Tinkerbell cake...

I made a tinkerbell cake for my cousin for her 3rd birthday. I had looked at a few tinkerbell cakes on the internet so had a rough idea of what I wanted to do. As long as there was plenty of chocolate flavour, glitter and tinkerbell...I knew she would be happy!!

I bought a little tinkerbell figure from Ebay but small tinkerbell dolls can be bought in supermarkets for around £6 as well (i only noticed this after I had bought the figure, but i still saved a pound!)

I bought violet coloured sugarpaste dye to colour a kilo of white icing I had bought, adding very small amounts at a time using a cocktail stick and dragging it across the icing, then kneeding it in to gain a consistent all over lilac colour. The more dye that is added, the stronger the colour will be. I used the lilac icing as the main colour on the cake.

I then repeated this method with leaf green dye paste and dyed some white icing I had set aside.
I used pink icing to create a flower for the centre of my cake to sit tinkerbell on. I applied edible glitter to the icing and cut the icing into petal shapes amd placed them in the centre of the cake, resting tinkerbell on top. I rolled the green icing into sausage shapes, being slightly thicker at one end and added them round the sides of the cake, curling them round at the top to look like stems. Using a petal cutter, I then cut out some leaf shapes to add to the end of the stems. I used a cocktail stick to vein the leaves to give them a more realistic appearance.

To finish off the cake I add some personal details and added some large colourful flowers around the base of the cake and set it on a large cake board.

The cake itself was a chocolate cake with a fresh cream and raspberry jam filling and it was lovely. I got the recipe of the BBC food website, see the link below for the recipe. It is easy to make and the recipe is easy to follow and it turns out lovely!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/easy_chocolate_birthday_90089

Happy baking!! xox

Jubilee Celebration Cupcakes...

For the Jubilee weekend, I made some cupcakes for my friend's house warming party. I used two different decorations, one being the classic crown, a symbol of royalty and a representation of the queen and the other being a cameo icing design of the queens head. I used blue and red buttercream ( in the british spirit!) and used peppermint flavouring to kick up the flavour! I got some festive union jack cupcake cases in a local cake shop to add to the jubilee theme. I got the cameo icing mould with the cake decorating magazine that i collect. Details of the magazine can be found at http://www.mycakedecorating.co.uk/

Superman cake...

I recently made a superman cake for a little superman fanatic for his birthday party... And he loved it.
I used a simple vanilla sponge recipe with a buttercream and jam filling.

To decorate I bought a cheap superman stencil from Ebay and used that to make the famous superman logo using red and yellow icing. Once the stencil was made the rest was pretty easy!

I iced the cake with a bright blue sugarpaste and set the superman stencil as a centre piece on the cake.

As a finishing touch I added the age and name to personalise it. To break up the amount of blue icing, I used my left over yellow icing to add balls around the top edges of the cake and they held well with some glaze icing.

The logo is the trickiest part but I would definitely recommend buying a cheap stencil or make your own by printing the superman logo onto a sheet of cardboard and work around the cardboard to create the logo. Cheap and cheerful yet just as good as a professional stencil. The stencil I bought was designed for spraying the superman logo onto something ie. a wall but it worked fine and I was happy with the outcome!

Spiderman Cupcakes...

Hi Everyone, its been a while since I have found some spare time to blog so I have a lot of catching up to do!! Been busy baking over the last two months.

I would like to share with you my spiderman cupcakes which I made for a five year old's birthday party.

I used my jam centred cupcake recipe where you gently place just under half a teaspoon of jam on top of the cake mix before it goes in the oven... Once cooked and cut down the centre the jam should have set in the middle (or near the middle) of the cupcakes. If you have put too much jam it will sink to the bottom of the mixture so will be basically the base of the cake which is no fun!!

After trimming the points (domes) of the tops of my cupcakes to make them flatter, I proceeded to make my spiderman design. I did a spiderman face design so started off with 12 red circles of icing to fit the tops of the cupcakes as shown in the photo below.

I then began to paint on the spiderman mask features with black edible paint and a fine paintbrush (icing brush), beginning with a cross, then extending the amount of lines to create a pattern with 8 small diagonal lines meeting in the centre as illustrated in the photo below...

Next was to create the web effect. I started on the outside of the icing and made small arched inward lines between each existing line and worked towards the centre of the icing... The first step can be seen in the picture below...

Repeat this process once more (or twice if you would like), creating an inner webbed pattern. Once completed they should look like this....

