Red Velvet Cupcakes X 2

Red Velvet Cupcakes X 2

Was wanting to play around with fondant cupcake toppers and piped chocolate decorations.  I had some red velvet batter on hand, so I made cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  If you want more information about the different types of icings, see my post That's the Icing on the Cake.  The SMBC (Swiss Meringue Buttercream) recipe that I use is one that pastry chef, Gretchen Price shared on her blog Woodland Bakery Blog.

After the cupcakes were baked and the buttercream was ready, I melted some dark cocoa candy melts from Wilton.  I used this to pipe a free-form flower on wax paper.  These will dry pretty quickly but they do need to be completely dry before they are handled.

Half of the cupcakes were going to be topped with fondant cupcake toppers.  Once, the fondant is rolled out, I cut out a round circle with a very old cutter that I have.  This cutter has a scalloped edge all the way around it.  Then, I took a #3 round tip and punched out a small circle at every other scallop.  This was so easy and made for a pretty cupcake decoration.

The other half of the cupcakes got two layers of icing with a chocolate piece inserted into the buttercream.  The icing was colored with two different shades of pink.  The bottom layer was piped with a large round tip while the top layer was piped with a 1M.

P.S.  When you make the chocolate decorations, be sure and make several extra - some of them WILL break while you are trying to get them off the wax paper :(