unicorn cupcakes

Sometime last year, my friend Monica asked me to make unicorn cupcakes for her goddaughter. She wanted pastel swirl frosting, topped with little fondant unicorn horn toppers. We decided that I'd make chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and I bought gold cupcake liners to match the gold unicorn horns!

About a week in advance, I started making the fondant toppers, in order to give them time to dry out. I tinted my fondant with gold gel-based food coloring, and then brushed on gold luster dust to give it a shiny gold sheen. I also made little ears for the unicorns, using a petunia flower cookie cutter (similar to this one) and then cutting out the petals to make ears.

Then when it was time to bake the cupcakes, I made my favorite chocolate cupcake batter (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), and baked them in my new shiny gold cupcakes liners. Once they were cool, I whipped up some cream cheese frosting (recipe also in my book!) and divided it into three portions. Then I tinted each portion with yellow, pink, and green (with a teeny bit of blue in it, to give it more of an aqua feel).

Then I fitted a pastry bag with a large star tip, and when filling the pastry bag, I filled it with all three colors of frosting, to give it that swirl effect.

These colors make me so happy!

Then it was time to add my fondant decorations. I placed a unicorn horn in the middle, with ears on either side.

 

 
Cute, right?

 
I hope Monica's goddaughter enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed making them! Happy Birthday!

rainbow unicorn sugar cookies with royal icing

To go along with the rainbow unicorn cake that I made for my daughter's 8th birthday, I also made these rainbow unicorn cookies as party favors, and also to pass out to her classmates on the actual day of her birthday.

For the cookies, I used my favorite sugar cookie dough (recipe in my book!), rolled it out to about 1/8 inch thick, and used these adorable unicorn cookie cutters from Cookie Cutter Kingdom to cut out my shapes. Then I baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.

While the cookies were cooling, I whipped up my royal icing (recipe also in my book!). Then I used a disposable pastry bag fitted with a small round tip to outline each cookie with stiff white icing, before filling them in with runny white icing. Then with the rest of icing, I used Americolor gel-based food coloring to tint them yellow for the horn, and rainbow colors for the mane and tail.

I had originally planned to do each unicorn with several rainbow colors, but after icing a few, I didn't like the way they looked. So instead, I chose one color for each unicorn, and did multiple colors that way.

I wrapped each cookie in cellophane favor bags and tied with closed with raffia, so that they would be easy for her to hand out to her classmates (and so they would fit nicely in her party goodie bags!)

Happy Birthday, Miss Melodie! Hope you enjoyed your unicorns!

rainbow unicorn cake with fondant unicorn horn

Last year for my daughter's birthday, she requested a unicorn cake. (She always requests unicorns!) So I had made her this one, with a buttercream rosette mane and a handmade fondant golden unicorn horn. 

Well, this year she asked for the same thing! But pink. And with a rainbow mane. So I obliged!

As usual, she wanted a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream, so I baked up my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book!) in two 8-inch round cake pans, cooled them, and then sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream, and fresh sliced strawberries.

Next I covered the whole thing with pink cream cheese buttercream frosting (recipe also in my book!) - first with a quick crumb coat, then 30 minutes in the fridge, and then a final coat of frosting, which I smoothed out with a long metal spatula. Then I let the cake chill in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, I was ready to decorate the cake. I used black frosting in a disposable pastry bag, fitted with a small round tip, to pipe the eyes on the front of the cake. 

Then I tinted my "rainbow" colors with Americolor gel-based food coloring, and used a large tip to pipe the buttercream rosette mane. I only had enough frosting left for three colors, so I divided the remaining frosting and chose blue and green to go with the pink cake.

The final touches were the handmade fondant unicorn horn (you can see how I made it in this post) and the white fondant ears. Although, in hindsight I should have made the ears pink. Doh!

The last color would be white, for a few "pops" of small rosettes.

At least the white rosettes kind of match the white ears?

Anyway, she loved the final cake. Even though blue and green don't actually equal rainbow. But whatever, close enough!

For her birthday party, we just invited a few of her closest friends for a small party, and we had movies and pizza and video games. And cookie decorating. And unicorn cake, of course!

Happy 8th Birthday, Miss Melodie!!!

hello kitty unicorn cake

For the past several years, when it's my birthday I make myself a cake! And it's always a Hello Kitty cake of some shape or form! This year I was inspired by unicorns, thanks to my daughter Melodie. :) She has a fascination and love of unicorns, and it has rekindled my childhood love of unicorns as well! For her birthday last year I made her a unicorn cake, complete with handmade fondant unicorn horn, and so when my birthday came around I thought it would be fun to give Hello Kitty with a unicorn horn too!

This year I wanted something light and fruity, so I settled vanilla chiffon cake, filled with lemon whipped cream and fresh blueberries.

Once all four 6-inch cake layers were filled and assembled, I covered the top and sides with freshly whipped cream, and smoothed it out with an offset spatula.

After adding a beaded border around the bottom of the cake, I simply added black eyes and whiskers and a yellow nose.

For Hello Kitty's ears I used fondant, which I rolled out to 1/8 inch thick and then used a paring knife to cut out triangles for her ears. Then I tinted a bit of fondant with red food coloring, and rolled it out as well, using a bow-shaped cookie cutter to get the perfect bow shape. Finally I finished it off by using an edible food marker to outline and add details to the bow.

And finally, the unicorn horn! (You can click here to see how I made this).

Gah!!! It makes me so happy!!! In my world, you can't go wrong with Hello Kitty and unicorns! :)

My mom invited us over and cooked up an amazing birthday meal for me! (My favorite was the chinese stuffed jalapeno peppers in the middle picture!)

And here's the inside of the cake!

Thanks to my family for celebrating with me!