French Vanilla Hello Kitty Cupcakes

Please be aware that this was pretty much my very first attempt in piping anything onto any sort of baked goods. :-)

Wanting to make a birthday cake for my daughter's 3rd Birthday Party, I came across this French Vanilla Cake Recipe on Misshomemade.com. I wanted to try it out before making the birthday cake, so I used it to make some French Vanilla Hello Kitty cupcakes for her actual birthday. The batter was enough for 18 cupcakes and if there was anything I would change, I might use a little less Vanilla. Other than that, I really liked the taste of the cupcakes, especially the "crusty" tops.

My sister-in-law gave me an awesome Frosting Recipe she swears by and considering this was the first and only frosting recipe I've ever tried to pipe anything, it turned out pretty well.

Decorating the lovely cupcakes with Hello Kitty was a different story - and quite frankly, quite the adventure. I'd like to mention at this point, that I am not very artistically inclined, so considering, a couple of the cupcakes actually did resemble Hello Kitty, while most of them resembled "Hello Piggy". However, the main thing is that my little girl recognized Hello Kitty right away - or so said Daddy. My other excuse for the un-professional looking Hello Kitty cupcakes, other than me not being very artsy, is that I truly did not have any of the proper tools (decorating tips), nor did I have enough piping bags or the correct food colouring. At one point I actually resorted to tooth picks to draw the whiskers and such.

It was harder than I anticipated to find a simple Hello Kitty Design that I could pipe onto the cupcakes, but after some googling I found i heart baking, which is a great blog with professional looking pictures and neat & yummie looking recipes.

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