Softened butter means:

That your frosting won't slide off the cupcake, as mine did.

*If you are a professional/semi-professional baker/decorator and you know what I did wrong, keep it to yourself for the moment!  READ ON!!!

What decorating tip did I use?  Why the star of course, can't you tell?! 

These red velvet cupcakes are for my friend Hilary, whom I adore and in turn she adores me and my baking.  She also REALLY likes red velvet anything.  She is hosting a Pampered Chef party, which I am the consultant for.  My gift to her is a dozen cupcakes. 

So, I went to my favorite site, Annie's Eats to find her fabulous recipe.  Which I've made before and had no problems with.  I baked away and let the cupcakes cool while I prepared the frosting, which I've also made before.  I prepared my piping bag and started frosting away noticing that my icing was drooping.  I blame the butter.

I was also working on Salted Caramel Mocha Coffe Frappuccino cupcakes but decided to frost those in the morning.  I went to bed blaming the butter.

My son and I go up this morning and followed our usual routines: diaper, breakfast, sign language videos and some zombie-like time for mom.  I started thinking about the caramel cupcakes and pulled out the butter to warm, reminding myself not to let it get to room temperature.  We played for a while and then I figured the butter was warm enough. 

So I got on with completing the cupcakes and made my favorite vanilla buttercream recipe, substituting 1/4 cup of shortening for some of the butter (makes the frosting a but stiffer without having to add more sugar).  I had used my sifter the night before, washed it by hand and set it to dry.  Or so I thought.  When I started sifting the powdered sugar I noticed the top was going down but nothing was coming out of the bottom.  except some sugary paste.  GRRRRRR!  So I dumped the rest of the sugar into the bowl, mixed it up and finished the caramel cupcakes. 

And as I was spreading caramel and sprinkles on these fantastic looking cupcakes, it hit me.  LIKE A TON OF BRICKS!  It wasn't the butter's fault.  The cream cheese frosting didn't have enough powdered sugar! 

But they still taste amazing!

Droopy frosting and all!