Yay! We are so SO excited about this cute little cake and the fact that we can finally announce something super cool we’ve been working on with our friends over at Craftsy. Say hello to our utterly adorable teddy bear cake tutorial! We create tutorials regularly, but these are WAY more in depth and it comes with the main tools you need to get started (including the cake pan, a bucket if Satin Ice fondant, food colouring and more). We cover every single step from start to finish including tips, helpful hints and even inside secrets too! To get a hold of our Easy Teddy Bear Cake Tutorial just head on over to Craftsy and follow this link!
Adorable teddy bear cake tutorial!
This is such a fabulous project for beginners. When we began designing the tutorials (yes, there’s more to come) we made sure to include ideas for the novices, intermediate skilled and even more advanced. It was so much fun to work on and some of the cutest ideas can immerse from something so simple. Domed or hemisphere cakes are probably one of the easiest cake shapes to fondant / sugar paste ice so this is a great beginner kit. Plus, adding a few cute facial features onto anything can be a great way to introduce anyone to cake decorating.
If your skill level is more intermediate or even advanced this is still going to be one fun cake to make. It’s great for a quick party centre piece and you can personalise / customise it pretty easily. We loved the thought of turning this little teddy bear cake into a ‘bon voyage’ themed design with a teeny tiny fondant beret, navy and white striped board and a mini Eiffel Tower!
Remember to follow this link over to Craftsy and get a hold of the tutorial today! Also, make sure you keep a look out for more… we’ll be announcing another insanely fun cake tutorial soon!
Of course it wouldn’t really be Christmas if that jolly guy in the red suit didn’t pop up somewhere… and here he is! We created one fun and festive Santa cupcake tutorial for the wonderful people over at Craftsy to share. We wanted this little Santa do a little more than sit on a nice cupcake. At the time we began sketching ideas we’d just finished hand piping lots of birthday cupcakes with little painted parcels finished with royal icing bows. After piping what felt like 1,000 little silver presents AND doing the same for our Christmas tree tutorial we thought they’d make a fun idea for this cupcake design too. So, being the crazy people we are (normal people would never want to look at a tiny piped bow ever again) we made our Santa Claus burst from a pile of Christmas gifts! So if you’d love to re-create this Santa cupcake tutorial then visit the Craftsy blog now!
Jolly Santa cupcake tutorial!
We initially thought of toying with Santa’s famous red suit and re-creating him in gold, but obviously that idea was scrapped. Instead, we toned down the bright red of his famous Christmas uniform by adding in pink gift boxes. We also jotted down some notes on how to photograph him… lots of white, brightness, minimal styling and to try out different shades of A2 pink paper backgrounds.
If you look closely you can spot some rather glittery golden buttons down Santa’s coat. We had to work in some gold somewhere (other than a few of the presents and the cupcake cases). We re-created the cute buttons we made for our fondant gingerbread character tutorial a couple weeks back and attached them before painting them gold.
If you’re going to be re-creating our Santa cupcake tutorial for the holidays you can always leave out the cupcake, nestle your Santa Claus on top of an iced cake and surround him with presents and even a Christmas tree!
OK so most people already have their Christmas tree up if they’re celebrating, but now it’s time to put some Christmas trees on your freshly baked cupcakes! Last year we created a rustic and more simplified version of this tutorial for the lovely people at Craftsy. This year we’re going glam, gorgeous and loaded with gifts! Who wouldn’t want this chic little cupcake? Keep reading for our stylish Christmas tree cupcake tutorial!
01: One of the very first things you need to do for this Christmas tree cupcake tutorial is what we call ‘flat icing’. This just involves covering the tops of your cupcake with a little buttercream and then with some circles of fondant. To do this core your cupcakes and fill them up with fruity preserve or buttercream. Then smooth a little buttercream around the top.
Tip!
We get a lot of comments on how smooth our flat iced cupcakes are. There’s two things we always do to achieve this look. One, we use Satin Ice fondant. Two, we double ice!
Roll out some white fondant or sugar paste to a thickness of around 3mm and cut out a plain circle. Lay this central on top of your cupcake and gently smooth the edges down and around the top.
Now roll out some more fondant and cut a larger scalloped edged circle. Lay this on top of the first layer of fondant and smooth carefully down and over the edge of the cupcake cases.
02: For the glam sequin look you need to add confetti sugar sprinkles on top of your iced cupcake. You can attached each individually, but that takes a heck of a lot of time. Instead, spread some edible glue on top of your fondant / sugar paste icing and then dip your cupcake into a bowl or plate full of round flat sprinkles. We like to use a mixture of two different sizes (4mm and 6mm).
