I tried out my new cupcake icing nozzles for the first time and was very impressed with the results!
I used the cupcake recipe from the hummingbird bakery cookbook that I also used when I made the tiramisu cupcakes.
This time, I followed the recipe properly. The hummingbird method for making cupcakes is a little bit strange. Rather than cream the butter and sugar, you combine all the dry ingredients with the butter and whisk into a breadcrumb like mix with the electric whisk. Then you add the wet (whole milk and vanilla). Both times I’ve made cupcakes using this recipe, the cupcakes have been very moist. Obviously this is a good thing, but they’ve been kind of TOO MOIST! Kind of pudding-y and sticky and not really the cupcake I’m looking for. I think next time I’ll try a new recipe.
The breadcrumb mix
The resulting wet cupcake batter
I used a half cup measure to ensure I got even cupcakes
Cupcakes ready to go in the oven!
While the cupcakes were baking I got to work on making the frosting! Again the hummingbird bakery frosting recipe was little different than what I’m used to, using 500g of icing sugar with 80g of butter and 180ml of milk.
Frosting! I used a teatowel to cover the top of the bowl while I whisked the butter and icing sugar together (again to form breadcrumbs) before adding the milk and vanilla
The frosting was delicious – it was also a little too runny so I considered adding more icing sugar but it was already SO SWEET.
Next I got to work adding some colour to my frosting.
I used my new sugarflair paste colours to make frosting in bright yellow, bright pink and purple. The purple wasn’t as bright as I’d hoped – any ideas? Should I try adding in another colour?
The star nozzle I used to ice the cupcakes and my bright frosting! I was literally so excited that after years of faffing around with water based colours and getting baby blue, primrose yellow and salmon pink, I had BRIGHT BRIGHT frosting!
Finished cupcakes! The disposable icing bags from Lakeland were really handy as I only had to rinse out the nozzles when I was done. To ice the cupcakes, I just placed the nozzle in the middle of the cupcakes and swirled outwards and then upwards. The swirl effect wasn’t as pronounced as I would have liked though which is because the mix was a little runny.
Can anyone recommend a good alternative cupcake / frosting recipe? Whats your one foolproof recipe that you use every time?
Hey Kerry – Just read this post. I have mixed views on their recipes as they are so different to any traditional baking methods…
I use the Primrose Bakery OR the simple 4442 recipe…
As for buttercream – I always use only one! And I’ll blow my own trumpet and says it’s fab, easy, always gets compliments and can be easily adapted for any flavour!
6oz butter, 12oz icing sugar, 1tbsp water [yes water NOT milk] and 1tbsp of flavour – eg vanilla essense, juice etc etc…
beat half the sugar and butter until it’s very mixed, then add in rest sugar and tbsps… [then beat for approx 5mins with ELECTRIC BEATER!] you need that to really transform the buttercream from good to whipped and great! This tastes a dream, is easily adapted and is the perfect consistency for piping…
How large is your icing nozzle. I am finding it really hard to get the large swirl on top of my cupcakes! I definitely think my icing has been too runny a couple of times (I often just use butter and icing so a little more icing sugar would probably have helped) but I don’t think my nozzles are large enough 🙁
Its pretty big! I’ll take a picture of my nozzles and what icing swirls they make. The hummingbird recipe was 500g icing sugar, 80g butter and some whole milk and vanilla. If I made it again I would add the milk more gradually so I could control the viscosity (ha technical word!) of the icing. You can get THE classic cupcake swirl nozzle (Wilton 1M) on eBay for about £4 inc delivery xx
SO cute!! 😀
My favourite frosting recipe is
1/2 a cup of butter, 1/2 a cup of Trex (have faith, it’s nice!) beat them together til pale and fluffy. add 1tsp vanilla.
Slowly add 3 cups of icing. Beat till soft and fluffy. Add 1-2tbsps of milk if needed to get the required consistency.
Easy. And lush
Thanks Annie! I’m a little bit scared of trex I will admit! But I’ll give it a go 🙂