Tutorial - Icing Rose Cupcakes

Ok, I made another little batch of lemon drizzle cupcakes and thought this would be a good opportunity to rope Andy in to take some photos for a step-by-step tutorial.  He's got a new camera toy, a flash gun, and was very snap happy! After going through around 100 photos, here is what I have come up with...

1. Assemble your ingredients

For 12 cupcakes you will need:

100g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature

50g unsalted butter

300g icing sugar, sieved

zest of half a lemon

food colouring (optional)

2. Make the frosting

Put the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar into a mixing bowl.  Very slowly at first (to keep all the icing sugar in the bowl and avoid looking like a snowman!) mix all the ingredients together using either an electric mixer, wooden spoon or hand-held electric whisk.

3. Add your flavouring and colour

When the mixture is light and fluffy, and forms little peaks (if it's too runny just add some more icing sugar), add the lemon zest and food colouring.  Try to use a food colouring paste as the colour is much stronger and it doesn't mess around with the consistency of the frosting.

4. Fill up your icing bag

I've used a no. 5 star shaped nozzle and cheated a bit with a plastic disposable piping bag.  You can easily make your own with greased proof paper or buy packs of the plastic disposable ones.  They're not great for little fiddly bits of icing but good when you're just using one colour and quite a bit of frosting.

5. Get icing!

Position your piping bag at 90 degrees to your cupcake.  

Start piping in the centre of your cupcake, applying even pressure on the piping bag.

Pipe clockwise, spiralling out towards the edge of your cupcake.  Don't leave any space between the lines of frosting.

When you get to the edge of your cupcake let the frosting trail off by releasing the pressure on the piping bag whilst guiding it around the edge of your cupcake.

6. Ta da!
Impress all your friends and family!