Real Cupcakes for My Man

Today my husband called me at work and asked where the dessert was that I had made last night. 

"What dessert?" I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Those cupcakes."

I started laughing.

"Yeah," he said, "I saw your blog post headline about cupcakes and my mouth started watering. I was pretty disappointed when I read further and found out they were made of fabric!"

"You're so funny," I replied.

When he got home last night I was already fast asleep so I did not know that he had read my blog.

So tonight I decided to surprise him with some real cupcakes.

A few weeks ago, I had a $5 off coupon for JoAnne Fabrics and I bought this cupcake decorating kit and I have been wanting to try it out.

I am not very good at decorating cupcakes or cookies.  All I want is a nice way to put the frosting on so it looks appealing.  I don't find my usual spreading with a butter knife to be very attractive.

I just used a yellow cake mix and made some mini and some full-sized cupcakes.  When they were done, I injected most of the minis with my mother-in-law's raspberry jam that I had heated in the microwave and then put through a sieve to remove all of the seeds.  I have a little injector thingy that worked great to get the jam inside.  I think I posted some pics of that in an earlier blog post. 

Then I went to YouTube to find a cupcake video to see how to make a nice swirl of frosting.  I found tons of videos and watched a couple.  It look so easy and I felt very confident that I could do it with my largest star tip - 1M- I think they called it. 

I just used this canned frosting:

I put it in one of the decorating bags that came with the kit and gingerly began my first swirl....not bad.....I swirled and swirled until the whole container was gone.  There was only enough frosting for about half a cake mix. I used two full containers to get all the cupcakes frosted.

Look - cupcake perfection!  At least for me.  I don't ask for much in the way of cupcake decorating.

 This little swirl thrills me to no end!

Remember I told you I injected raspberry jam into the minis?  Take a look at this mini mouthful of sweet perfection.

I sprinkled a few large sugar crystals on top of the frosting.  It added just the right amount of crunch when I popped this baby into my mouth.

I think my Man will be very happy when he gets home tonight.