Very Vanilla Cupcakes With Vanilla Buttercream Roses

If you follow me on instagram you have already had a sneaky peak at these very vanilla cupcakes i baked for my twin sister.

The rose buttercream swirl on each cupcake i promise you isn't as hard as it looks, honestly! for me it's the easiest piping technique i have come across so far in my cake decorating ventures.

The rose is flowing with natural beauty and you don't have to worry about every rose being identical or symmetrical, for me that is what is so appealing about using this technique for decorating cupcakes or cake.

The next time you and your children are baking together be confident and give it a try, what's the worst that could happen? that you have to remove the buttercream and start again? Take 1 cupcake  use it to practice, keep piping, scraping off and piping some more until you are happy, then you can have the peace of mind that you are able to decorate the rest of the batch.

I would always recommend you use a 1M wilton icing tip for this, other closed star tips are said to work too but i have never tried anything else because of the fab results i get each time using the 1M.

The texture of buttercream should not be so stiff or you won't be able to pipe, on the other hand if your buttercream is too runny/wet then the design will dissapear.

The icing recipe below was enough for me to pipe buttercream roses on 18 cupcakes.

I adapted Nigella's vanilla cupcake recipe by firstly x2 all the ingredients, hoping i would make 24 cupcakes out of the batter when infact i got 18! I replaced the vanilla extract with 2 lots of seeds from 2 vanilla pods and baked them at 160C/140C (Fan) for 15minutes

Vanilla Buttercream Icing Recipe

Ingredients

150g  unsalted butter, softened/ room temperature
300g icing sugar, sieved
4-5tbsp Milk
1 vanilla pod, seeds only

Method

1. Place butter and vanilla into a large bowl and beat for 30 seconds
2. Add icing sugar, starting Slowly!
3. Whilst beating the butter/sugar mixture, add Milk one tablespoon full at a time until the mixture just drops of the wooden spoon/beaters when lifted.

Here is a video that shows the buttercream rose technique amongst others.

Specific ingredients, bakeware, decorations i used

• Self raising flour (Mcdougalls brand supreme sponge self raising flour i believe is it's long winded name)
• Gourmet Indian vanilla pods - available from vanilla mart (germany, uk, usa).  I chose the indian variety as they are the cheapest and well my palate was pleased
• Blue baby cupcake toppers - available from designer cupcakes with love seller on e-bay ( please always ask for the ingredients list before buying decorations online something i forgot in this instance so i asked the seller after the arrival of my purchase and alhamduillah they were made with fondant that is suitable for vegetarians and without alcohol.
• Green sugar crystals - i purchased these directly from Quality Sprinkles UK Ltd who normally only deal with retailers, as i couldn't get hold of another product from their range of halal sprinkles from their stockists Farmfoods, 99p Stores, Home Bargains, TJ Morris or Iceland in my area/South Yorkshire (they are or were at the time of purchase, still stocking the older haram version which contains E120 and shellac so beware if your on the look out) it took a long time to process my order from start to finish but i am but not literally (doesn't make sense i know) a small fish in a big pond and they did me a massive favour by even dealing with me in the first place.

Until next time, Salam Alaikum / Peace!