Happy Birthday Cupcakes!

Hi Friends and Happy June 3!

I’ve been meaning to tell you about my favorite kitchen specialty gadget for quite a while and just haven’t gotten around to it.  Well, today is my your lucky day!  I mean, it’s my lucky day too…I’m having a little birthday party for myself and inviting my 8 favorite preschoolers.  {You see, I participate in a preschool homeschool program and today is my day to host the children at our house!}  It will be a role-reversal surprise party since all the kids will be surprised they are about to walk into a party!

Anyways, I figured I’d make our favorite birthday treat: CUPCAKES!

We took a huge shortcut and used a box…oh, Baker Jose, thanks for helping a mom out!

But now on to my  favorite kitchen specialty gadget {and by the way, unfortunately this post is not sponsored by Williams Sonoma…a girl can only dream!}

The Williams Sonoma Mechanical Pastry Bag…turns any ordinary gal into a professional pastry chef.  No $4 cupcakes for me, no sireee.  Oh yeah, wait ‘til you see what this little kitchen star can do. 

Before the mechanical pastry bag and I met, I used to fiddle around with traditional pastry bags…you know the ones…frosting oozing out of every crevice, hands covered and completely sticky with frosting, the tip falling off into your creation no less than a half dozen times, do I need to go on? 

So I had almost completely given up on this rite of passage as a mother and deprived my children of fancy cupcakes and intricately decorated sugar cookies…until I discovered the mechanical bag at Williams Sonoma {let me remind you again: Williams Sonoma has not discovered my blog yet and are not paying me to write a glowing review for them…but if you think they should, feel free to let them know! hee hee}

I have so much I want to share with you about my new best friend, but in an effort to not spend half my birthday writing this post, I will just show you the most basic of applications.

You can use this nifty little tip to create filled cupcakes:

So to start, you just fill the canister with frosting:

Insert the “pump”:

Of course, one cannot bake their own birthday cupcakes alone!

And then I injected frosting right into the top of the cupcakes.  It makes such a small hole, and after you frost them, it’s completely hidden:

 

Above you see the cupcake before I even poked it…there are holes all over it anyways!

Now there’s a surprise waiting for you!

This one didn’t seem to get a huge serving of filling, but I didn’t want to cut into them all before my guests arrive!

The next tip I used was a HUGE one for the frosting:

The one on the right is a standard tip size for piping…just to give you perspective.

Doesn’t that sorta look professional?  All swirly on top!  I had a lot of “help”, so they aren’t my best work…but you get the idea. 

Add sprinkles and voila:

We are ready to par-tay!

Stayed tuned for my blog’s 1 year birthday post, coming up next week! Smile!