Sweet Fun: Sonja Ocampo’s Guide to Creating Yummy Cupcakes

Don’t forget!
•    Always cool your cupcakes before decorating them.
•    An easy, mess-free way to fill your cupcake liners with batter? Use an ice cream scoop!


Smart Tip
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to designing cupcakes. Just play around, experiment, and let your imagination fly!


Popcorn Art

Ingredients:
•    Cupcake with fluffy vanilla butter cream
•    Yellow or white mini marshmallows
•    Popcorn paper band computer print-out

Procedure:
1. Cover frosted butter cream cupcake with mini marshmallows
2. Wrap band around the cupcake, and secure with tape.

How to pipe:
1. Cut the end of a pastry bag.
2. Insert a coupler with your desired pastry tip.
3. Hold the bottom of the pastry bag in one hand, and fold about half of the bag inside-out over your hand.
4. Fill the bag with frosting using a spatula. Press out excess air, and seal with rubber band.
5. With your good hand, hold the top of the pastry bag then squeeze. Use your other hand to direct the bag.

Smart Tip:
You don’t always need to stick to a cupcake recipe to make, uhm, cupcakes. Try any cake recipe! Just bake it for less the amount of time required.

Top Tip:
Practice piping on parchment paper first. Go crazy with your designs!

Sweet reminders:
● Impress your friend by baking your cupcake batter in an ice cream cone. Spoon batter into each ice cream cone. Let your cones stand in cupcake pans and bake. Frost, then cover with sprinkles.
● Use dark-colored metal cupcake pans instead of the flimsy, light colored metal ones. Your cupcakes will rise higher and brown better.
● Don’t have a pastry bag? You can use a large Ziplock bag instead. Fill the bag, pack tight, and squeeze down. Turn the bag 45 degrees so the bottom edge is pointing directly to the floor. Cut a hole. You can also make parchment cones using parchment paper triangles.

Want more?
Cupcakes by Sonja holds small cupcake decorating parties at their store in Serendra at The Fort. Ten kids get to play pastry chef for a day, and spend an afternoon creating cupcakes of different colors and designs.

Sonja’s Create-A-Cupcake parties can also go to your homes. Just gather a group, and they’ll take care of the rest. For inquiries, call: (02)856-0308.

Click here to see more yummy cupcake recipes from Sonja.