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How to Fill Cupcakes

A few weeks ago I made some awesome (can I say that about my own stuff?) cupcakes to celebrate the Avengers movie coming out. Underneath that fondant and buttercream there was actually some caramel inserted into these cupcakes! If you want to fill cupcakes the number of filling options available are never ending! Popular fillings are things like lemon curd, buttercream, ganache, jam and caramel. I went with the simple option after Googling around for a good recipe and failing to find one with ingredients we have in NZ and that aren't going to make me set the kitchen on fire (I'm scared of heating sugar!) I bought Nestle Caramel Filling. It wasn't cheap at $3.98 but if you're making a big bunch of cupcakes it's not so bad (I only made 12.) There are two main ways to insert a filling into a cupcakes. Firstly, inserting the filling. This can be done with a piping bag and if you're fancy and have a Bismarck tip this is really helpful! The second method is to scoop out some cupcake and spoon in your filling, I like to call this the "cut and paste technique". This method is a little messier but at least you can see how much filling you're putting in (unlike inserting it.)

Piping Filling into Cupcake:

1) Assemble piping bag with appropriate tip, I'm using the Bismarck tip which is designed especially to fill cupcakes. Once you're sorted prop it up in a tall glass or container so you can fill it easily.

2) Spoon filling into the piping bag. 3) Insert tip into cupcakes and swirl it around a few times to give the filling room to spread. 4) Squeeze filling into cupcake until you can see a tiny bit popping out from the hole. 5) Ice with buttercream as usual on top.

Cut and Paste Technique:

1) Use a sharp knife and cut a small hole (or big if you want lots of filling!) on an angle so it looks a bit like a pyrimad when you remove the cake. 2) Remove cake from hole and set aside (you'll use this again)
3) Spoon filling into hole in cupcakes. 4) Cut the piece of cake taken from the cupcake so that you are left with just a lid.
5) Replace the "lid" of the cupcake, this is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. It doesn't really matter how it looks as you'll be covering it with icing anyway! 6) Ice with buttercream on top as usual.

As you can see both techniques are fine to use it's up to you. It really doesn't matter how they look in the end because you can cover it with delicious buttercream icing!