Yay! Our super fruity and bright Lemon and Passion Fruit Ombré cupcakes were featured in this month’s issue of Craftseller magazine! Head to page 12 of the magazine to see our zesty cupcakes in all their glory. If you’d love to re-create these particular cupcakes yourself why not give our recipe a try?
In this week’s cake decorating Tutorial Tuesday we show you how to create simple edible sugarpaste bows! These are quick to make and perfect for topping cupcakes with. They’re also easily adapted to match lots of events, parties and seasons. Paint them gold and silver for New Year’s or wedding anniversaries, use red or green sugarpaste for Christmas, stick to pastels for Baby Showers or use bright rainbow colours for fun children’s birthday parties. You can even hand paint small dots and floral patterns for bow topped cupcakes fit for afternoon teas.
What you will need…
Sugarpaste (either pre-coloured or coloured yourself using food gel paste colours)
Blade tool (we used the handy blade tool by Tala in this set of modelling tools)
Fondant rolling pin
Icing sugar
Edible Glue
Tylo Powder
Cupcakes
Lustre dust to decorate
Step one: Add a tiny sprinkle of Tylo powder to your sugarpaste to help firm the paste. This makes it dry quicker and firmer.
Step two: Roll out your sugarpaste using your fondant rolling pin. Slice out rectangular pieces using your blade tool like the parts in the image above. The long rectangle is your actual bow piece. The smallest rectangle is the band of your bow. The two medium sized rectangles are the tails of your bow.
Step three: Cut triangular notches out of the bottom of your bow tails.
Step four: Take the longest rectangle and flip over. Paint some edible glue in the middle and gently fold over the ends of the rectangle to the middle. Make sure the loops of the bow stay ‘looped’ or rounded.
Step five: Gently pinch the middle to make the bow shape.
Step six: Take your smallest rectangle and flip it over. Paint edible glue on the back. Place your larger looped bow across so the smallest rectangle can be folded over the pinched centre of the bow.
Step seven: With your piped cupcake fix your bow tails on the top in the middle.
Step eight: Take your large bow section and nestle it on top of the tails and into the buttercream of your cupcake.
Voila! You now have a cupcake finished with a lovely edible bow! You can make these extra fancy by creating sugarpaste cameos or brooches to attach to the centre of your bows, add edible pearls to the buttercream or gild your bows with edible gold or silver leaf!
Cookies ‘N’ Cream is our favourite flavour! It’s a soft chocolate cake swirled with a cookie and bourbon vanilla pod infused buttercream then finished with more crunchy cookie crumbles! Sound good? If so then why not give our recipe below a try and enjoy them yourself!
Basic Chocolate Cupcake Recipe (makes approx. 12)
226g self-raising flour
226g butter
226g caster sugar
4-5 heaped tablespoons of cocoa powder (depending on brand)
4-5 eggs
60ml canola or rapeseed oil
1 vanilla bourbon pod
Cupcake cases
Step one: Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C
Step two: Cream the butter with sugar and once well mixed add in the flour, vanilla bourbon pod seeds, cocoa powder, oil and then the eggs.
Step three: Set out your cupcake cases in your pan and fill each case 2/3 full.
Step four: Bake from around 12-18 minutes then leave to cool on a counter. Remember to try not to eat them!
Cookies ‘n’ Cream Buttercream
250g butter
250-350g icing sugar
3 vanilla bourbon pods
Piping bags
868 piping tip
Cookies ‘n’ Cream Crunch Sprinkles by Wilton
Step one: Cut your butter into small cubes and cream your butter until soft.
Step two: Gradually add icing sugar until a good consistency.
Step three: Add the seeds from your 3 vanilla bourbon pods along with around 3 heaped teaspoons of Cookies ‘n’ Cream Crunch Sprinkles by Wilton. Mix well. TIP: Add your Cookies ‘n’ Cream Crunch Sprinkles by Wilton at the last possible moment to avoid getting a grey buttercream. You want lovely flecks of cookie in your frosting!
