These decorated cupcakes, from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes Book make a beautiful addition to traditional dyed Easter eggs! Made with Royal Icing, the cupcake designs are fun and simple to create.
- Make Royal Icing and divide among bowls. Tint each a different color using gel-paste food color, like Wiltons.
- For wavy line cupcakes, outline the top of a cupcake with one color of icing, and then pipe more icing to flood (or fill) the inside. Working quickly, pipe, four or five parallel lines in a different color. Use a toothpick to draw lines perpendicular to the piped ones, alternating between dragging downward and upward.
- For a swirled effect, Outline cupcake with one color, and pipe squiggly lines inside the outline. Fill in spaces with another color icing to completely cover. Use a toothpick to swirl the colors.
- Allow icing to set.
Try different colors and use this same technique for any season or even cookies!
The applications are limitless!
Royal Icing
1 pound (4 cups) powdered sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon meringue powder
Scant 1/2 cup water
With an electric mixer on low speed, beat all ingredients until smooth. If icing is too thick, add more water, a little at a time, beating until icing holds a ribbon on the surface for a few seconds when the beater is lifted. If the icing is too thin, continue mixing 2 to 3 minutes more.