Lessons in Cupcake Frosting, and MetCon Workouts

Our full display of V day
floral cupcakes

Sometimes, a culinary skill needs patience and practice to learn- there are just no shortcuts. Sometimes, all it needs is acquiring the right tool, and then, even a beginner can pull it off. This is a happy story about the latter situation. 

The culinary skill in question is cupcake decoration. I'm a pretty experienced home baker and can reliably turn out cakes and cupcakes, but have always struggled with frosting and decorating them neatly. It doesn't help that these are special-occasion bakes made only a few times a year; there's no scope to practice regularly and get better. I get by with a variety of strategies- enlisting kids to arrange fresh fruit (tres leches cake and pavlova), using cute ideas that involve no skill (aquarium cake, Christmas tree cupcakes), deploying frosting and sprinkles (onesie cake), assembling a cake that isn't a cake at all (donut cake). 

A few years ago, an older friend who was downsizing gave me this giant box of frosting tips. This should have been the impetus to buckle down and learn some piping work, but it was all too overwhelming. I had no idea where to start. Last year for my daughter's birthday I did select one of these tips and try to frost some cupcakes (you can see one here) but wasn't pleased with how it went. The box of tips just sat there taking space. 

At some point, my new Aussie friend showed me pictures of cupcakes she'd decorated for her family and friends, and my eyes popped- they were beautiful in that Pinterest-worthy way. I asked her if she would be willing to teach me and she gladly agreed. This Friday evening, it was Valentine's Day and we weren't doing anything special, so it thought it would be a good occasion for the cupcake frosting lesson. 

My friend shared that the "magic" tool for piping beautiful roses on cupcakes is the Wilton 2D frosting tip and so I bought one, for under two bucks at the local Michael's craft store. (Funny enough, it wasn't in the box of frosting tips I owned and also bigger in size than the tips in the box.)

To get ready for our cupcake evening, I made 24 chocolate cupcakes using an easy one-bowl recipe and a batch of vanilla-flavored ermine frosting. And brought out my stash of gel food colors and sprinkles. We divided up the frosting into smaller bowls and dyed it red (it came out more like coral), pink, green, and left some white. 

We fitted the 2D tip into a piping bag, added some red/coral frosting and got to work. It turns out that the tip is VERY beginner-friendly and does all of the work for you. Right after my friend demonstrated a rose, I was able to make one that was pretty nice looking. We frosted several cupcakes quickly with: 

• Rosettes- a single big one all over the cupcake
• Smaller off-center rosettes- one or two or three per cupcake
• Small star-shaped drop flowers

Two-tone rose (bottom right)

We wanted to contrast the flowers with some greenery. In the big box of frosting tips, I spotted one that looked like it could produce a leaf- the Ateco 70 tip, and sure enough, it makes pretty little leaves and longer ruffled leaves that looked like ferns. By adding different shades of frosting to the piping bag, we made some two-tone roses. With organic shapes like flowers and leaves, you really can't go wrong. Precision is not required. Whatever you end up doing looks quite sweet and charming. (For my humble standards, anyway.)

Drop flowers- looks a bit like a potted plant

With these two frosting tips alone, we were able to make all the cupcakes pictured above. 

Ateco 70 leaf tip, and Wilton 2D tip

To summarize my cupcake decoration knowledge gained in the last 24-36 hours:

• More is not better. Just one or two of the right frosting tips can be plenty to turn out pretty and presentable cupcakes. 
• The basic types of frosting tips are
• Closed star, like the Wilton 2D tip above
• Open star- for instance, the Wilton 1M which also seems to be a versatile tip for roses, rosettes and small hydrangea-type star-shaped flowers 
• Plain round- good for adding dots, for instance, to the centers of the star flowers- I'll have to try that in future
• Petal or ruffle (teardrop-shaped tips)- to pipe petals for large flowers
• Leaf piping tips- these have notches, like the Ateco 70 tip I used
• Russian piping tips are fascinating for making whole flowers (look them up to see examples)
• Ermine buttercream, which is my favorite taste-wise, handles being dyed and piped pretty well.

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Other sweet things from this weekend- I made a batch of best cocoa brownies with red and pink sprinkles- sent half to my son's teacher and took the other half for my coworkers. Sprinkles in seasonal colors are always the easiest way to dress up baked goods!

My daughter used red candy melts and sprinkles to decorate these adorable cupcakes of her own. I particularly adore the 3D flower design she made up- she dabbed candy melt on a parchment paper to make petals, let them dry, and then peeled them off and arranged them on the cupcake. 

My son went to a day camp and they taught the kids to make these darling fruit bouquets- with chocolate dipped strawberries, grapes, and heart shaped pineapple cuts. I love our county's leisure services staff who go out of their way to create engaging programming for the kids when they have days off school! 

* * *

Reading 

• I finished a novel this week, Sandwich by Catherine Newman, that I chose for the PS Reading Challenge Prompt #9: A book that features a character going through menopause. It is a short, witty, slice of life novel about a woman in her early 50s on her annual week-long beach vacation with her husband and young adult kids, with her parents joining the vacation for two days. 
• The name of the novel likely comes from the term "sandwich generation", referring to middle-aged adults who are pulled in both directions as they care for young children and aging parents. In this case, the aging parents live independently and the young adult kids have moved out and are living on their own, so the main character isn't particularly sandwiched in a stressful way. I'm thinking of a friend of mine who cares for her child and pets and also for aged, ailing in-laws who live in the household, and travels regularly to care for her parents in a different city, all while working a demanding job. Now that truly sounds like being pulled in all different directions on a daily basis. 
• In the novel, the main character also makes delicious overstuffed sandwiches to eat on the beach, and it is relatable to see how every single family member wants a different kind of sandwich which the mother is willing to accommodate.
• It was an enjoyable and escapist read for me and I do recommend it to anyone who wants to read about domestic life from the lens of motherhood and female bodies. Although I couldn't relate very much to the main character- she is over the top sentimental about her kids, and wrapped up in everyone's lives in a way that I just am not. 
• I enjoy reading the weekly Philosophy Break newsletter, and the most recent one was a very interesting read, on propaganda and totalitarianism- writings from the 1950s that still hold true today. 

* * *

In today's moment of fitness- metabolic conditioning or MetCon workouts. These are moderate and high intensity exercises that combine cardio and strength in a clever and timesaving way to improve the efficiency of all three energy pathways (discussed in last week's post)- the immediate, intermediate and long term pathways. If you're familiar with Cross-Fit which has been a big fitness trend in recent years, it involves a lot of MetCon exercises. The workouts are fast and interesting and almost feel like a game.

One popular exercise format is EMOM or "every minute on the minute" where you have a list of exercises (say, 10 jump squats, 10 push ups, 10 mountain climbers). A timer is set that rings every minute, you do the 10 jump squats and then rest for the remainder of the minute, the timer rings and you do 10 push ups and rest for the remainder of the minute, then the timer rings and you do the next exercise and rest until the timer rings again, and so on. 

Another workout format is AMRAP or "as many reps as possible". This time you may have the same exercises (jump squats, push-ups and mountain climbers) and a timer is set for, say, 40 seconds on and 20 seconds rest. You do as many jump squats as you can in 40 seconds, then rest for 20 seconds, then do as many push-ups as you can for 40 seconds, then rest again and so on. 

I love MetCon exercises but rarely do a full workout of this type on its own. Instead I add 2-3 MetCon type exercises to the end of my usual strength workouts. Some of my favorites are wood chops, speed skaters, kettlebell swings, jumping jacks. One that I hate but do anyway is burpees! 

Tell me what you have been reading and eating in this last week!