How to create cosmic galaxy effect frosting for cupcakes

You can’t go wrong with a bit of stardust, can you?  I love things with a cosmic pattern, from clothes to bags.  But I wondered how it would translate to cakes, and I’m pleased to say I’m happy with the results!

Look at them, all sparkly and dark.  This can be done with buttercream or cream cheese frosting, all you need is a piping bag and some gel colours and you’re good to go.

UPDATE: I’ve now created a cosmic galaxy effect full size cake too!  If you’d like to give it try then click here, and for the cupcakes, read on.

I’ve gone for cream cheese frosting here.  To make enough for 20 cakes you’ll need:

• 100g soft butter
• 180g cream cheese
• 560g icing sugar
• gel food colouring in black, blue, pink and purple
• edible glitter

First, in a freestanding or hand held mixer, beat together the cream cheese and butter for a  couple of minutes until pale and smooth.  Add the icing sugar in two stages, beating well between each, then give it another couple of minutes so it looks really smooth.

This would be delicious enough on its own, but galaxy frosting makes everything even better so here’s how you achieve it!

Divide the frosting into 4 bowls – you don’t need to measure it precisely, judging by eye is fine.  Add a couple of drops of different food colouring to each and mix well until you get the colours you want.  I ended up using just under a quarter of a teaspoon.

Now it’s time to create the galaxy swirl effect!  Take a piping bag, and pop in the nozzle of your choice.  It’s better to have something that creates ruffles rather than a plain round nozzle, so I went for an open star.  Now take a tablespoon of pink, and drop it in the piping bag.  Follow that with a tablespoon of blue, then purple, then black, and keep going with all the colours alternately until you’ve used it all up.  You should have something like this:

Don’t worry about being precise with the amounts and order, it all adds to the effect, and everything will swirl nicely together.  Before you pipe the first cake, give the piping bag a bit of a squeeze until more than one colour comes out – we want the galaxy effect from the start on the cupcakes!  Then take your first cake and pipe away.  I normally hold the piping bag upright at a 90 degree angle to the centre of the cake and squeeze the piping bag until the frosting starts to reach the edge of the cake, then as I keep squeezing, spiral the piping bag upwards in a circle until it’s a nice big swirl, then gently lift the bag away as I stop squeezing.

This is really fun to decorate cakes with!  You’ll notice how all the colours blend into each other, and every single cake looks slightly different.  All you need to finish them off is a sprinkle of edible glitter.

I hope you enjoy this technique – these cakes are a bit of a show stopper, and nowhere as difficult to make as you might expect – but you don’t need to tell anyone that!