Easter Cupcakes

Easter Cupcakes with Buttercream Roses

Made with Russian Piping Tips

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The Gourmet Goddess guest stars on The Chocolate Goddess blog with the most beautiful Easter dessert. These works of art look like baskets of flowers and are so perfect for your Easter dessert table!  This is a dessert that will certainly wow the crowd.  These cupcakes are decorated with luscious buttercream using Russian piping tips for the most gorgeous effect.

There are arguments about where these clever tips originated.  Some say they originated in Russia, but perhaps that is because the first ones produced look a like the domes of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.  The colorfully painted cathedral domes are meant to look like a flickering fire and are known world wide.

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I would say these are certainly reminiscent of the basilica domes, but haven't delved into this set of Russian piping tips.

I am even more infatuated with the tips that have cut outs that form roses, like this one.

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The Gourmet Goddess will take you on a step by step journey of how to make these beauties.

First make a basic cake batter that you enjoy.  It can be yellow, white or chocolate cake, but go with a denser cake that will hold up with the consistency of a good amount of buttercream.  The Gourmet Goddess simply took a yellow cake mix and made it richer with add ins.

Basic Yellow Cake Ingredients

1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix

4 Eggs

1 cup of Whole Milk

1/2 cup Corn Oil

1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

Baking instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Then set cupcake papers in muffin cups.

Now just mix all the ingredients and pour into the papers. 

It makes 17, so don't be silly and try and stretch it or they will be too puny for the buttercream. 

Bake them for 18 -22 minutes until a toothpick comes out dry and after 5  minutes put them on a wrack to cool completely.

Now comes the fun part of decorating with your Russian piping tip.  Make this easy buttercream.  It may seem like a lot but you need it to create all the beautiful color variations.

Buttercream Ingredients and Equipment

4 Boxes  (4 pounds) of Powdered Sugar

2 pounds of Butter

2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

Milk for thinning

Pink Wilton Food Coloring Gel

Purple or Lavender Wilton Food Coloring Gel

Several Wilton 12 inch Piping Bags

Saran Wrap

Several Bowls

Now for the fun frosting part...

Make sure your butter is room temperature and then using a large mixing bowl, beat it until it is  smooth and creamy. 

Add vanilla and then the powdered sugar a box at a time. Use sound judgement, you want the buttercream a consistency where you can pip it, but that it is smooth.  

Do not make it mushy!  It should hold its shape if you take a spatula to it and pull up.

Now you need to divide the icing into at least 5 bowls.  I kept some white, but I made pink, darker pink, lavender and darker lavender by adding the food coloring with a toothpick in tiny increments and stirring.

Rip of several pieces of saran wrap and place your rose top Russian piping tip in the Wilton Piping Bag.  Make a few lines of color with a toothpick and gel on the Saran Wrap for a striping effect. JUST a few. Then put a light or white shade of frosting and dark shade . 

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Now roll up the Saran Wrap

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Then snip off one end and put it in the piping bag,

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You will probably need to use a clean piping bag for each color variation because some will leak out.  Life isn't perfect.  This is a goddess lesson.

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Give each of the cupcakes a thin coat of icing before you pipe the roses.

Now make as many Saran wrap tubes of color variations as you want and put them aside.  I did some with three colors, white pink and lavender, some with shades of lavender and purple and so on.  I admit, I would have made more buttercream and more shades of frosting, but I needed to keep an appointment.

Now lean the piping tip into the cupcake holding at right angles and pull up.  Don't make them to long or they look funny. 

After they are all made you will have to go back and add green leaves by either getting Wilton already made green buttercream that comes in a tube, or making your own.  Use the leaf tip to  fill in the gaps.

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Have fun with this it is a creative outlet.

And Remember

Always Stay in Touch with Your Inner Goddess!

Happy Baking!

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