Cupcake fun with D

Our seven year old son was home from school today, and we were wanting to do something creative together, so I suggested maybe we could do some baking.

D loves cupcakes and I am wanting to improve my piping and decorating skills, so we decided to make some cupcakes together. I made the actual cakes and then D did most of the decorating, even had a pretty good attempt at piping the frosting on top! I only managed to do a couple of the large pink ones before he was eager to take the piping bag off me! Then he went to town a bit with the silver cachous and sprinkles. We thought they looked very pretty by the time they were finished.

I am pleased that I have been able to source a supplier of natural food colours again. I really don't like using artificial food colours and would rather use plain buttercream icing/frosting. In the past I have used berry juice (like blueberry or blackberry) to make a pink/purple colour, but that is a little extra work and can add a little too much liquid to the icing/frosting especially if wanting a darker colour. I used to buy natural food colour from the supermarket but they don't seem to stock it anymore which is a shame. So if you live in NZ and you're wanting natural food colour, I suggest you check out the Naturally Cakes website.

The sprinkles are also natural colours, again though, I'm not sure my supermarket still stocks these so when they run out I will try the ones from Naturally Cakes.

Do you make cupcakes? What is your favourite way to decorate them?

Note: by the way I am not associated in any way with Naturally Cakes, just thought I would share this info about natural colours in case anyone is interested :-)