Cotton Candy Buttercream Frosting

My sister, Emily, and her husband, Craig, decided to take a trip to my mom's house this week. So, I took that as an opportunity to take a mini-vacation to Mom's as well. Whenever we are together we usually end up spending every second baking or shopping. Today we experimented with a few new recipes that we found online, and this frosting was my favorite. I found it on Creative Hostess a few days ago.

The frosting only takes a few ingredients. The cotton candy was harder to find than we expected. We ended up finding this kind at Blockbuster, and it worked out really well.

We didn't want to spend a lot of time making cupcakes from scratch, so we just used Funfetti mix instead.

Then we started on the icing. Be careful with this part. We accidentally added all the Confectioners' sugar at once, but it worked out fine.

The recipe says to use red food coloring, but we didn't think that would look right with the pink cotton candy, so Em mixed three drops of neon purple coloring with one drop of neon turquoise coloring, which worked out perfectly.

Then we added in the cotton candy.

All the cupcakes that Em decorated look great. The ones that I did, however, look like someone just randomly dumped some icing on them. Oh well, it's the taste the counts, right? Right.

Make sure not to put the cotton candy on top until you are serving the cupcakes. We went to eat these after they had been sitting out for a while and the cotton candy had completely wilted and turned into a little ball of blue and pink sugar. 

These cupcakes were amazing. They sound really sugary, but I promise you they really aren't that bad. They are definitely sweet, but not as super sweet as I expected them to be. They were the perfect treat to end a long week. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 Cup (2 Sticks) of butter
• 6 to 8 Cups confectioners' sugar (we used 7)
• 1/2 Cup milk
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 Handful cotton candy, plus more for the garnish (optional)
• Food Coloring

Directions

1. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla.
3. Set your blender to medium and beat the mixture until smooth and creamy, about 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Gradually add the remaining sugar,1 cup at a time (this is where we messed up), beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to to spread on your cupcakes. You may not need all the sugar.
5. Add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly until it is reached the color you want. 
6. Stir in the small pieces of cotton candy, stirring until incorporated. 
7. Use and store the icing at room temperature. It will set if chilled.
8. Optional: Tear off chicks of cotton candy and use as a garnish. Again, don't do this until you are ready to serve the cupcakes.