2/21/11

Spumoni Love Skulls

I'm not sure why, but I ordered some Valentine's Day skull stencils from the Oriental Trading Company [along with cupcake tattoos and zipper pulls - reason enough to never ever leave me alone with an OTC catalog]. I also ordered a Valentine's Day cupcake stand... what can I say, it was on sale.


So... I have a cupcake stand and stencils. Somehow, in my mind, this equated into making skull cupcake toppers. Skulls = Love. No? Well at least they are happy skulls... with hearts in their eyes.


For the cupcakes and icing, I used a Spumoni mix from Cake Chalet which you can read about here and here from previous ventures. I was impressed that this mix actually captured the classic Spumoni flavors of chocolate, cherry and pistachio really well. Side note: the cake batter from this mix really really sticks to paper cupcake liners so I would definitely try foil ones next time.


I made the cupcake toppers by applying clear piping gel with a stiff paint brush through the skull stencils onto pink discs of rolled fondant. I sprinkled them with red sugar after removing the stencil.


The Spumoni icing mix has to be combined with heavy whipping cream so I refrigerated these babies before bringing them to work knowing all too well that fondant and fridges don't mix... the cupcake toppers dissolved and melted a bit once they reached room temperature but I didn't want to make anyone sick. Note to self: put cupcake toppers on right before serving!


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This is what happens on the holidays at work... even when I don't plan a bake-off!
Red velvet giant cupcake cake, cherry chip fudge brownies and strawberry rose cakelets (in the cutest cupcake pedestals) accompany my Spumoni cupcake tower.


I would try this stencil technique again with colored buttercream or royal icing. If I do, I'll create a little tutorial to go along with it.

2 comments:

  1. My goodness! Everything looks lovely but those skulled-stenciled cupcakes are actually really cute.

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  2. So clever with the stencil work! Those are some of the coolest cupcakes I've seen in my time...

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