April and May are turning into a cake creating carnival! My 14-year-old oven is struggling under  the pressure of repeated 45 minute stints at 325 degrees. Over and over it has been nurturing gooey batter into risen layers of delicious cake. It’s handle is loose, it’s display has dimmed to the point of being almost illegible, and it’s temperature swings have grown to a point that almost ruins what I’m baking. I think I’m making it’s imminent replacement necessary!

Right now, I’m working on a Lily and her purple purse cake for the 1st grade Kevin Henkes lunch. I made this cake 10 year’s ago when my daughter was in 1st grade, so it’s a fun and nostalgic endeavor. But this past weekend, I finished  pull-apart cupcake cake for a children’s birthday party. The birthday girl was stuck between a rainbow and a unicorn cake, and decided on the rainbow. So I set to work.

First, the cupcakes. 40 of them. My first batch of 12 failed miserably. When my second batch did the same, I pulled out my oven thermometer and went to work figuring what was wrong with frustrated determination. I concluded it was a result of my aging oven and tried to show it some compassion. It fluctuates I temperature and has one side hotter than the other. I decided to try cooking at a lower, slower temperature and that seemed to help. The next batches turned out much better.

With 48 chocolate cupcakes baked and cooled it was time to set about decorating. I cut out paper circles to experiment with cupcake layout. I played around with them until I had an arrangement I liked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to prepare the frosting. I made a triple batch of American buttercream frosting and divided into seven bowls. I used gel food coloring to create six rainbow colors and left the last owl white. All the frosting went into piping bags and I was ready to start. I arranged the cupcakes on a gold cake board in the pattern I chose and secured each one with a dab of frosting. I filled in any gaps between cupcakes with a squirt of frosting so that when I started decorating to top, the frosting would fall through or sag.

Next cake the fun part. With my giant 1M piping nozzle, I began to decorate the tops to look like a rainbow. I did each color one by one and then did the clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to create one special cupcake for the birthday girl and decided it would be a unicorn nestled in a cloud under the rainbow. I used white fondant to create a horn and ears, and pink and green fondant to create little roses. I made several because I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to arrange them and the sizes I’d need. I piped rows of colored frosting onto a piece of plastic wrap, then rolled it up into a log shape and dropped it into a clean piping bage. This was a cool swirl of rainbow colors can our of the tip and I created the unicarn’s mane. I painted the horn with gold luster dust and the stuck it in the cupcake with an ear on each side.

 

I rolled out some fondant clouds and letters for a birthday message and I was done!