“The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” – Henry S. Hoskins
As our family’s ‘Birthday Season’ came to a close I knew I needed a recipe to match the creativity and artistry of the birthday honoree. This particular individual always prefers cupcakes, so that was the easy part of the recipe-finding process. As for creativity, I decided to fall back on a simple but fun display of an artist’s paint palette, which I thought was more than appropriate (considering that the birthday honoree was my boyfriend & he’s an artist!)
I baked my classic yellow cupcakes for this recipe and decorated with vanilla buttercream frosting. The cupcakes turned out great! Everyone loved the display of bright colors and it was a good thing I snapped some quick pictures because the cupcakes were devoured quickly!
The recipe calls for more frosting than might be needed, depending on how you want to decorate the cupcakes. I had actually made this exact recipe about two years ago but it didn’t turn out nearly as good as it did this time around. I basically splattered the icing over the cupcakes which I suppose was artistic in it’s own way, but I’m much happier with the piping technique. Proof that yet again, practice makes perfect, and masterpieces can be created with practice, patience, and the right mixture of butter and sugar.
Artist’s Palette Cupcakes
Adapted from, What's New Cupcake? By Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
Ingredients
- Vanilla Cupcakes - 6, baked in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple liners
- Vanilla Buttercream Frosting - 1 & 1/2 cups
- Food Coloring - various colors listed above
- Painter's palette (optional) - 1, cut from a piece of cardboard or found at arts & crafts store
Instructions
- Divide the buttercream frosting evenly among six small bowls. Make sure to keep the bowls covered with plastic wrap to prevent the top from drying.
- Tint each bowl of frosting a different color with the food colors.
- Matching the frosting color to the color of the paper liners, spread an even layer of frosting over the cupcakes (or pipe using a tip - I used Ateco tip #827).
- Arrange the cupcakes on a painter's palette, if desired, and add a paintbrush for decoration.
