I have something really cool to share with you guys! It's another quick and easy way to dress up your cupcakes.
Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves are self-adhesive and grease-resistant decorative paper wrappers that go around the base of cupcakes. Then you just add whatever sprinkles, candies, or other toppings you'd like to complete your design.
Created by a busy mom,
Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves come in eco-friendly and recyclable packaging. There are a dozen sleeves in each pack, and I received 2 holiday themed sets to try: Nutcracker and Delicious Drums.
The packets open at the bottom, and inside are the cupcake sleeves, detailed instructions printed on a handy door hanger for easy viewing, and a tip sheet.
 |
| Mise en place. |
For these, you can use any flavor cupcakes and icing you want. I used just plain old yellow cupcakes (from a mix because I ran short on time and ingredients) and vanilla buttercream icing. Of course, you'll want to make sure the cupcakes are completely cool before working with them. I prefer to pipe the icing onto my cupcakes because I think it's easier and less messy, but you can use a spatula if that's your preferred method. For the drums, I decided to follow the example picture and use pretzels for drumsticks.
The instructions say to ice the cupcakes first. I was hesitant to do it that way because I was worried that I would mess up the tops trying to put the sleeves on, but the instructions also say to let the iced cupcakes chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to set up before adding the sleeves. I figured it might work out okay, so for once I actually followed directions, and they came out fine. Since I was covering the tops of these with white sugar sprinkles and nonpareils, I knew that the icing had to be fresh in order for the toppings to stick. As soon as I iced each cupcake, I dipped it into the sprinkles.
I like to pour the sprinkles into a small, shallow bowl for this. The bowl needs to be wide enough for the cupcake top to fit without touching the sides.
Once I had them all iced and dipped, I put them on a tray and stuck them in the fridge as directed. While they were chilling, I went ahead and started on the nutcrackers. For these, I couldn't find any black sugar crystals, but I did have some red and silver ones, as well as some chocolate jimmies, so I had a variety of colors to play with.
 |
| Mise en place. |
While the drum cupcakes were supposed to be flat, the nutcrackers needed to have more rounded tops. To accomplish this, I piped a big mound of icing and then dipped them in the sprinkles.
In order to get the edges covered, I tilted the cupcakes and rolled them in the sprinkles. The jimmies didn't do as good of a job covering the icing, so I think next time I'll use chocolate so there isn't as much white showing through.
Then, I just repeated the process with the silver and red sugar crystals.
Again, I had to tilt the cupcakes and rotate them around in the sprinkles in order for the edges to get covered.
By the way, any leftover sprinkles can be saved for later. The easiest way I've found to get them back in their container is to dump them onto a paper towel, pull up the corners to make a funnel, and carefully pour them back into the bottle.
While the nutcrackers were enjoying their time chilling in the fridge, I finished the drums. Simply remove the backing off the adhesive strip and carefully wrap the sleeve around the outside of the cupcake, attaching the ends.
The directions say to place the cupcake on a flat surface to do this, and I highly recommend doing it that way. Trying to hold the cupcake and wrap the sleeve around it resulted in mismatched ends. The adhesive is very strong--which is a good thing because you don't have to worry about it falling off, but it also means you can't reposition it once it's attached to the other end.
 |
| Oops. |
Once the sleeve is on securely, add 2 pretzels for drumsticks, and it's done! I personally found the pretzel sticks to be a bit long, so I broke them in half. Also, I had to press the pretzels into the icing in order for them to stay put.
The same method applies for the nutcrackers. My only snafu making these was letting some sprinkles get on one of the adhesive strips, which caused it not to want to stick. Luckily, I had some clear tape handy, and nobody noticed.
 |
| Oops again. |
I think I like these topped with the silver sugar crystals best, but the red looks pretty impressive too.
The chocolate jimmies even look good on them, I'm just overly picky and would rather not have the white icing showing.
I really had a lot of fun making these. You could get much more creative with them and do all kinds of different designs. The sleeves themselves are very easy to work with because they're pretty thin and supple, while still being very sturdy. I'm rather clumsy and can be a bit heavy-handed, and I was able to use them without ripping or tearing them, so I know they can take some rough handling. Also, you don't have to worry if icing gets on them, as it wipes away easily and doesn't leave any grease spots, which is fantastic.
But hey, you don't have to take my word for it because the company is letting me host a
giveaway for their
Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves, so you have a chance to win a set of your own!
Click here to enter.
I received the Delicious Drums and Nutcracker Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves for free in exchange for my honest review.
on sale for $1 per box not too long ago. We used chocolate pudding and raspberry jam for fillings and CK Buttercream icing. I had some Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves left over from the Art Sparks event, which just happened to be Valentine's Day themed, so we used up the rest of those. They'll get distributed to various friends and acquaintances over the next few days. The kids got very creative with the other cupcakes, and it was a lot of fun.
