Butterflies during Winter

For my second attempt of cupcakes out of Hello, Cupcake!, I felt that I needed a little spring during this cold winter so I created butterfly cupcakes. I initially set out to create a replica of the butterflies in this cook book but after a series of setbacks, I decided to use the original cupcakes as more of an inspiration, which brings up a good point. In recipes there can sometimes be ingredients or things “needed” to make the recipe that you do not have at your disposal that you must substitute, which I had to several time throughout this process, and in these situations you must find items that can equal what are needed. Any who here is my second adventure into the realm of cupcake decorating.

I started by baking the base of the decorations or the cupcakes themselves. I used funfetti cupcake mix and took a page of Hello, Cupcake! when it came to filling the cupcake liners. Last time when baking cupcakes I just used a large spoon to ladle the batter into each cup, but this time I put the batter into a gallon Ziploc bag, then after cutting ½ inch corner off the bag, I squeezed it into each liner (9). Hello, Cupcake! explains the process benefits, “It make it simple to measure out the batter and to place it exactly in the center of the liners without spilling or dribbling” (9). Assuming I did this method correctly and the batter was the right thickness, I wouldn’t say that putting the batter into the liners by Ziploc bag versus ladling it in with a spoon was easier or harder. While it did limit dribbling it was difficult to get fill the liners only to 2/3s full. In fact when I was finished I ended up using a spoon to move some batter from cups to others to even out the amount of batter in each. Either way I don’t have a preference in method and would probably just fill by ladling next time.

After the cupcakes baked and while they were cooling I went to the store to purchase some of the items needed for the wings of the butterflies. While at the store I discovered that they did not have the white nonpareils, orange melting wafers, or the brown M&M’s. So I decided to skip the white nonpareils as they were not vital to the cupcakes. For the orange melting wafers I found white candy-coating bars, and decided I would just melt down the bars and dye them pink instead of orange making them more my own creation. Finally for the brown M&Ms, I purchased Hershey’s drops which were larger than the M&Ms but could easily serve the function of supporting the candy wings.

Once I was home, I started creating the wings which was quite the process to say the least. The process described in Hello, Cupcake! was to use the template of the butterfly wings provided in the book and trace over the design onto wax paper using the melted candy wafers thus creating wings. After tracing the wing template on to printer paper using a fine Sharpie, I used parchment paper instead of wax because I had it on hand I created probably 20 pairs of wings of varying levels of finesse.

To start I melted the candy in sandwich sized Ziploc bags in the microwave at 20 seconds to begin with then continued with 10 each time. To “stir” the wafers and mix the pink food coloring with the white candy I massaged the bags with my hands until smooth.

Tips for creating better butterfly wings

·         Work as quickly as possible with the candy but even through you are working quickly try to be precise with your work

·         Snip a very small corner of the Ziploc bag of the candy that will be used for piping the design of the wings: This way it is easier to control the amount of candy piped out

·         Have many toothpick on hand: They are useful when evening out the wings or creating the shape/pattern you want

·         Keep the melted candy at the right consistency: Meaning that if the candy is to stiff pop it in the microwave for about 10 seconds at a time, but don’t make the candy too runny or it is difficult to work with

·         Keep trying and stay persistent: Even though I didn’t like how some my first few butterfly wings turned out I stayed with it, and experimented with the consistency of the candy and how much of it I used on the wings until I was satisfied with the way most of wings turned out

After piping the butterfly wings and letting them dry for about 30 minutes, one at a time I frosted the cupcakes with light green frosting, then I placed two of the Hersey drops on to the cupcake in order to support the wings of the butterfly. At that point I picked two wings that were similar in size and pattern (as some through my experimenting some of the wings had different designs) and positioned them on the cupcake so they were on top of the cupcake and looked like a butterfly would. Sometime when placing the wings I would flip them to see the back of the wings because they were smoother and move even than the top half. To finish the cupcakes off I put chocolate frosting into a Ziploc bag, cut a 1/8 inch corner off the bag, and piped ripples to make the butterfly’s body. (See the picture for what I mean by ripples)

Expectation

Top View

Side View

Thanks for Reading, Sierra Foster

What are some suggestions for other substitutions that could be made not only for this recipe but also others?

For Further Reading:
Richardson, Alan, and Karen Tack. Hello, Cupcake! New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Print.