Rose swirl Cupcakes

Rose swirl cupcakes

It has been a few weeks since me and Hana have been baking in the Kitchen and a visit home to see my Grandmother a couple of weekends ago was the perfect excuse to dust off the cookbooks, dig out the whisk and get baking again! I make sure that I go back and see my Grandmother once a month as she lives just outside London where I live. When I visit I usually like to take something sweet like cake. She is quite little, being 89, but seems to have a bottomless stomach when it comes to anything sweet (I defiantly inherited my sweet tooth from her!).

Cupcake Rose

As much as I would like to take credit for these lovely rose swirl cupcakes  they are a ‘Hana original’ creation. We are both good at baking and decorating cakes (and you can find lots of cupcake examples on this blog) but Hana is defiantly the better of us at the rose swirl. Along side the Rose swirl Hana also made Butterflies using our new cutters. Adding a decoration to the cupcakes make a real difference to the rose effect, it looks more realistic, like flowers in a field with butterflies sitting on them. Very pretty.

Rose cupcake

A rose swirl is a really popular way to decorate a cupcake and there are lots of tutorials out there on how to do it. This is a really good tutorial video by Xanthie Milton. I still need to master it but in the mean time this is Hana’s guide to piping a  rose swirl cupcake.

First you will need to bake a batch of cupcakes. Hana used the same recipe which she used to make these tasty treats, Malteser cupcakes. You will need to make a few tweeks to the recipe. Firstly don’t add any Maltesers to the mix and secondly replace the vanilla essence with rose essence. Rose essence is a very delicate flavour and though subtle it really makes these cakes come to life.

Cupcake rose swirl

Before we get to making the icing you will need to check you have a few bits of equipment to do the swirl and make the royal icing butterflies. If you are making the butterflies it is best to make them the day before so they dry out and firm up.

1 piping bag

1 large star piping nozzle. Ours is a plastic one so I don’t know the number

Butterfly cutters

Royal icing, pink works well with the red of the rose.

Once you have all the bits and pieces its time to make the buttercream icing.

Buttercream Icing Ingredients

500g icing sugar

250g butter (I recommend melting it first)

2 drops rose essence

Red food colour, I recommend using a non-natural one as these generally taste better.

Buttercream recipe.

Sift the icing sugar into a big mixing bowl using a sieve to remove the lumps.

I recommend melting the butter because its a lot easier to combine with the sugar that way. To do this I boiled a small pan of water, then when its boiling put the butter in a glass mixing bowl and let it melt. You only need a bit of boiling water as it bubbles up a lot.

Add the melted butter food colouring and rose essence to the icing sugar. Stir it first so your icing sugar doesn’t go flying then use an electric whisk to beat it all together. You will need to whisk it for a few minutes to get a smooth mixture ready for piping.

Butterfly Rose swirl cupcakes

Decorating time.

Take a piping bag and cut of the tip leaving just enough room for the nozzle to fit snuggly. Spoon in the icing, filling the bag 2/3rds of the way up. Twist the bag tightly closed and get ready to pipe. I recommend watching the link to Xanthie Miltons tutorial so you can see how she does it.

Piping a rose on a cupcake

Start by piping a star in the middle of the cupcake then piping from the inside of the cake slowly turn the cake whilst continuing to pipe icing till you have made a swirl around the whole cake and it looks a lot like this.

It took me a few attempts when I tried icing one but the beauty of buttercream icing is that if you go wrong you can scrape it off and start again.

Once you are happy with the rose swirls its time to add the butterflies. Its best to make them a few hours or even the day before. Roll out the royal icing till it is about 1/8th of an inch think. Use a small butterfly cutter to cut them out then leave to dry before putting them on the cakes.

Finishing touches:

You can finish the cupcakes with glitter or sprinkles, what ever you have in the cupboard.

Links which I think are worth checking out. 

• Limoncello Cupcakes (cookingwithemmarussell.wordpress.com)
• Top Tips on Cupcakes (cookingwithemmarussell.wordpress.com)