Monday, June 10, 2013

Realistic Coral Cupcake Tutorial

So I have been super busy with wedding season and haven't had the chance to post this tutorial for you guys but the good news is I have a lot of great fun weddings to show you in the near future. So without further ado here is the tutorial I promised on how to make realistic coral cupcakes. Enjoy!
 
 

First up bake as many cupcakes as you will need to feed your guests. I used blue cupcake wrappers to tie in the Under the Sea theme. You will also want to make a batch of your favorite buttercream colored blue for “ocean” and grind up some graham crackers for “sand” and set aside.

So for the coral toppers you will need to buy CakePlay isomalt sticks in whichever color you choose. The sticks can be bought at your specialty local cake stores or online. The sticks can get kind of pricey so you may just want to stick with one color but, you can get a lot of coral out of one pack of sticks. You can probably get about four dozen coral toppers out of one pack of sticks.


So next break up some sticks and place them in a silicone cup and place in microwave to melt. Heat the sticks in 30-second increments until fully melted. Be very careful at this point this is molten sugar you are dealing with and can burn you if it comes in contact with skin. Take sugar out of microwave and allow to cool for a minute before proceed to the next step. You want to let all of the bubbles on top of the sugar dissipate.
While you are waiting for your sugar to cool get a container (can be plastic) and fill to the top with ice. When your sugar is ready pour sugar over the ice to form the coral. Again, be very careful if you didn’t let the sugar cool long enough it could splatter while you pour.
After you have poured the sugar over the ice it cools almost instantly so it is safe to handle. Carefully remove the ice from the sugar to reveal your coral pieces. Place coral pieces on a Slipmat to dry until ready for use. 
If you live in a humid area the sugar will be sticky for a while so do not handle or you will leave fingerprints in your sugar. After the leftover sugar in the silicone cup has cooled can be broken into pieces and reused.
To complete your cupcakes ice in blue buttercream “ocean” and sprinkle with “sand”. When you are ready to serve your cupcakes break off a piece of coral and insert into icing to complete.
So there you have super awesome realistic looking coral cupcakes to match your Under the Sea themed party. Hope you enjoyed that and be sure to check back in the next few weeks as we have a ton of great parties and events to share with you.  

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