Page 260 - Cupcakes

Here’s how to create a fun shamrock candy garnish for your cupcakes.

Look for bags of confectionary coating wafers, sometimes called Candy
Melts (made by Wilton), at craft stores and shops that sell cake-decorating
and candy-making supplies. They come in all shades of chocolate, and also
green. Place the contents of the entire 14-ounce bag of green wafers in a
medium-size glass bowl in the microwave oven on high power for 20-
second intervals, removing and stirring, then returning to the microwave,
until they have melted and are smooth.
Using the outline of a small shamrock cookie cutter, draw as many
shamrock shapes as will fit on a piece of cardboard. Place a sheet of
parchment paper or waxed paper over the cardboard. With a small clean
paintbrush or pastry bag fitted with a small tip, brush or pipe the melted

green wafers onto the paper, filling in the outline of the shamrock below.
Once one shamrock is made, move to the next one. Once the parchment is
filled, slide the cardboard out from under it, place a fresh sheet of
parchment over the cardboard, and repeat the process until you have created
24 shamrocks. Let these harden on the kitchen counter for an hour, or, if
you are in a hurry, place the parchment on baking sheets in the refrigerator
for 15 to 20 minutes. Run a small spatula underneath the shamrocks to
loosen them, and place them on the cupcakes as a garnish.