These cupcakes will be a home run for any sports loving family. Here's how to decorate cupcakes to look like baseballs, tennis balls, basketballs and soccer balls, with some easy tips from professional baker and author Liv Hansen for the Betty Crocker Kitchens.
Liv Hansen shows us two creative ways to display these winning sports cupcakes - a cupcake tree or sports field turf.
LAURIE: If you’re planning something special for the sports lover in your life, consider making these winning cupcakes. They’re perfect for a birthday party, or for game day, or even a post-game party. I’m Laurie Gelman for howdini.com, and this is Liv Hansen for Betty Crocker Kitchens. Liv is going to show us how we can easily create these very cool cupcakes. I’m so excited about this. But I have to tell you. The first thing I love is the way you displayed them.
LIV: Well that’s a cupcake tree, but I’m going to show you another fun way of displaying them.
LIV: We’re going to make some Astroturf.
LIV: What you’re going to need is some shredded coconut and green food coloring.
LAURIE: Okay, I see where this is going.
LIV: And a plastic bag.
LIV: And we’re just going to, want to pour that in there?
LAURIE: Yep, we’ve got it.
LIV: Okay. Now, want to hold that open for me? I’m going to put a few drops of green food coloring in.
LAURIE: Guess you don’t need much, huh?
LIV: No, we’ll see. Let’s try that. And start to close that up. And start to move that around and mush it, sort of massage it.
LIV: We have one ready to go.
LIV: It ends up looking like that. So what we’re going to do is, we’re just going to open this up and sprinkle it on the plate.
LAURIE: Oh that looks really great.
LIV: Doesn’t that look great? So it’s time to frost the cupcakes.
LIV: We have a few colors to choose from. You can make baseballs using just plain old vanilla frosting, or you can use tennis ball green.
LAURIE: That is tennis ball green, very good.
LIV: Some orange for basketballs.
LIV: And also red for the stitching on the baseballs.
LAURIE: All done, I’m guessing, with foodcoloring.
LIV: All done with food coloring. Right. And you could also just use chocolate. Sometimes you might just want to mix black, but it can be a hard color to get. But a nice replacement is just using a dark, dark chocolate frosting.
LIV: So let’s start frosting.
LIV: Would you like to do a tennis ball?
LAURIE: Sure, I’d love to.
LIV: So that’s the green. And I’ll do a basketball to start. And basically just put a dollop, right on top. And then spread it around. I like to turn the cupcake as I do it to try to get it evenly coated. And then, let me get some white ones.
LAURIE: Does it matter which side of the spatula you use? I noticed you’re using the bottom, and I was using the top.
LIV: Well, I think that you get more pressure, more even pressure if you use the bottom, but definitely feel free to use either side, whatever you’re comfortable with.
LIV: Okay. So now it’s time to do some of the over-piping. I’m going to start with the red to make the stitching on the baseball. And I’m using a little pastry cone that I made out of cellophane. First I’m going to do an arch, and then another one opposite it. And then, to make the little stitching, you’re going to squeeze and hold in place, and the pull up a little bit. And as you pull up you release the pressure and you’ll get a little point. For more accent, you can actually draw the initial arch in darch chocolate, and then do the stitching over it.
LIV: Makes a nice contrast. Why don’t you try your tennis ball? Great.
LIV: There you go! And for the soccer ball, you’re going to draw a pentagon in the center, and then some lines coming out from it, and then I like to continue that pattern, down where the lines meet, make little triangles at the bottom. And for the basketball, I do a curved line in the center, and then I cross that, and then I do a more curved line that looks like a ‘U’, overlapping it.
LAURIE: Oh, that looks great. Put, ‘Go Team’ on one of them?
LIV: Oh, that’s a good idea. A little boy would love this for his birthday party. Or even a little girl. Go, team, go! You know what’s great about cupcakes, and this is something my grandmother taught me. She would bake dozens of them, stick them in the freezer, and then she’d bring them out, you know, one or two at a time if you were good, or maybe a whole bunch if the family was over, and she’d just serve them up.
LIV: You can actually freeze these cupcakes for up to two months, as long as they’re in an air-tight container.
LAURIE: And then you just put fresh frosting on them, and do want you want. Very smart, you’re right, she was smart, and so are you. Thanks, Liv.