So, in prep for the Bee-Day cake, I was practicing basketweave and grass techniques with buttercream icing.

Well, you can’t frost nothingness (sorry sweet-toothed existentialists), so I made cupcakes.  Amaretto spice cupcakes with hazelnut creamcheese icing, to be exact.  Yum.  The groovy thing about making cupcakes to practice is that it’s easy to give away cupcakes.  The bad thing is that the techniques don’t really transfer as well as I’d hoped…in that doing the grass and basketweave on a cupcake gives your wrist plenty of time to unkink before you move to the next one.  Doing the cake, I found myself having to stop a lot and shake out my hand.  I think a less-stiff frosting may be easier, but the cream cheese really gunks up the pastry bag and tips.  Still, I’m in love with the grass, and the little mini baskets turned out to be tres cute.

So, here are the practice cupcakes:

1. cupcakes 007, 2. cupcakes 006, 3. cupcakes 005, 4. cupcakes 003, 5. cupcakes 002, 6. cupcakes 001

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.