With social media making it easy to share information at the click of a button, it can be very difficult to keep a secret – especially a secret as exciting as the gender of your baby. Try delivering the big news with a big bite – of cupcake, that is. Throw yourself a fun gender-reveal party and invite your loved ones. Or if you’d rather save the surprise for yourselves, have your doctor write the sex on a piece of paper at your appointment, and have a friend make these treats for you.
Gender-reveal cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes
Ingredients
1 box cake mix or your favorite cake recipe
1 package prepared fondant, white
8-ounce package of cream cheese, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pink and blue gel food coloring
Directions
Step 1: Using your favorite recipe or cake mix, bake one batch of standard-sized cupcakes according to package directions. Remember to use fun, color-coordinated cupcake liners to play up the theme!
Step 2: While your cupcakes are baking, prepare the fondant decorations. Fondant is fully edible and made mostly of sugar, but is malleable and easy to shape. Form two golf ball-sized amounts of fondant; using a toothpick and the gel food coloring, tint one blue and one pink. Press the fondant into a silicone regular cupcake mold to make professional-looking décor for your cakes. Keep fondant sealed in an air-tight container when not in use.
Step 3: After your cupcakes have fully cooled, use a cupcake corer or teaspoon to hollow out the middle of each cake.
Step 4: Prepare frosting with a stand mixer or hand mixer. Mix cream cheese until you achieve a smooth and even consistency; mix in one cup of powdered sugar at a time, then add vanilla and mix in. Occasionally scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Keep mixing until ingredients are well incorporated and frosting looks smooth.
Step 5: Add a small amount of either pink or blue gel coloring to two cups of frosting; set the rest of the frosting aside. Stir the tinted frosting until it achieves an even color tone, then pipe into the hollows of the cupcakes.
Step 6: Using a piping bag fitted with a large star tip, frost a large swirl onto the cupcakes with the remaining white frosting, making sure to completely hide the surprise color in the middle of the cake. Top with the fondant decorations you made earlier.
