I'm dreaming of an orange cupcake

Tonight was experiment night in my cupcake kitchen. One of my friends mentioned how much she liked my orange cupcakes. I made them one time, from scratch, and I cannot remember where I got the recipe. So I went back to my old standby, Pinterest. As I was looking at cupcake recipes, specifically orange flavored cakes and frostings, I came across another absolutely adorable cupcake decoration.  Then when I finally focused on the orange cupcake, I found a really neat technique here that I have used before, but had forgotten about. Because of all of these ideas running around in my head, tonight became experiment night.

Orange Cream Cupcake with butterfly candy decoration

 This was my final product. As you can see, it isn't perfect. Sometimes I think perfect looking cupcakes, don't always taste the best. That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Since I couldn't find an orange cake recipe that I wanted to do, I went to plan B. It is always my plan B! I used a cake mix and doctored it up. I made the cake according to package directions, adding OJ (Sunny D because that is what I had) in place of the water. A great way to personalize a boring cake mix is to add a flavor in place of the water, like orange juice, lime juice, peach nectar, coffee (to a chocolate cake).

My cake ingredients

 The package directions always say you can get 24 cupcakes out of the mix. I like mine a little fuller, so I just get 18 out of them. Make sure you plan ahead. I have come across some excellent cupcake papers too. Reynolds StayBrite Baking Cups are my favorite (see the pictures of them here). I don't have to add Pam, I don't even need a cupcake tin when I use these. I guess that is some free advertising for them, but I figure if I am going to tell you how I make my cupcakes, I have to tell you what products I use and why I use them.

Swirled Orange Cream Icing

My picture may not be the best, but the icing has a swirl to them. It comes from two different flavors: orange butter cream and cream cheese icing. I used two basic recipes and put them side by side in my piping back. I have seen a few different techniques on how to do this, but what I did is I put the orange in first, then I put the cream cheese in. I used a 1M Wilton tip. If you start in the center and work outwards toward the outer edge of the cupcake, you make a little rosette. If you start on the outside and work your way to the center, you make the cute little swirl. I think it looks similar to a soft serve ice cream cone. I have both examples in the picture above.

My set up

If you have something to hold your piping bag in (like my container), I think it makes life a little easier.

Orange Butter Cream Icing Recipe:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup butter flavor Crisco
Orange Juice (I used Sunny D)
About 4 cups powdered sugar (depending on how stiff you like your icing)

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Cream Cheese
1 Stick butter
2 tsp Vanilla--I really like the vanilla flavor
2 TBSP Milk--Or whatever you need for the right consistency
About 8 cups powdered sugar--This is more than I what I normally use because I wanted to pipe it on instead of spread it

My daughter's cupcake :)

For the cute little decorations, I used a piping bag, Wilton Candy melts, parchment paper and my freezer.

My butterfly wings.

We were looking for a way to make the butterfly wings, my way. I tried to free hand it (unfortunately I didn't take a picture, you probably would have gotten a chuckle). I decided if I needed to, I could print off a picture from the internet and place it underneath the parchment paper to use as a template. Then my daughter (who is 9) told me that when she draws butterflies, she draws two of the letter "B"--forwards and backwards. I thought that I would give it a try. I gotta be honest, I liked that idea best. Yea for her! This is proof I listen to my kids!!! I melted the candy melts in the piping bag, cut the tip off, then piped my decoration. I left them out hoping they would set. Once I put them in the freezer for maybe 15 minutes, the set perfectly and just popped off the parchment paper.

When it was all said and done, I really like the cupcake. It was tasty. I liked the two tone icing. It wasn't necessary, but the look was cute. I thought it looked like the yumminess from one of our local frozen yogurt places. It didn't need the candy decoration either, but was a cute add on. You don't need to do a butterfly, I did my kids' initials, too. You could do any thing you wanted. That is what I really liked about this particular idea. From the cake mix to the frosting to the candy decorations, personalize it to your tastes.

Finished products, with a few decorating differences