It's been a long while! Since my last BGC post, I had a baby and have been working on moving, etc. Jess has had tons going on as well. For starters, her son Charlie is in the hospital again. At the risk of publicly providing too much info, I'll direct you to his Facebook page since anything she says there is OK to be shared. https://www.facebook.com/prayersforcharliecole. If you are the praying type, the more good vibes being sent his way, the better.
I know she's normally the cupcake gal and I do the cakes, but I'm switching it up today. Since little Charlie was born, it's been one baffling medical mystery after another. Many long hospital stays. Surgeries. Life going on around all that. Jess has always been a great friend. Even (maybe I should say especially) considering all she has going on. I sometimes lose my mind and complain about things like losing a house I never had because the sellers backed out, or the fact that I can't seem to handle two kids at the same time and she gives advice. And listens. Never once did she tell me to suck it up because she has real problems and THREE kids. If the roles were reversed, I can't say I wouldn't have wanted to do that.
She's an awesome person and I wish there were something I could do to help, but I keep coming up empty. She recently told me about a Facebook group where people get matched with special needs kiddos and run for them. https://www.facebook.com/groups/irunformichael/. Charlie already has a runner so I thought, "Why not bake for Charlie?".
I thought about a perfect cupcake for Jess and Charlie and naturally, unicorns came to mind. I'm pretty sure she once said that unicorns are magical so that was stuck in my head. Plus, there was a recent party at her house involving a unicorn mask...So I was off to Google. Until I Googled "Unicorn Cupcakes" I never thought to wonder what unicorn poop looked like. I ended up in a rabbit hole of weird things like the picture below. These were everywhere. You can get your fill of it here. And I even found a picture of a woman with one tattooed on her...
But on to the cupcakes. I can't remember how this came up in a search for unicorn cupcakes (probably through a Pinterest pin) but this is the recipe I used. And it didn't quite work out how I wanted, but I used this video to see a tutorial on how to frost these things. Even if you aren't going to make them, you should check out this video. I watched it 3 times because the way she said "poop" made me giggle. Watch it. Trust me.
I just wanted to post a picture of these because they're awesome. I was just shopping for pretty cupcake liners and came across these and thought they were perfect for this project. They are Reynolds brand StayBrite. They don't fade during the baking process. I liked them because of that and because the plain Reynolds liners I normally use require that I spray them with Baker's Joy prior to baking. These didn't. No, Reynolds is not paying me to say this, but if they'd like to, they know where to find me.
I tried to do this just like Amanda Cupcake told me too but it ended up looking like this. There's actually pink in there too. Well, I didn't do it JUST like she said, so this happened on a few. I didn't stop filling at the halfway mark like she said. I also *might* have been lazy and instead of moving the oven rack for the little pan with two cupcakes, I may have jammed it in next to the big pan so it was slightly tilted.
They must have been alright, my son ate one before I could get it frosted.
I didn't quite get the swirling the way I wanted. I had 4 different colors and only 2 were prominent. Hey, we can't all be Jess ;) I also wanted to use a Wilton 1A size tip to frost these since it's more poo-like than a star, but I can't find that tip anywhere. Must be a hot item here in KC because I've been looking at multiple stores.
As a final Jess-like touch, I sprinkled them with pearl dust. You can't see it well here, but I tried. I think the application was wrong. I learned after I got it home, it's supposed to be brushed on. Oops. That would have been helpful. I've got that shimmery stuff is ALL over me. Luckily, I'm not going into the office tomorrow or people will think my weekend was much more wild than it really was. Speaking of not going to the office, now I don't know who will eat these things.
Charlie, I hope you love them and that you get well soon!
~Brandi
