Royal Icing Pelican

Louisiana is "The Pelican State" and is home to some 40,000 brown pelicans (which are unusual in that they plunge from the air into the water to fish). If you're wondering why I piped this "brown" bird with gray icing, it's because they've looked gray in every photo I've found online. In addition to gray stiff consistency royal icing, you'll also need white, brown, and light blue (for their unusual eyes), round tips #12, #10, and #2, oval tip #55, a flower nail, parchment paper squares, a glue stick, a Styrofoam brick to rest the nail in, black food coloring (like Super Black Soft Gel Paste by AmeriColor), round toothpicks, and a dusting pouch filled with a 50/50 mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch. Start by sticking a parchment square to the flower nail with a dab from the glue stick. 

 Attach the #12 tip to the bag of gray icing. Hold it just above the surface, and at a 45 degree angle. Squeeze out a ball of icing, then move the tip along to elongate it into a teardrop. Stop pressure and pull the tip away.

 Attach the #10 tip to the white icing and pipe a shape like a backwards "question mark" for the neck and head, starting from the base and moving up and over. You may need to touch your fingertips to the dusting pouch and then coax the icing into this approximate shape. Allow the icing to firm up for a while.

 Pipe the bill with brown icing and the oval #55 tip. Tuck the tip against the end of the "question mark" and pipe a straight line that ends in a point at the base of the neck.

 Pipe another line on top of this one for the upper half of the bill

 Using the #2 tip and the blue icing, pipe two tiny dots for eyes once the white icing is firm.

 When the blue icing is firm, dip the point of a round toothpick into the food coloring and add two dots for pupils. Pelicans are a big deal in Louisiana; they appear on the state flag, the state seal, the official state painting, and on the bicentennial quarter; they're a good choice for a cupcake topper if you're looking to celebrate this wonderful state! Mardi Gras masks are a good choice, too.

Mardi Gras Cupcakes for Evan

Today about 200 people gathered together to remember the life of Evan Saunders, who had to leave us way too soon. Evan loved everything to do with New Orleans, and could wear a mask like no one I've ever known:

Another case in point, along with his son Aidan and wife Lisa, who designed and made all their costumes:

I wanted to pay tribute to Evan's love of partying, costumes and desserts (he was always among the first in line to sample the goodies I brought to the theater to keep the cast and crew going). I thought that cupcakes bearing some sort of Mardi Gras iconography would do the job. I started with my usual fondant set-up; powdered sugar, a rolling pin fitted with purple rings, homemade fondant in purple, green and gold, a small spatula for helping to remove cut pieces from the cutter, which in this case is a tiny Mardi Gras mask. To the right is one of those multi-purpose plastic scrapers; you can find these at almost any kitchen supply store. They're great for removing fondant from the work surface:

After powdering the work surface, I cut out the masks, one for each cupcake:

Then I laid them out on a piece of parchment paper spread over a baking rack to dry:

I'd baked lemon cupcakes the night before in camouflage cups. When he wasn't in costume, Evan was almost always clad in camouflage pants; I thought the cupcakes should reflect that by having camo on their lower halves:

While the fondant masks dried, I piped rows of different shaped "beads" across the cupcakes surfaces. I used lemon frosting colored even more yellow for this row, piped with a round #12 tip; the bag is held perpendicular to the cake, and as a bead is piped the tip remains buried in the icing. When it's pulled out any peaks that remain can be tapped out with a powdered sugar-covered fingertip:

Between rows of beads I put the cupcakes in the fridge to firm up the icing a bit; I didn't want one row smearing into its neighbor. This row of "beads" was piped using purple-colored vanilla frosting. I love this tip; it's an Ateco #105. It's almost shaped like a little castle turret, and pipes squarish grooves; very different from all the soft round edges you see in piping:

Then I piped the green beads (made from lemon frosting colored green) with an Ateco #363 tip that has lots of tiny grooves:

I finished by making duplicate rows wherever they'd fit:

I let them chill in the fridge overnight:

I decorated the masks with royal icing tip #2 dots and #16 stars…

…and the next day I assembled them at the theater. Watching Evan's son Aidan inhale all the frosting off one of them answered my internal question, "Would Evan have liked these?". I'm pretty sure they were a hit.