Classic Iced Cupcakes

I've always enjoyed making cupcakes, I love that they are so easy to make and already come in individual portions. For me, the best part isn't the baking, it's the icing. That's where you can really be creative. These days you see the most amazing variety of cupcakes - they are works of art. It's not difficult to make impressive looking cupcakes with the right tools.

You will need:

Basic cupcake & butter icing recipe (click here)

Cupcake cases, colouring, edible cake decorating decorations, glitter

Piping bags

Piping tip (I have used this)

Leave your cupcakes to cool completely before you ice them. Mix up the buttercream icing - margarine is a lot easier to work with than butter. Colour the icing using food colouring, supermarket stuff is fine but concentrated colour won't affect the consistency. Beware if you use this though as you only need a tiny bit (the tip of a cocktail stick) and if you get any on your hands it does stain.

Put your icing tip into the corner of the piping bag and chop off the end so that the piping tip fits snugly, but making sure that the actual piping hole is completely exposed. Open out the piping bag by folding out the edges and use a knife or spatula to put the icing into the bag. It doesn't matter if you can't get the icing in the furthest end and there is a gap at the bottom - you can squeeze this out before you start. However, you want to avoid any air bubbles in the icing itself, so try to put the icing in in big lumps and release any air you can see, otherwise you will get gaps when you are in the middle of piping.

Hold the bag vertical above the cupcake. Squeeze slowly, beginning at the edge of the cake and circle into the centre. At the centre, stop squeezing and push the tip into the icing to finish. For a different look, try starting in the middle and working outwards - this looks more like a flower. Decorate with silver balls, glitter and anything else you fancy. Admire, then eat!

Iced cupakes tutorial