Sorry for all of you who were waiting for the cupcake tutorial…I know I have been slow to post lately, but I really am going to try to get a couple good posts in this week.  Definitely check back in soon to see the post on all of my Valentine’s cookies that my sister and I made.  Anyways, down to business…

To make cupcakes that have impressions on the fondant you need to either purchase impression mats/molds or scrapbooking stamps.  You can find the impression mats/molds at Caljava International or Global Sugar Art.  I purchase most of my scrapbooking stamps from the company Autumn Leaves which you can find at Target or Martha Stewart just came out with some good stamps which you can find at Michaels Craft Store.

So you need to roll your fondant or sugarpaste out to your desired thickness (1/8″-1/4″), rubbing a little Crisco on the fondant if it gets sticky or dry and then press it either into the mat or press the stamp onto the fondant.  Once you have the pattern on the fondant, you can do many things with it…you can cut out individual shapes, cover your whole cupcakes with it, or use it as patterned ribbon on your cupcake.  There is no limit to your creativity!

Just a hint: if you are making individual fondant cutouts to sit on top of your frosting don’t use cream cheese frosting since it has a property in it that makes the fondant melt.  Also let your fondant accent dry a little before you put it on your frosting so it holds its shape and doesn’t bend.  And lastly, if you are covering the whole cupcake with the fondant use it immediately after cutting out the circle shape since it will dry quickly and cause cracking.

To cover the whole cupcake, but still get a lot of good frosting in the cupcake, cut a hole in the center of the cupcake with either a pairing knife or apple corer and then fill it with the frosting.  Then cover the top of the cupcake with a round layer of frosting, but making sure not to get too close to the edges since the fondant will squeeze it out of the sides once applied. When picking your circle cutter find one that is slightly large than the top of the cupcake so there is enough to completely cover the sides.  

I also used another impression mold to make the buttons for the cupcakes.  I got this at Caljava International too. 

Here are some of the combined elements on the cupcakes.

To make the cupcake with the “XOX” I used letter cutters from Nicholas Lodge’s.  For these particular cutters you have to roll the fondant or sugarpaste extremely thin, preferably through a pasta machine first before cutting out.  

Then I just used some of the previous techniques to finish off the cupcake.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and now feel more inspired to decorate some cupcakes of your own…remember to check back for the cookie post!