Royal Baby Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Fill a 12 hole muffin tin with paper muffin cases. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale. Add the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the flour (no need to sift). Add the vanilla and mix. Put mixture into cake tin and smooth over the top. Bake for 15-20 mins. After, remove from oven and put the cakes onto a cooling rack.
2. Meanwhile, beat the royal icing sugar with the water in an electric mixer for 4 mins. Take out 3 tbsps icing and place in a small bowl, add red food colouring until you achieve a suitable pink for the mouths. Take out another 3 tbsps icing and add the black extra food colour until you achieve a suitable colour for the eyelids. Tint the remaining icing with a tiny bit of the red colour to achieve a pale pink skin tone.
3. Cream together the butter and cream cheese in an electric mixer. Add the icing sugar and beat for 5 minutes until it has the texture of whipped cream. Take out a quarter of the icing and colour it yellow for the hair. Divide the remaining icing in two and colour half baby pink and half baby blue. (If you want to you can do all the remaining icing either pink or blue).
4. Use a palette knife to cover the cupcake with the pale pink icing. Allow it to dry. Fill a piping bag with an Ateco 844 nozzle with pink/blue icing. Pipe a swirl around the outside of each cupcake. This is the bonnet. Fill a piping bag with an Ateco 842 nozzle with yellow icing. Using this pipe one or three small ‘iced gems’ under the bonnet as the hair.
5. Fill a piping bag with the black royal icing and another with the pink royal icing. Snip off just the very end of the bag and pipe two eyelids with the black and a mouth with the pink. Finish the Royal Baby Cupcakes with a couple of mimosa balls as the pom-poms on the bonnets.

 You will also need 5 disposable piping bags and the following nozzles: Ateco 844 & Ateco 842