Hey Gage!
I like Valentine’s day. Not because of the candy, flowers and spending time with loved ones and stuff. I mean don’t get me wrong that stuff is pretty great. What I like about this special day is walking around campus and seeing all the adorable, happy people. I like getting calls from my brother asking me how to bake a cake and pictures of the mashed potatoes he dyed pink. Most of all, I like Valentine’s day as an excuse to bake things. Cute things. Pink things. Heart shaped things. Especially since I finally have an occasion to use my mini heart shaped cake tins.
The plan was red velvet cake, but halfway through making it I discovered that although I have a ton of baking supplies and six different colours of food dye, I did not have red. Seriously?!? Pink it is. Not as cool, but what can you do? The cakes turned out brown on the outside and pink on the inside.
Maybe this whole thing was a little disastrous. I tried a new recipe and the first batch of icing was weird. Okay, back to my reliable icing recipe I guess.
Chocolate Peppermint Icing
- 1 Tbsp room temperature butter
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp peppermint extract
- 2-3 cups of icing sugar
- pink food colouring
- 1 oz baking chocolate, melted and cooled
Note: these measurements are very approximate and dependent on how much icing you want and what consistency you want.
For the icing, all you have to do is mix everything (I use a hand mixer) except the chocolate and about a cup of the icing sugar together. Then add the chocolate and continue to add in the icing sugar until you are at the right consistency. You don’t want it too stiff or it will hurt your hand and crack when you pipe it. If it is too runny it will literally slide off the cupcake and make sad looking cupcakes. Trust me, I’ve done both. Many times. The icing will look chocolaty with a hint of pink.
Now it’s time to decorate! Yay! Basically just have fun, using whatever you like. Sprinkles, candy, different colours, it’s all you!
I just used a piping bag fitted with a large star shaped tip for the chocolate peppermint icing and little plastic bags with a corner snipped off for the colours. I think the blue writing is my favourite!
Happy Baking!