Gingerbread houses are a definite seasonal favourite BUT they can be tricky to assemble and decorate. Especially for beginners or anyone pressed for time. So… say hello to our flat gingerbread house cookie tutorial. It’s available for free over on the fabulous Craftsy.com blog! We love anything cute, stylish and that makes life a little easier. These 2D cookies are definitely that. Instead of measuring each panel so they fit perfectly together, holding your breath anxiously while assembling and then wondering why your house won’t stand up why not make 2D house cookies. Another major win is that because they sit flat you don’t need to worry about royal icing dripping down your work. So head on over to the Craftsy blog for our full gingerbread house cookie tutorial!
You can add cool texture to your own gingerbread house cookies. We opted for brick work and a rustic wood grain effect using these FMM impression mats! You can try embossing stars or pretty snowflakes onto your designs using small plunger cutters, even texture mats or mini cookie cutters.
You can use lots of different things to help give any Christmas cookie you’re making a winter-y look. We’ve used sugar, sanding sugar, nonpareils, sugar strands, confetti sprinkles, snowflake sprinkles, plunger cut snowflakes and shimmering lustre dust too. It’s festive season so don’t be afraid to even use ALL of them. Stick to white when working with creating an edible snow look and it should just look lovely and textured!
Give each cookie a little ‘personality’ with individual decorations. We used gold stars, a pretty holly leaf wreath and a snowflake. You can even pipe party guest’s names onto each cookie and use them as cute place settings! If you’re stuck for time how about using some pre-made icing decorations. We love Wilton’s range of gingerbread people, snow characters and Christmas stockings!
So for some extra treats this holiday season with a little less stress check out our gingerbread house cookie tutorial on Craftsy.com!
Last week we used Maggie Austin’s Fondant Frills tutorial, via Craftsy.com, to add ruffles to our spooky Witches’ Cauldron cake. Though this technique is certainly not out of place on extravagant wedding cakes the grey and black ruffles we used suited our Halloween cake perfectly! This week we’ve used a rich chocolate brown, glimmering gold and burnt orange to create a glamorous autumnal cake using the same method. We thought the frills on the Witches’ Cauldron cake resembled rugged rocks assenting a cliff face and we believe these frills resemble delicate, crunchy leaves; perfect for the season!
To find out how to create the gorgeous, delicate ruffles we used to decorate our Golden Acorn cake visit Craftsy.com for 25% off of your first cake decorating course. In Maggie Austen’s Fondant Frill class you’ll discover how to make your own flower paste / gumpaste, achieve a pretty ombre look, and create sumptuous cabbage roses. Why not catch the crafting and cake decorating bug in time for the festive season? You’ll be pretty darn popular when Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah arrives and you’ve created stunning ruffled mini cakes for everyone you love! We had so much fun frilling out fondant strips for our Golden Acorn cake and the dramatic yet subtle texture is perfect for lots of different projects. We’re already thinking of snowdrift themed tiers of ice blue and white ruffles teamed with shimmering hand painted snowflakes and quilting.
To decorate our cake we created lots of sugarpaste / fondant acorns to topple atop of our warm hued ruffle cake including one large golden acorn perched at the top; perfect for a playful yet glamorous cake. Of course, if you’re thinking of trying out this cake at home and lack the time we had why not fill the top of your cake with chocolate truffles, crumbled cookies, juicy berries or cracked walnuts.
Underneath the rich myriad of ruffles is a delicious chocolate, pumpkin and vanilla Neapolitan style layer cake filled with vanilla buttercream making this cake even more irresistible. With cold and blustery months ensuing this cake is the perfect centrepiece to cosy family get-togethers and dinners. Give our recipe below a try for a decadent treat!
Chocolate cake layer (makes one 1 1/2″ thick 8″ in diameter layer)
165g self-raising flour 165g caster sugar 165g butter 3 to 4 medium eggs 70g cocoa powder
Pre-heat your over to Gas Mark 3 / 160C / 325F and prep your 8″ circle cake pans with cake release. With each layer mix the appropriate ingredients by creaming your butter and sugar first. When pale and creamy add your eggs and any flavourings (such as cocoa powder, spices, pumpkin puree and extracts). When combined add the flour. Mix well and then pour your silky batter into your cake pan. Bake from around 25 minutes to 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean when tested.
