Tuesday Tutorial {How To Decorate A Cupcake With Chocolate Icing}

Oh my goodness!!  I can’t believe I’m actually going to have another Tuesday Tutorial up today!!!  I’ve had such a hard time actually finding time to blog lately.  We’ve been running here there and everywhere!!
Last week, we were in our second home.  Tobin and Lilly both had their very first food challenge ever.  You can read more about their EOS journey HERE.
Their allergist felt confident that they (Tobin especially) would be able to tolerate eggs that have been baked/cooked in food.  Neither of them have ever had ANY kind of egg before (to my knowledge) so I was a little nervous.  But food proteins change when heated PLUS their lab work had shown a decrease in sensitivity so we thought it safe to give it a try.

We started with tiny bites and worked our way up to 2 whole cupcakes in the span of 4 hours.  Yep, you read correctly, 4 hours….in that room….eating chocolate cupcakes.They were very well behaved, thankfully.  I’ll share with you later this week (hopefully) some things that helped us survive.

Tobin did great and passed with flying colors.  Lilly, however, began reacting about halfway into her first cupcake so the challenge was terminated for her.  She can tolerate the egg in small doses so she’s had a bite of cupcake/cookie here and there.  Hopefully this will help to build her resistance.  Isn’t it crazy how our bodies will treat food like an enemy??

They were both SO excited to get to take cupcakes to have with their doctor.  Once we got settled into the exam room and the nurses started walking in Lilly announced, “It’s PARTY time!!”

We’ll be back and forth this year making sure things are going well for them on the inside with this new addition.  I so hope we aren’t stirring up trouble.

By now you’re probably thinking, “Um….she’s forgotten about the promised tutorial!!”
Nope!!  Here it is!
Since I’ve been working on cupcakes, I thought this would be the perfect time to show you my favorite icing and my favorite way to decorate them.

First we’ll start with the best chocolate icing EVER!!!  I’m getting a sugar headache just thinking about it!!  Oh it’s DELICIOUS!!  And have no fear about a headache…I wouldn’t get one if I didn’t lick the beater, bowl and spatula.  Chocolate is quite a weakness of mine.

The recipe comes straight from the back of a can of Hershey’s Cocoa Powder

Melt butter.

Stir in cocoa.

Pour this into your mixing bowl and alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. And that my friends, is some of the best tasting stuff you will every put into your mouth.

Snip a whole at the pointy end of the piping bag.  Large enough for the end of your tip to poke out but not so large that you can squeeze it out when you start piping.

I like to fit my bag and tip over a large cup for easier filling.  When you are working with icing, things can get messy fast and this helps prevent that.Then fill your bag.Work the icing down to the bottom and twist the top.  You can use a twist tie if you want.Hold your pipping bag like so…Now for the fun part.  There are two ways that I like to decorate my cupcakes.
One way is to start in the middle (notice the tip is STRAIGHT up) and make a swirl from the inside out.This gives you a pretty “rose” look.  See??The other way is to start on the outside and work your way in to the center of the cupcake.  This gives you what I call the “top hat” swirl.Here they are side by side.

The rose on the left and top hat on the right.
This is a front view of the top hat swirl.This tip is also PERFECT for little mini cupcakes as well.I also made some heart cakes.  Found this cute little pan in the $ section at Target and couldn’t resist.  When they aren’t in the $ section they cost around $10.

and used the same tip.