Sugar Swings! Serve Some: June 2016

Friday, June 24, 2016

Harry Potter Butterbeer - 3 ways


After our 2nd trip down to Orlando's Universal Studio's this year I came home dreaming of Butterbeer! So of course I had to make some at home.

There are 2 versions at WWOHP - the regular and the frozen.  I love them both!

I made the regular butterbeer and also a grown up version (made with spiced rum!).  Since I had some leftover I also made a frozen popsicle version.  They should definitely add this to the menu at WWOHP! Awesome on a hot summer day.


In case you haven't been able to make the trip to see Harry Potter land at Universal Studios here are some of my favorites from this trip.

There are now 2 sides to the park.  We had been to the Hogsmeade side before but now you can also take the Hogwarts Express over to the Diagon Alley .  


Me on Hogwarts Express enjoying a fine butter beer!  The experience it pretty cool.  They have some cool scenes from the movies as part of the experience so you feel like you are in one of the cars.  They even have shadows that walk by and talk so it feels like Harry and crew are on the train.


The Knight Bus complete with shrunken head that will ask you questions (or yell at you) 


Diagon Alley - Super cool just to walk around with your mouth wide open in amazement or smiling ear to ear!


Gringotts! The dragon breathes real fire randomly.


Inside Gringotts you can see goblins hard at work while you are waiting for the Escape from Gringott's Ride


And of course enjoying more than one butterbeer!


As you can see the parents may have enjoyed WWOHP more than our kids but it's really so very awesome.  My kiddo *finally* started reading the books a couple weeks ago so I can't wait to go back with him to experience it all again.

And if you like butterbeer too, check out the easy recipes here on sheknows!

You may also like these Harry Potter Butter Beer Cupcakes!


Sunday, June 5, 2016

Piped Buttercream Flower Cupcakes (made with Russian piping tips)


Have you seen the neat new piping tips all over the interwebs lately?? If you search "Russian piping tips" you can find all kinds of examples of them and the pretty flowers they let you make.  Needless to say I had to get some.


Look at these neat and detailed designs built into the tips!


To pipe the flowers, start by adding some frosting to plastic wrap.  Use any color(s) you like.  If you want a different color in the center of the flower, use another color in the middle of the frosting.  


Wrap the plastic wrap up so you have a long "log" of buttercream.

Mix and match colors.  That will give you some really pretty colors in your flowers.


Add your tip to a piping bag - they are pretty large.  Cut off the end of the plastic wrap and icing log then insert that end into the icing tip.  Push the icing down until you see the icing coming out of the tip.


Pipe the flower by adding some pressure and pulling up to form the flower.  After a little practice this gets much easier.


For a final touch add some buttercream green leaves.


And you get some perfect little flower cupcakes.  I can't stop making these little fun flowers.  They are easy to make so you can add them to any cupcakes or brownies to bring to parties.  The reaction is always so great because they look like they are hard to make or that you need some major piping expertise.  In reality they are really very simple with these tips.  Save any leftover icing you have from other projects to make these flowers.  Single color flowers are pretty, but the subtle multi color flowers are my favs so far.  I got my tips on Amazon but they are available a lot of places now too.

If you want to see a video of this technique check out Lindsay Ann Bakes! She's awesome and shows you the step by step how to!