A friend just got me the book: Hello, Cupcake!  Check out the Hello, Cupcake Website.  And their Blog!!

It came in the mail yesterday, right as I was about to make cupcakes (Good timing!)

After flipping through the book, I decided I had all the ingredients (wouldn’t have to run another errand!) for the Butterfly Cupcakes.  Here’s how it went:

I started with Duncan Hines Triple Chocolate Fudge mix.  Made it per instructions but added a 1/2 bag of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter.

Then I used my new favorite filling, Chocolate Whipped Cream.  See the recipe on Wilton.com, except I added a 1/4 cup of Piping Gel to add stability since hopefully we wouldn’t eat all 30 of them today!  After the cupcakes cooled, I used a Wilton Tip #230 and a disposable plastic bag to fill them with the whipped cream.

I topped the cupcakes with yellow icing.  I used Kay’s Cream Cheese Icing, previously posted on my blog.  Instead of 1 tsp of butter extract, I used 1 tsp of Almond extract.  Yummy!!!  To ice the cupcakes I used  Wilton #2D tip.  I find it easier than a spatula.

I made the butterflies using dark chocolate candy melts for the outline and red candy melts for inside.  I traced the butterfly templates in the Hello Cupcake book onto parchment paper.  (They call for wax paper, but I didn’t have any.  Parchment worked just as well!!)

I melted the candy melts in disposable icing bags in the microwave at 10 second intervals until liquid-y.  Then cut off a tiny corner of each bag and traced the outline in dark chocolate then filled in the middles with the red.  Using a toothpick, I pulled the dark chocolate into the red. 

Tip:  Be sure to wipe the toothpick after each dip and swipe through the red.  This prevents the red from getting in the dark chocolate parts.

Tip 2:  If you dip the toothpick into the dark chocolate then lift up as you pull into the red.  This allows more of the brown to show through.

Once the butterflies were dried, I peeled them gently off the parchment.  It helped to lift a corner of the parchment.  And I only broke a small piece of antenna peeling them off (a small victory for me!!)

Finished butterfly cupcakes

Put the wing halves into the icing about 1/4 inch apart.  Pipe in a series of round body segments with brown icing.  Then put the antenna in the head.  Try to

Finished butterfly