Step four: Scoop your delicious buttercream into a piping bag fitted with an 868 piping tip (if you’d like to create the linear swirl we’ve piped). Pipe a generous swirl of frosting atop your cupcakes and sprinkle with Cookies ‘n’ Cream Crunch Sprinkles by Wilton!
These cupcakes are an instant crowd pleaser. By adding real and good quality vanilla bourbon pods to your cookies ‘n’ cream buttercream you get a gorgeous ice cream-like flavour to your frosting. Once these cupcakes are ready to eat save yourself a few because they will suddenly disappear!
Cutters are a definite part of cake decorating whether small and intricate or large and simple. Using them can be a hassle and if you’re a novice sometimes the simplest tip can make the biggest difference!
“Using Tappits and other cutters to punch out shapes with fondant can be tricky. The key is to be liberal with dusting your pieces with icing sugar or cornstarch!”
Fresh blueberries and fragrant lavender are two of the best things about summer, plus they are wonderful flavours to add to various cake recipes too. With that in mind we whipped up a delicious Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate cake using eggs from The Happy Egg Co. This cake is perfect for a fruity summertime treat; why not try out our recipe for barbecues, garden parties or afternoon tea.
(makes three 8″ layers)
7-8 eggs by The Happy Egg Co.
453g self-raising flour
453g butter
453g caster sugar
1 heaped teaspoon of edible lavender florets
Cream your butter in a mixer then add the caster sugar. Add in the flour along with half of the happy eggs for around one minute. Once half of the happy eggs are combined add the remaining and mix for about 5 minutes. Add 1 heaped teaspoon of edible lavender florets and mix.
Pour into a greased circle cake pan until 2/3 full and place on the top shelf of a pre-heated oven at Gas Mark 3/325F/170C. Bake for around 30 minutes. Repeat this step three times for each circle layer.
200g of blueberries
2 tablespoons of edible lavender florets
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
250g jam sugar
6 tablespoons of room temperature water
Add all ingredients into a saucepan on medium to high heat. Bring to boil whilst stirring constantly.
Leave to simmer and keep stirring. When the liquid has reduced to 50% less check if the preserve is ready. To do this turn off the heat and scoop out a tablespoon’s worth before leaving in the sample in a refrigerator for 2 minutes. Test when ready by pushing the jam with your finger. Is the jam moves and forms a wrinkled skin along the top then it is ready. Otherwise, turn on the heat and leave the preserve to simmer a little longer.
Once ready pour into clean jars to cool before using.
150g white chocolate buttons
350g butter
250-350g icing sugar
Step one: Cut up your butter into small cubes. We use a serrated knife to do this as the serrated edge causes less suction than a straight edge one. This means you shouldn’t be fighting desperately with getting the butter off your knife; a hazardous thing to do at best!
Step two: In a stand up mixer cream your butter using the flat beater on medium speed.
Step three: As the butter is creaming add in the icing sugar a bit at a time.
Step four: In a glass bowl melt up your chocolate callets in either a bain marie (the bowl in a saucepan of hot water) or a microwave (check and stir every 30 seconds to avoid burning).
Step five: Remove from heat once melted and stir until the chocolate has half cooled. Pour your melted chocolate into your mixer bowl with the buttercream and mix.
Step six: Mix your frosting at full speed at 30 second intervals; checking each time.
Decorating this cake is relatively easy. You just need all your ingredients, some time, patience, extra blueberries, extra edible lavender florets, a good turntable and a small spatula.
Sandwich your layers with your fruity blueberry buttercream on your turntable before covering your cake with your white chocolate frosting. Using a small spatula add the white chocolate buttercream onto your cake until it is completely covered and smoothed.
To create the linear texture in the buttercream that we created begin from the bottom of your cake and angle the tip of your spatula into the frosting slightly. As you turn your turntable keep your spatula steady and move slightly up the cake so you are left with a linear spiral working it’s way up through the buttercream!
Finally, sprinkle with edible lavender florets and topple generously with fresh blueberries! Now your Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate cake is ready to be enjoyed!