A Buttercream Snow Day

For anyone living in southern Ontario, this past weekend was definitely a time to stay inside. The forecast called for a major wintry April storm, with temperatures in and around the freezing mark and a wide variety of non-stop precipitation. This included rain, snow, freezing rain and ice pellets to be accompanied at times by heavy winds. And Mother Nature did not disappoint. The rain began Saturday morning and by the end of Sunday evening my gardens were frosted with a covering of snow topped with a layer of ice. And the rain continued to fall. So as I prepared to cocoon myself for the weekend, I decided it would be a great time to try out the Russian Piping Tips I had recently purchased.

I discovered these last fall while leafing through a catalogue. If you haven’t seen them yet, they are designed to enable you to easily make beautiful flower shapes out of buttercream to pretty up your cupcakes. There are a variety of shape tips available including tulip, rose and daisy. The pictures were so sweet that I couldn’t resist and quickly placed an order.

As the April snow began to fall, I whipped up a lovely batch of chocolate cupcakes using a recipe of Chef Ricardo’s.  I was running low on milk and, not willing to venture out in the nasty weather, substituted coconut milk for it. The result was some of the lightest cupcakes I’ve ever tasted. They were so good on their own that it made me question whether they needed frosting. Silly thought! Of course they did. So I whipped up some buttercream, divided it up into several small bowls and coloured each. Now it was time to play!

After fitting a rose icing tip on a piping bag and filling it with pink buttercream, I faced my first cupcake. I was thrilled with how easily I was able to replicate the flowers I’d seen in the catalogue photos. I discovered with a little practice that the trick is to apply a fair bit of pressure at the base of the flower and then lessen it at the top. I have to say, the ‘Secrect of Macarons’ course that I had taken at Le Cordon Bleu came in handy here. Adding some little leaves in green, I was left with these lovely little spring treats. So in the midst of an April winter storm, with the help of some Russian piping tips, a sweet spring garden sprouted in my kitchen.

Cuisine Tip: Always keep a box of powdered coconut milk on hand. It can get you out of a pinch when you’re running low on milk.