Sports Cupcakes

I've really been feeling the baking bug lately ~ it must be that fall weather rolling in. I've always loved to bake, but over the years I seem to have the need to outdo my previous year successes. So this year I've been googling over fondant cakes. I was even feeling so light hearted about them, that I voluntered to make the cake for a friend's baby shower! hmmmm... I may have just gotten in WAY over my head.

So I've been checking out books at the library, and found these amazing books with cool pictures and step-by-step instructions. This seemed to easy my fears some, but I still felt like I needed to "practice" with this stuff before I embarked on a full fledged cake for a social event.

My nephew turned 12 this past week and he is a big baseball and basketball player. I voluntered to make some cupcakes for his party, which was mainly just family and close friends (thus, less pressure...).
Hey, I never said I got all dressed up to bake! =)

I started out with Red Velvet Cake ~ this has become my new favorite cake. I just love the bright vibrant color.

These only took 20 minutes to whip up and bake.

After they had cooled, I lathered them up with some sweet cupcake frosting. I made this out of butter, milk, pure vanilla extract, and lots of confectioners sugar!

The next step was to roll out the fondant and cut it to fit over the top of the cupcakes. This was a trial-and-error process, as the cutter size they suggested using was much too small. One I got the right size, it was much easier.
The baseballs were the easiest - just cut out the fondant and draw some stitching on there with an edible marker.

The basketballs were a little more challenging, and I didn't get any pictures of them as I made them (my hands were a MESS and I was rushing and running out of time!). First I had to color the fondant orange. This was the time-consuming part ~ kneading the fondant like playdough until the color was consistent throughtout. Then I cut out the circle and rolled lines on them. Texturing came next - for this I used the end of a #3 pastry tip. After they were placed on the cupcakes, I whipped up some black royal icing (egg whites, lemon juice, and confectioners sugar). I then put this in a pastry bag and used a #2 pastry tip to put the black (or in this case, dark gray) on the basketballs.


Over all they turned out pretty good. I learned a lot about working with the fondant, different frostings, and my new pastry bags.


But most importantly, the birthday boy loved them!!