my mixing bowl

I rolled the edges in green sugar. This was a MESS to do

I used my soy sauce dish from my sushi dish set for the dipping. Notice sprinkles all over my counter

Vanilla Cupcake recipe

from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski

Makes 12 regular sized cupcakes

can easily be doubled as I did for these cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp

2 large egg whites, at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup whole milk

Directions:

Position rack in middle of oven, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12 cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners

In a bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In another bowl using an electric hand mixer or using a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and then add the vanilla and beat until just combined. Add the flour in three additions alternating with the milk. Don't wait for the flour mixture to be mixed in before adding the milk. You want the flour to be just barely combined. Scrape down the sides and then beat on medium -high speed just until no traces of flour remain about 30 seconds. Do not over beat.

Distribute evenly into the 12 cups, about 3/4 of the way full. Bake until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or the top springs back when gently pressed. About 17-20 min. Let the cupcakes cool in pan for 5 minutes then take out of pan and transfer to wire rack to cool completely before filling and frosting, About an hour.

Basic Vanilla Buttercream recipe

Ingredients:

3 sticks unsalted butter room temp

4 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp meringue powder

dash salt

1-3 tbsp heavy cream ( just add until you reach desired consistency

Directions:

Cream the butter in electric mixer with whisk attachment until light and fluffy.Add the meringe powder to the powdered sugar and slowly whisk together. Add the powdered sugar mixture one cup at a time mixing slowly at first so you don't cover your counter, kitchen, self, significant other, cats or dogs in powdered sugar. Once all the sugar is incorporated mix on high to aerate and make fluffy. Add the vanilla and salt and mix again well. Slowly add the cream one tbsp at a time until reach desired consistency. This is a stiff icing and holds shape well when frosted. makes enough to pipe 24 cupcakes or 18 with GIANT swirls.