Week 6 – Super Bowl Cupcakes!

Of course I had to bake something with a Super Bowl theme this week.  I couldn’t have cared less about which teams were playing because isn’t the Super Bowl all about the food?  I contemplated baking a football shaped cake but never quite found the design I was looking for.  I had wanted to make a 3D football…but time got away from me so I settled for cupcakes. 

I really wanted to try out grass decorating tip #233.  (Football is played on grass…right??)  The biggest challenge was figuring out how to make a football for the top of the cupcake.  I could have taken the easy route and just used the little football picks I had, but where’s the fun in that? 

Initially, I was going to mold caramels into footballs.  My caramels ended up being stale, so that idea was a bust.  I went out and bought a bag of Rolos and a bag of Tootsie Rolls hoping that one of those items would do the trick.  After a little trial and error, I figured out how long to pop the Tootsie Rolls in the microwave in order to soften them up enough to be smooshed into footballs.  Once the Tootsie Rolls hardened, I piped melted white chocolate on them to complete the look.  (At a later point in time I will post a little tutorial on having fun with Tootsie Rolls!)

The frosting I used this time was Brown Sugar Buttercream. It was amazing.  I will be using this recipe again and again for sure.  The only obstacle I had to face was that the frosting was slightly “gritty” because of the brown sugar.  Using this buttercream with the grass decorating tip was very frustrating.  The brown sugar kept clogging up the little holes on the tip and I had to disassemble the bag from the tip in order to clean it out half way through decorating each cupcake.  This frosting held my intended design perfectly…although in the future I will use a wider tip so that this little clogging problem won’t happen again.  

  

One of my regular cake critics – who I will leave nameless – preferred the smoother consistency from Week Four’s frosting… but the rest of us liked the brown sugar texture.  Can’t wait to use this one again…Look out Valentine’s Day!!!

Speaking of Valentine’s Day…maybe there will be some ganache, or fondant, or berries…Oh – the possibilities are endless…