Pokey-what?!
My feelings toward Pokemon have recently turned from indifference to loathing. When the game was invented I was too old to care. But now I have to care because I work in public safety. And this Pokemon Go thing seems to rid people of their common sense... which is where my job usually comes in. Because if you wander into people's backyards, or are skulking around closed businesses at 2am, people are going to call me. And when you're so engrossed in your phone that you wander into traffic, people are going to call me.
Put your blanking phones down, people. Seriously.
Luckily the frequency of our Pokemon calls seems to have diminished quite a bit lately. Maybe Darwin kicked in, or maybe people just got bored. Who knows. But I acknowledge that there are plenty of people out there who love Pokemon and don't act the fool over it. People who love the Pokemon of the 90's, back when it was just cards or something. I don't get it, but whatever floats your boat.
So a few weeks ago when one of my dearest friends asked me to bake cupcakes for his brother's baby shower in Pokemon theme, I was kind of nervous. Coming up with cool Star Wars cupcakes is easy because I love Star Wars. Figuring out cool Pokemon cupcakes, not so easy for me.
Enter Etsy.
I'm going to shamelessly plug this lady's Etsy shop because I was so happy with the cupcake toppers she makes:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/PurdyMays
I didn't think it possible, but they allowed me to make somewhat classy Pokemon cupcakes.
Plus the quality was fantastic, she was super nice and she had them to me within a few days. And she has soooo much cute stuff that isn't freaking Pokemon! I have a feeling I'll be ordering from her again.
This baby shower also gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my new Ball Russian piping tips. These things are super weird looking, but make a really beautiful ribbony effect. A few days before the shower, I whipped up a tiny batch of buttercream frosting to test them out. I'd seen some serious fails with these tips when I was searching them on YouTube, so I was afraid to try them on the cupcakes the day of the shower. It took a few minutes of practice, but it didn't take long to get the hang of them. I held them centered and pretty much touching the top of the cupcake. I squeezed with a good amount of pressure and twisted the cupcake back and forth and back and forth, while slowly raising the tip.
They came out so pretty! The weird thing is that they have a big hole in the center. That's easily fixed by using a large closed star tip and doing the same back and forth motion right in the middle. The design from that fits in seamlessly with the rest of it.
Disclaimer: the test one didn't turn out quite as pretty as the baby shower ones, but that's because it was a hastily whipped together batch of buttercream. It was like 1am and I didn't want to wake the Kraken, so i literally used a wire whisk and made enough to frost the 4 naked/ugly cupcakes I had left over from the day before.
When you have a kid and work graveyard, you have to learn to improvise, right?
In the end I was happy with how they turned out. But, most importantly, the happy preggers couple was happy with them. And I LOVE that feeling!
These are the piping tips I used: