MSC Ladybug Cupcakes

This coming week is my last week of work, and then next week classes start again. As much as I love the first day of school (and I think I'll always love it, regardless of my age), I do love summer, and I feel as though I blinked and summer came and went. I don't want summer to be over, but I will freely admit that I'm more than ready to give up my summer job. Don't get me wrong, I've loved teaching this summer, but this past session of expository writing has me ready to head for the hills. We were watching a movie yesterday in preparation for writing movie reviews, and my students would.not.stop.talking!! I paused and asked them if they were actually allowed in movie theaters to see movies. One student's response was, "my mom knows discipline." Ha.ha.ha. The volume level in my classroom is deafening at times, and when I get home with ringing ears and a pounding head in the evening, all I want is a little peace and quiet. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at sitting still, so I have to do something else. I've made several of the flavored cupcakes, but this week I thought that it would be fun to bring some "cute" cupcakes to work. I've had my eye on these ladybug cupcakes ever since I first opened Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. At any rate, there's just something very cathartic and mindless about piping icing.

The base cupcake is the yellow buttermilk cupcake. I was a little wary of this cake because Margaret had warned me that they were on the dry side, but I wanted to give it a shot. I watched these like a hawk while they were in the oven, and I pulled them out the second that I thought they were done (just at 20 minutes). The recipe says to let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes, I skipped that step and removed them to the cooling rack right away (when I do this I don't turn the cupcakes out, but I remove them from the tins with a spoon). The result was a very moist and tender cupcake. I would definitely make these again.

The cupcakes are frosted with Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I think that's why I tend to stay away from fun and fancy cupcakes -- I really don't care for this frosting. I've worked with it quite often (though it's definitely been awhile) and it pipes very nicely, but I just think that the flavor borders on *meh* -- I can't get excited about it. I'm also not a fan of tinted frosting. The darker the color, the less I like it. I think this is because I know how much tint has to go into the frosting to get that color, and it skeeves me out. These cupcakes were for work, though, and green frosting was pretty essential for the grass. We've had a heatwave in DC for the past couple of weeks, and I'm cheap so I hate to turn on the AC if I can avoid it, so the buttercream wasn't quite as stiff as it could have been. The grass tip for the piping bag takes some getting used to. Here's my tip: rather than starting with the piping bag flush on the cupcake, start squeezing about 1/8" from the surface and pull up as you squeeze. This will give you more defined blades of grass rather than the star shape that you might get if you start on the surface of the cake. At any rate, my grass doesn't look very manicured, does it? It looks like the lady bugs have found a nice abandoned patch of grass.

As for the ladybugs, I didn't make them out of marzipan. King Arthur Flour's Website had these sugar ladybugs on sale quite awhile ago, and I bought some. I think that the marzipan ladybugs are cuter, but these are 100 times easier, and that settles that, doesn't it?


Don't forget to enter the giveaway for cupcake week! Here's the rest of the goodie box:

• Cute Jessie Steele cupcake potholder
• assorted sprinkles
• my favorite India Tree white nonpareils
• Wilton 12 piece cupcake decorating set, set of three stripy cupcake boxes, and stripe and dot paper cup liners
  
• Sur la Table silicone baking cups