Baking again!

I am getting ready to head down the hill to hang out with some friends.  While others are being asked to bring cheese, I was requested to bring cupcakes since I posted pictures of the Chocolate Jr. Mints I made last week.


So, this time, I decided that I would pull out my old cake decorating set for the icing.  Here's the difference:

Using a knife on the right and icing bag on the left

The girls loved the difference with the icing, and I was rather proud of myself as well.  


Unfortunately, my pride was smashed with my next endeavor.  I tried to make the champagne cupcakes that I found at Betty Crocker:


http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/pink-champagne-cupcakes/26f6f790-0852-4bfc-8f73-8d4cfc8cf496


So, first thing I did was change the pink to green.  As you are aware, I can't stand pink, but the idea of "pink champagne" was cute.  I just couldn't do it. 


I went to Fancy Flour's website for the candy glitter and the edible pearls as well as the paper cups.  They shipped right away, and the prices were really reasonable.


The first part was easy - the cake part:

The paper cups were really pretty and better than anything I could purchase locally.  The cake batter was incredibly light and fluffy having been made with champagne rather than water.  It only took a little bit of food coloring to make the white cake mix turn green.


Then, I thought I would create a short-cut for the icing.  I used the Betty Crocker tub white icing rather than starting from scratch.  Even with adding some powdered sugar, it was way thinner than I thought it would come out.  So, I got this:

The girls said they tasted really great despite their looks, but there's NO WAY I could take these to a friend's house tomorrow looking like this.  So, I took the tub icing on the remaining cupcakes:

Well, there's not as cute and pretty as the picture at Betty Crocker's website, but they taste great!  I'll have to try the icing recipe next time and see how it comes out.