cupcake decorating

These are from last night's cake decorating class. They're somewhat sad-looking; I was a little late to class and never quite recovered from feeling harried. The flowers, fruit, heart and bears are straight from the book, but the lavender-yellow creation is all my very own. I did that one at home this afternoon. It's not attractive, but it does use one of the techniques we learned last night. C. was chomping at the bit to devour the whole batch, but I told him he couldn't finish them off until I had finished decorating and photographing them all. He proclaimed the devil's food cupcakes delicious (it's been one of the few things he's managed to eat since he got his palate expander earlier this week) but I can't take any credit; the cake is from a box and the frosting is the usual Crisco-laden Wilton class buttercream icing. Actually, even C.'s not a fan of this icing, but he said it doesn't taste as bad with the boxed cake mix. I figure that's because he's accustomed to that particular synthetic taste combination, having eaten plenty of boxed cake mixes with ready-made (and shortening-heavy) canned frosting. We've come a long way, as he now largely prefers homemade baked goods (except for homemade brownies -- we're still working on that!).