cupcakes

Chocolate Buttercream Icing Recipe

When we have a birthday party here at our house, we make cupcakes! One of my favorite ways to top a homemade cupcake is with homemade chocolate buttercream icing!

This is the most perfect chocolate buttercream frosting you will ever devour. It is amazing on a cupcake for any birthday. You will not believe how easy it is to make.

A few years ago my mother-in-law gave me a copy of The Cupcake Doctor, a cookbook with endless cupcake recipes and super fun ideas. This recipe comes straight from that cookbook.

You will need:

First cream your butter. I like to use a large stand alone mixer, but you can use a hand mixer.

Then, add the cocoa and chocolate syrup. Continue mixing.

Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Add the milk and vanilla. Continue mixing until well blended.

Pipe the icing onto the cupcakes and top with confetti or desired decorations.

This icing is perfect for cakes and cupcakes that you’re making for birthday parties, baby showers, parties, etc.

I generally work the day before one of our kid’s birthday parities, and make the cake or cupcakes. I always start with making the icing first and pop it in the fridge until I am ready to use it.

Personally, I do a lot of shopping online. Especially my grocery shopping and even cake and icing ingredients. Have you given Walmart online grocery shopping a try? It is free. You order online and choose your time slot you want to pickup. In some cases you can pick up the same day. I usually choose next day.

If it’s your first time to place an order you get a $10 credit if you use my link.

More Icing Recipes

Oreo Cookie Buttercream Icing

25 Homemade Icing Recipes

Homemade Buttercream Icing Recipe

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45 + Cupcake recipes & ideas

By Crystal VanTassel-Lopez 2 Comments

Cupcakes are all the rage! Every where you turn you see cupcakes at events instead of cakes. Do you have a favorite cupcake recipe? Here is my favorite, Best Cupcake Recipe Ever and 45 + cupcake ideas board for more recipes and decorating ideas.

If you have any cupcake recipes or decorating ideas I would love for you to link them below and I will add them to my board. I’m always looking for fun, new recipes.

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First Birthday Cookie Cupcakes

By Crystal VanTassel-Lopez 9 Comments

Yes, I said cookie cupcakes. Fun, hua?

Have I mentioned I LOVE cupcakes?

I love to make them.

I love to eat them.

I love to decorate them.

I love to celebrate with them.

I LOVE cupcakes!

We celebrated Matthew’s first birthday with family and friends at a local park the weekend after he turned one. (We celebrated at home the night of.) It is the same park that Grandpa Lopez would take Lenny and his siblings to when they were little. It is the coolest! There is a pond where the kids can fish and feed the ducks. In the summertime they have the best pool in the whole wide world you can enjoy for $1 a person. Lots of playground equipment, plus pavilions with grills for parties and gatherings. We love it!

Back to the cupcakes….

I am always looking for a fun, new way to decorate my cupcakes. This idea was actually inspired by a cupcake gal who used lollipop/candy molds to make Transformer Lollipop Cupcakes.

I could not find #1 lollipop molds in time for the party, so I bought a container of letter and number cookie cutters and used royal icing to decorate. I figured the cookie cutters could also be used as Play-Doh cutters for the twins… since Play-Doh is their latest obsession.

Here is how I did it.

I found an online sugar cookie recipe. (Note, this is my first attempt ever to cut out sugar cookies and decorate them. I needed a recipe that was step by step. A little elementary, but it made the best darn dough I have ever eaten…. {raw} by the handful! So good!)

After you refrigerate the dough and it is ready to roll out, put parchment paper underneath. Makes clean up so easy. I even used cellophane as a barrier between my dough and rolling pin.

All rolled out and ready to cut- remove the cellophane.

Then we cut them….and eat some dough.

Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper. This will make it super duper easy to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack after you cook them. Insert the small lollipop sticks (you can find them at any craft store) into the bottom of the cookie and bake according to directions.

Once out of the oven, move the sheet of parchment paper to a cooling rack and use a spatula to release each cookie (so they do not stick once cool) but leave them on the paper and cooling rack to cool completely. Don’t worry if the shape is not perfect…. you can fix the cookie’s shape with the icing.

For the royal icing… I’ve never made it before. The local cake supply shop offered a pre-packaged mix where you simply add water- for $2.80! Um, I’ll take two of those!

Once you mix the icing, fill an icing bag with enough plain white royal icing so you can outline the outer edge of the cookies.

I have no pictures of the next step, but using gel die, color the remaining icing, we did orange, and fill up another icing bag. Fill the inside section of the cookie with the colored icing.

Let the cookies sit for about 4-6 hrs so the icing can dry thoroughly.

Bake your cupcakes. I love the Cake Mix Doctor Cupcake Cookbook– my mother-in-law caters to my cupcake obsession and gave me this cookbook a while back. So many creative recipes! I make the Best Birthday Cupcakes for every birthday party I can. They are so good!! Then, I make the Chocolate Buttercream Icing– so simple!

Sprinkle the cupcakes with pretty confetti, if you like. I like the primary color circles.

Back to the cookies…. wrap the cookie with treat wrappers- you can get them at any craft or cake supply store. Instead of using the wire twist ties, I like to use ribbon to tie them closed. It adds fun color. Now you can stick the cookie lollipops into the cupcakes.

You’re ready to celebrate…

And, feed your baby!