Utterly stupid cupcake questions

[Ooopsadaisy]

Ok - so I'm no good at baking cakes.

Last week I mastered an (easy) chocolate cake recipe and made a choccy/cream mixture for inside and over the top. It was yummy.

Now I am bravely branching out.

I want to make those lovely cupcakes that everyone except me seems to be good at.

Questions:

Are the paper cases for cupcakes taller than ordinary fairy cake cases or is that my imagination? Do supermarkets sell both?

Are those attractive wire cake stands that hold the cupcakes in a sort of round pyramid (???) any good?

How do you get the buttercream icing into that attractive swirl? Do I need a piping bag (these scare me a bit) or can I just work it with a fork?

I probably sound really thick - any advice appreciated.

I can give you some of those answers!

the wire cupcake stands are ace- I got one off Amazon and love it!

You can do a swirl with the 'frosting' (icing) in the middle easily with a spatula if you have one... you basically put a big blob on in the middle, then spread to the sides with the spatula then do a twisty bit in the middle.... I clearly can't describe it but it is REALLY simple!

you don't need a piping bag, but you would need something if you want to do more than a basic frosting... I use an icing syringe which scared me at first but is actually mega easy.. will put a couple of pics of things I have done on my profile

no idea on cases - I just buy cupcake cases in the supermarket?!

Thanks mummy - (saying that takes me back a few years!)

I shall go forth and shop ... then bake .....then decorate!

You use the expression "frosting" - is that just buttercream icing or should I use soemthing else?

it can be any number of icings - what everyone seems to call it in the million or so books I got for christmas!

oh and the pics aren't perfect... but they are my FIRST attempt on the decorating side of cupcakes!

I will find some links to a couple of books too - I got some ace ones for decoarting ideas that look super cool but are really simple!

my fav

my stand

the cupcake queen

Thanks again - yes that was exactly the type of cupcake stand I was looking at.

In terms of decorations I was going to start simple - just get the icing right, stick on a few shop bought decorations, before getting too experimental!

How do I look at your profile for the pics of your cakes?

Sorry - I am clearly the stupidest person on here!

click on my name at the top of a post - then click on my photos

clearly you aren't THE stupidest person... I hadn't made my profile public... have now!

Haha - that'll be why I haven't got a profile either!

Cakes are fabulous!

I'm off to the shops - many, many thanks!!

Hi Ooopsadaisy, cupcake cases are different to fairy cake cases. Look out for muffin cases in the supermarket - they are what you cook cupcakes in as they're taller.

Yes, supermarkets sell both - fairy cases are much smaller.

Cupcake stands - yes they're good - if you have a branch of 'The Works' get down there - they have them for £5 (or did last week).

Icing - study ones in shops and decide what you want to do - quite a lot of shop bought ones are swirled on with a knife rather than piped on - I prefer piped, myself, but it tooks ages to get the right nozzle (a savoy tube, 13mm open star) for the effect I wanted [obsessive]

buttercream icing works well but you need to beat it for ages to get it light enough. The hummingbird bakery recipe for 'frosting' works well for me (as do their basic cupcake recipes)

If you have a 'The Works' shop near you the cupcake stands are £6 each.

Newbie lurker here, but was reading this and had to add that Home Bargains have cupcake stands for 3.50, if you have one nearby x

Wow - even cheaper! I feel ever-so-slightly aggrieved about all these super-cheap cupcake stands as when I got mine (which is too big, incidentally - it has 4 tiers and even for a party I end up making more cakes than we need, just to fill it) you could pretty much only get them in the US and they had novelty value (and were a lot more expensive)

I got given a smaller (3 tier) one for Christmas, though... so now I have to fill both

Back from shops.

Have all my ingredients but no cake stand. Will treat myself another time!

I will not be held back in my efforts!

Alert the emergency services. I'm about to enter the kitchen ..........

looking forward to seeing some pics