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Today I’m thinking about birthdays. About this time next year I’ll be celebrating the 1st birthday of my baby boy. Last summer, when I was battling serious pregnancy-sickness, I somehow managed to pull off 5 family birthdays within a 7 week period. What a whirlwind!
I want to share with you a few of my frosting and cupcake tips, as well as my favorite frosting recipe. (All these pics are from last summer.)
Let’s start with the frosting recipe. I use the butter cream frosting recipe my grandmother used. It is simple, delicious, and perfect! I am not a professional cake decorator, but I do like things to taste good, so this is my go-to frosting recipe for pretty much everything.
- ⅓ cup butter
- 3 cups powder sugar
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla
- about 2 Tablespoons milk
- Blend butter and sugar.
- Add vanilla and milk.
- Beat until consistency is smooth.
You can buy a large pack of plastic icing applicator bags in the party supply section at Walmart. I use these often for icing, as well as things like funnel cake batter or storing frozen pancake batter. I’ve taken the frustration out of filling them by using a drinking glass. I line the glass with the plastic applicator bag, pulling over the edges. I spoon the icing or batter into the bag while it is secure in the drinking glass. Look closely, the bag is a little hard to see in this picture.
Then it is super easy to pull the edges up, twist, and secure with a rubber-band. Easy peasy! Homemade frosting, ready to go!
We made lots of colors to make decorating fun!
All important butterfly colors were represented. All we have to do is snip the tip off the icing applicator bags and we are good to go.
My little princess takes her helper duties very seriously!
For one birthday party we made cupcakes as the party favor. I found these cute cupcake boxes with a viewing window on top. The icing is just purple icing piped onto the top of the cupcake starting in the center and circling out. Even a child can do it! She may not love cake, but she still wanted to decorate cupcakes for her friends. (We didn’t do cake AT the party, which wasn’t as weird as it sounds.)
Cupcake tip: use a cookie scoop for your cupcake batter. It helps the wrappers not get messy and helps all the cupcakes be uniform in size.
In our family, we have the tradition of everyone helping decorate their own birthday cake. It has been fun to see the progression of the cakes over the years and it is a favorite part of birthday celebrations for my girls.
My big girl took her cake-making very seriously!
There you go – all you need to know to (1) make good frosting, (2) fill icing bags the frustration-free way, and (3) fill up your cupcake papers uniformly. You’re welcome!
From my home to yours,
Mary
Great recipe 🙂 I’ve been looking for a good frosting. I’ll definitely have to give this one a try. (Your little bakers are too cute too!) Stopping by from tip me Tuesday. Have a lovely day!
Your big girl has talent! I love that cake. ♥
Congrats on being featured on A Bowl Full of Lemons. That’s where I found you! Love the photo of your bathroom organizing…I had to pin it. Order is my passion, though I don’t always accomplish it the way I’d like to. New follower here.
I’d like to invite you to stop by my site for our Wonderful Wednesday blog hop which post, of all things, on Wednesdays! (This week it slipped in on Tuesday…it will go live at 8pm though I won’t even be able to post till a little later. )
Please stop by and add your links–
http://www,ducksnarow.com
I also read and watched a video about putting the frosting on plastic wrap first, then twist the ends (like a tootsie roll) and then pull it through the decorating bag—VERY easy clean up. Thanks for the recipe.
Great idea. Thanks for sharing. 🙂