The last step is to add the eyes. I did this by cutting out small white triangles of icing and outlining them with the black edible paint then attached them to the cakes and they looked really effective. I used a thin layer of buttercream spread on the top of the cupcake to hold the icing in place. Below is the finished product...

So for an easy recipe perfect for any little boy who is a spiderman fanatic, these cupcakes are perfect!

Happy Baking xox

Holy Communion cakes...

My latest task was to make a Holy Communion cake and cupcakes. I had so many ideas and wanted to try them all!

I knew the cake had to be simple and elegant so I went for a traditional vanilla sponge with a buttercream and jam filling. I covered the cake with white sugarpaste and used letter embossers to imprint a personal message and date. I used edible food paint to shade in the letters and I went for a silver shade and it came out perfect. It was subtle and elegant and brightened up the look of the cake.

The main feature of my cake was a Holy Cross. I bought a cross stencil on Ebay and it was brilliant. It included a floral pattern embosser to create a pattern on the cross and also came with small embossers to create fancy edges on each corner of the cross. It came out brilliant. To highlight the patterns on the cross, I again coated the cross with the silver food paint and it looked lovely. I was very happy with how it came out and it really brightened up the cake and gave it a feature.

The small book beside the cross is one of my sugarpaste bibles! I made the bibles to use as cupcake toppers and I personalised them by putting a name on one side and a holy cross on the other,imitating an open book. These were easy to make and are just a matter of shaping and moulding into the shape of a book and decorating as you wish. I used a light brown sugarpaste as the base (cover of the book) and white sugarpaste for the top section (pages of the book). I used a cocktail stick to score page lines along the sides, front and back of the book but these were subtle so cannot be seen in the photo.

The cakes were for a young girl and every young girls loves a bit of pink so I dressed up the cake with a pink border around the front and back of the bow and finished my presenting the cake with a pink and silver bow. To match the cake, I decorated the cupcakes with a strawberry flavoured buttercream and then topped the buttercream with the Bible toppers. I also added a few pink edible flowers to the cross to give it a girly edge.

 

Icing Nozzles

I have recently been experimenting a bit more with different icing nozzles to create different looks on my cakes. I have bought two new nozzles, one was a straight round large nozzle and one was an open star large nozzle. Both create different icing patterns.
The large round straight edge nozzle creates a smooth circular icing pattern and the open star nozzle creates a rose like pattern when piped from the centre of the cake out towards the edges.
I used each nozzle to create different looks for different events.
I used the round nozzle to decorate cupcakes being used as part of a buffet spread and I used two colours of buttercream to create a blended look. I achieved this look by placing the two shades of buttercream into a piping bag at the same time; putting one colour of icing down the left side of the bag and the other down the right side of the bag and pushing them equally down towards the nozzles so equal amounts of the two shades of buttercream come out of the nozzle.

To finish the cupcakes I topped them with fondant letters to suit the event I made them for.

The open star nozzle creates an elegant rose flower design if piped from the centre of the cake out towards the edges. This gives a pretty design to the cakes and is delicate and suitable for most parties and events. I will definately be using this nozzle a lot!

Icecream Cone Cupcakes...

I saw the idea for these cakes on the internet and knew I had to try them out! They are cupcakes baked in an icecream cone rather than a cupcake case. They are made the same as a normal cupcake so are simple to make! I decided for my first attempt at making these cakes I would just make a simple vanilla sponge mix as I was unsure about how they would turn out but they turned out fab!

I filled the cones with batter to just over half way up as I didnt want them to spill over the top and spoil the look, it was just the right amount. I secured the cones in a cupcake tin with tin foil to stop them toppling. I covered the whole tin with tinfoil then pierced holes where each cupcake should sit and i pushed the cones into the holes so they were secure. I gently banged the tray off the surface to make sure the mixture had reached the bottom of the cone.

After baking for 20minutes I pierced holes in the bottom of the cone with a fork to let the heat out and to prevent the cones going soggy whilst they were cooling down. Once cooled, it was time to decorate. The mixture spread perfectly down the length of the cone and the cone remained crunchy and fresh.

I used a two tone icing topping with blue and yellow buttercream and piped it like a traditional 99' cone and topped with coloured sprinkles.

Perfect cakes for a childrens party and are a great spin off from the traditional cupcake!




My cousin described these cakes as "The funnest cupcake I have ever eaten"