Island Bites: Tips to make professional looking cupcakes

You love the picture perfect cupcakes you buy at a shop, but every time you try to make them at home the result is not even close. Do you ever wonder what are you doing wrong?

Here are some tips to make professional looking cupcakes:

1. Don’t use white cupcake liners. Solid color cupcakes liners, specially black or brown, make cupcakes look elegant. If you want a fun and playful look, you could use other colors or printed ones.

2. Make sure to fill each liner correctly. If you under fill your liners, your cupcakes will look sad and cheap. But do not overfill the liners because the batter will spill over the edges and you'll get flat cupcakes.

3. Change the color of your cake. If you’re making a particular flavored cupcake, you could always add food coloring to the batter. But don’t add too much or the cupcakes might not taste the same.

4. Don’t be monochromatic. White frosting can look really nice, but if you choose to add food coloring to your frosting, do not use the same color of your liners.

5. Use a piping bag to decorate your cupcakes. If you don’t have a piping bag, you could use an ordinary plastic bag, or even make one with parchment paper.

6. Use extra large decorating tips. These tips will give height to your frosting and will make it look fuller. Smaller tips will make your frosting look flat.

7. Choose your topping. There are a lot of options when decorating your cupcakes. Sprinkles (colored crystal sugar, nonpareils, dragées, jimmies, etc.), nuts, cookies and fruits are great options.

8. Use fondant. Have fun making fondant figurines. It is the best way to personalize your cupcakes. You could buy white fondant and add food coloring to get the color you want. You could also buy colored fondant. If you prefer, you can make fondant at home. Marshmallow fondant is easy to make and tastes really good.

9. Display your cupcakes. If you’re having a party or any special event, display your pretty cupcakes. Buy a cupcake stand. There is a great variety of stands. You can buy a stand for less than 20 dollars. (Cardboard and plastic cupcake stands for less than 10 dollars.)