This week I decided to try my hand at decorating cupcakes. Although this is something I have done many times before, I usually just slap some store-bought icing over the cupcakes and add a bunch of
sprinkles on top. I wanted to learn how to professionally decorate using different decorating tips and home-made buttercream icing. I followed a gluten-free vanilla cupcake recipe by Gluten-Free Palate. There was a frosting recipe included on the same page, which was super helpful because it meant I did not have to go searching for one. First, I had to gather supplies, as this was my first time attempting to decorate professionally. I found these Cake Mate decorating tips for just under $4 at my local grocery store. For the piping bags, I just used some disposable ones my mom had leftover from a previous decorating project. If you do not have piping tips or decorating bags, here is a great YouTube video explaining how to create the different tips with nothing but a Ziploc bag, scissors, and tape.
In preparation, I watched a TON of YouTube tutorials on cupcake decorating. I learned and received inspiration from each of them, as they all showed how to use different decorating tips in varying ways. This video was the best one I found, as it outlined both classic and unique designs using five different tips. The video was entertaining, provided a great deal of explanation, and also shared some general decorating tricks to help you get the perfect cupcake. I really appreciated that it had a quick demonstration of each of the designs at the end, as this made them easy to refer back to after watching. The most important thing I learnt was how to put a decorating tip into an icing bag. I also learnt how to make many different kinds of cupcake designs, most of which I never even knew existed before. However, I quickly realized decorating cupcakes is not as easy as the professionals make it seem.
To document my decorating process, I made a tutorial video using iMovie. I had so much fun both filming and editing the video, and I have to say I am quite proud of the results! iMovie had all the features I needed; I was able to spilt or delete clips, mute, speed up videos, and add a voiceover. I found the app very easy to use, and there was only a few things I had to look up online, one of them being how to adjust the crop of your video.
Here you can see an explanation of the iMovie features I used to make my video. I used the Skitch app to make notes on my screenshots. Simply press on a video clip (it will turn yellow when you do this) to access the editing menu options. The first button allows you to spilt a video in half, duplicate a clip, or delete a clip you do not need. I used this feature the most, as I had a lot of extra footage to delete. The second button allows you to adjust the speed of your video, and the third button controls the volume, including the ability to mute a video. The last two buttons allow you to add text or a filter to your video, but I did not use either of these features.
To add a voiceover, press the plus button in the top left-hand corner of the editing screen. Then, press voiceover and it will allow you to start recording. The blue lines labelled recordings that you can see are my voiceovers. My favourite feature of iMovie was that I was able to film, edit, and upload my video to YouTube all from my phone. I did not have to find a way to send the video to my laptop by email, which we all know never works, or some other method. Although I would definitely recommended it, I am not sure if I can see myself using iMovie in my future classroom simply because it is unlikely every student would have access to an Apple device. I would never want to create an assignment using a tool not all my students had access to. I would, however, use iMovie to create videos for my students. I think it would be the perfect tool to use for me to edit and upload math videos for my students to watch if they wanted to review a certain lesson or topic!
4 Comments
Tamantha K.
Sarah, those look lovely!
Also, your description of iMovie is great. I use it on my laptop, so it was neat to see iMovie features on a phone. I think iMovie could be used in the class for a project if you have access to devices with iMovie at school. Like you said not every student has access to iMovie at home, so I think school’s a great place to try it out.
Sarah Stroeder
Thank you so much Tamantha! As a kid, I never had Apple devices provided in my school. Now that you mention it though, the classroom I completed my field placement in did have a few iPad’s. If the devices were provided by the school, I think iMovie would be a great option for students to learn about video editing!
Caitlin Kendall
Hey Sarah,
This was a really great and informative post! I loved your video showing your cupcake icing techniques, those cupcakes look awesome at the end! You also provided a lot of great information about using iMovie and skitch. I have always used iMovie on my laptop and really liked the app itself. I was really excited to hear that using it on your phone works just as good as this is definitely something I am going to start incorporating! Thanks for sharing!
Caitlin
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