Leaving all of your cake layers to cool on a wire rack start preparing your vanilla buttercream.
Vanilla buttercream
300g butter (stay clear of low fat spreads due to the larger water content) 350g-400g icing / confectioner’s sugar 2 bourbon vanilla pods 1 tablespoon of room temperature water
To begin your buttercream dice up your butter into small cubes before adding them into the bowl of a stand up mixer and creaming until smooth and silky. Once creamed gradually add in the icing sugar by adding a little and leaving to combine in the mixer for approximately 10 seconds. Repeat this until you have a consistency you like. Add in the seeds from the inside of a bourbon vanilla pod. To do this slice the pod in half, to scrape out the seeds inside and pop them into the buttercream. Mix for another 10 seconds.
Now you can stack up your cakes! Our layers consisted of the chocolate first, then a layer of vanilla buttercream, the layer of spiced pumpkin, some more vanilla buttercream and finally the vanilla cake layer. When decorating our striped ruffles corresponded with the cake layers hidden inside! Once your layers are stacked prepare your cake with a smooth crumb coat, chill for an hour, ice with roll out icing / fondant and make your way to Craftsy.com for Maggie Austen’s Fondant Frills class to re-create the delicate ruffles!
Craftsy.com provides online education for creative enthusiasts so they can turn their ideas into reality.Crafty’s online cake decorating courses allow you to learn at your own pace whenever you choose! Click here to receive 25% off your first cake decorating course with Craftsy.
This is a sponsored conversation written by Juniper Cakery on behalf of Craftsy. The opinions and text are all ours.
We’re always excited to try out new techniques, recipes, styles and tastes circulating in the cake decorating industry. With this in mind we were more than happy to give Maggie Austen’s famous ruffled fondant method a go courtesy of Craftsy.com!
This frilling technique is perfect for so many cake designs; not just for romantic wedding tiers. These sumptuous ruffles would add a dramatic finish to any homemade dessert from birthday surprises to Christmas gateaux and, of course, to any ghoulish Halloween cake! Though we hadn’t seen a ruffled Halloween cake before we thought this was the perfect opportunity to give it a go. As a result here’s our finished spook-tacular Witches’ Cauldron cake made using Maggie Austen’s Fondant Frills class. We would have usually rolled the strips of fondant much thinner to create delicate ruffles but in this instance we deliberately created sightly chunkier ruffles to translate the feel of jagged rock face leading up to the poisonous witches’ cauldron sitting atop.
At Craftsy.com you can learn a wealth of fun D.I.Y techniques and projects including cake decorating, sewing, knitting and embroidery as well as lots of lovely ideas for your home and garden. For cake decorating enthusiasts in particular there’s a wealth of fun classes and tutorials to help create gorgeous cakes and cupcakes. Why not try out Craftsy and get 25% off your first ever class just in time for the holidays!
The wonderful thing about learning online is the ability take things at your own leisure. Everyone has a list of commitments, responsibilities and jobs that already take priority so being able to start or pause a class on your favourite hobby obviously really helps. At Juniper Cakery we find ourselves inundated with a billion tasks and urgent post-it notes per day so when it comes to our own past times learning online is a lifesaver. At Craftsy.com classes can be saved, played and paused for when you have some spare time. Fantastic for busy lives!
Maggie Austen’s Fondant Frills class on Craftsy.com includes a wealth of ideas and tips to help create decadent and textured cakes. A few techniques in this class include how to make your own flower paste / gum paste, how to achieved subtle yet stunning ombre ruffles and how to create beautiful cabbage roses to nestle atop your creation. With so many things to learn in one class we’re pretty certain that you won’t want to stop! Why not create rainbow ruffles for a vibrant birthday, adorn the top of a pretty frilled cake with lots of delicate handmade roses or make a ghoulish Halloween mummy cake by using the Fondant Frills tutorial to re-create bandages.
Craftsy.com provides online education for creative enthusiasts so they can turn their ideas into reality. Craftsy’s online cake decorating courses allow you to learn at your own pace whenever you choose! Click here to receive 25% off your first cake decorating course with Craftsy!
This is a sponsored conversation written by Juniper Cakery on behalf of Craftsy. The opinions and text are all ours.
