It’s been a year since I started this so-called biz. How do remember the date? It’s been one year since I made custom Pinkalicious cupcakes for a coworker’s daughter’s birthday. This year, Hello Kitty cupcakes were requested. Due to time and budget constraints, I had to think about how to make some basic cupcakes that still clearly screamed cutesy Japanese white cat without going overboard. (BTW, did you know that Hello Kitty is 37 years old???)
The abstract art idea popped into my head after browsing the ThinkGeek catalog (I love the stuff from that store!) and seeing a tee shirt that was a play on Hello Kitty. It was just a white cube with the trademark bow with the headline “Hello Schröddy” and that was perfect for a cost-effective cupcake design. I got a kick out of the physics joke about Schrödinger’s cat, too (yes, I wholeheartedly embrace my nerdiness).
I made a super light vanilla cake batter and whipped up some white vanilla frosting for basic swirl designs. That part was easy. Making the bows turned out to be a bigger undertaking than I expected, even when I used *gasp* ready-made fondant. Yeah, I know… I said I’d never use it again, but I was in a pinch. And in hindsight, MAYBE I should have just made my own. The bright red fondant-from-a-tub was the perfect color, but it dried up soooo quickly. After rolling out the fondant, I was barely able to cut out shapes for three bows @ max without the fondant starting to crack. WTF? I had to toss a chunk of it out b/c the fondant was rock hard and useless, so I just rolled out a small ball of it and cut a few shapes @ a time. I don’t have bow-shaped cutters and had to improvise so I used circle cutters that were two different sizes: a tiny one for the middle of the bow and the sides are actually pinched-in larger circles. After making about ten of these, I realized I left out a little nub on each side of the bow but decided eh, I was over it. They look pretty close though, right? The fondant dried within minutes, so I immediately placed each bow on the corner of each cupcake.
There you have it: abstract Hello Kitty cupcakes with signature red bows. So simple and yet so kawaii! And I saw a pic of a really happy birthday girl loving her cupcakes =)
