Cotton Candy Cupcakes!

So ever since I heard about the cotton candy vodka, I've been wanting to make some cotton candy cupcakes. Well, I couldn't find the vodka, so I had to make it work without it.

THE INGREDIENTS:

I'm not really sure what I would describe cotton candy as tasting like. It is really sugary and sweet, and doesn't really taste like anything else. So when I couldn't find any cotton candy flavor or extract, I had a hard time coming up with other ingredients to use. Well, I finally settled on using actual cotton candy, cream soda, blueberry pop, raspberry extract, and cotton candy jelly beans.

THE CUPCAKE:

I did a basic white cupcake recipe for the cake and then tried to add the flavor after. I didn't really have a recipe, so I just added some of the cream soda, blueberry pop, and raspberry flavor to the batter and made a cotton candy reduction.

The cotton candy had a really cool colorful fizzy reaction with the pop!
The batter ended up tasting really sweet and somewhat like cotton candy. To add to the cotton candy effect, I decided to layer the batter in three different colors: pink, blue, and yellow.

THE FROSTING:

I wanted to make a cotton candy buttercream frosting, so I used my favorite buttercream recipe and tried to add cotton candy flavor in every capacity that I could think of: the same reduction from before, actual pieces of cotton candy, and a cotton candy syrup that I made. It ended up being a purple color due to the pink and blue color of the cotton candy.

I used my 806 tip for the first time, and this is the piping it created. (I still need more practice with it!)

THE TOPPINGS:

To decorate the top, I used cotton candy and cotton candy jelly beans. Here's the finished product!

Enjoy!