03: One of the fun parts is painting the sequins gold. Simply use edible gold paint for this step. You can also leave your sequins as they are if you’ve used white (they’ll look like snow) or you can even paint a subtle white pearl shimmer onto them!
04: Next create your stylish Christmas tree by carefully cutting down a waffle ice cream cone. They can crumble so be gentle.
05: Decorate your tree by covering it in either stiff consistency royal icing or white frosting. Then roll it lightly in sprinkles or desiccated coconut for a textured frosty look.
06: Pipe a little royal icing onto the bottom edge of the cone and attach to your cupcake.
07: For the cute little Christmas gifts and parcels roll out pink and mint green fondant to a fat thickness (7mm is a good depth) before using a small sharp knife to cut out a variety of square and rectangle shapes of different sizes. Check to see if these fit around the base of your Christmas tree to make sure you make enough! To attach them use a little dot of royal icing.
08: Add detail to your little fondant presents by piping ribbon and bows onto each. We used a disposable piping bag fitted with a PME Supatube tip in size 1.5 filled with stiff consistency royal icing.
To create the ribbon and bow details pipe a central line from top to bottom. Then pipe a line through the middle from left to right before finishing with two loops and two tails in the centre where both lines meet.
Yay! You should now be left with one incredibly chic festive treat thanks to your Christmas tree cupcake tutorial. You can also adapt this step-by-step guide to make your cupcake(s) fit in with your party. Go traditional with reds and greens with green tinted trees and bright crimson parcels. Decorate your tree with adorable themed sprinkles like candy canes or bright lights. Or why not add tiny gingerbread people cookies to the side?
There’s now just 2 weeks until Christmas everyone. Two weeks. 14 days! Crazy right? It doesn’t feel too long ago that our 100 days countdown began (yes we do that). Anyway, we’ve had some fun festive recipes and tutorials on our blog so we thought we’d create a quick round up of our favourite and most popular ones. We’re not done yet though. Oh no. There are still two more weeks after all… we’ve got a few more little things up our sleeves!
Our top 5 Christmas recipes and tutorials
01: Have a cute Christmas!
Make your own Candyland themed Christmas dessert table with the help of our adorable gingerbread character tutorial! You can create this little cutie to add to buttercream swirled cupcakes, or iced cakes. A few of these would even be great added to a gingerbread house or village. Want to create your own sweet little gingerbread character? Check out our tutorial!
02: Homemade luxury!
Adding a little extra oomph to hot cocoas or seasonal coffees doesn’t have to mean a splash or several of festive liquor. Whip up some homemade vanilla marshmallows with our easy recipe, pile them on top and wait for them to melt a little. It is amazing! You can fancy it up too with whipped cream, sparklers and even edible gold leaf!
03: Make it a-DEER-able!
Invite a few reindeer to the Christmas party! We created one a-deer-able (sorry) tutorial for a little fondant reindeer cupcake or cake topper. We love the golden antlers and of course the finishing touch of the tiny bow and fondant bell! Create eight, nestle them on top of a buttercream cake with a golden picket fence to create Santa’s reindeer enclosure. It’s bound to be an instant hit during the party season!
04: Everyone loves a classic!
Of course offering up the traditional gingerbread cookie ever Christmas is going to be a crowd pleaser. We love making them so this year we’ve posted up our go-to gingerbread cookie recipe! We’ve tried lots of different recipes and methods over the years, but this one was by far our favourite. We like our gingerbread fairly dark and with a good amount of spice so it was perfect for us. It’s also one of the best recipes for sturdy gingerbread houses too!
05: Everyone also loves a little twist…
Christmas is definitely cookie season. For anyone who doesn’t whip up trays upon trays of cookies on a regular basis a drawer full of cookie cutters may not exist in their kitchen. With this in mind we thought of putting together a cool recipe and tutorial on candy cane cookies that don’t need a cutter! Check out our Candy Cake Twist Cookie recipe here!
The festive season pretty much means that you can stuff yourself silly. Obviously, we take this seriously seeing as we whip up a frenzy of sweet treats for a living. One of the cosiest things about winter setting in is enjoying a hot cocoa… with as many cookies, biscuits, candy canes as you can manage! This week’s Christmas recipe is for pink candy cane cookies that don’t need any form of cookie cutter whatsoever. For anyone who doesn’t normally obsessively bake and ice cookies having huge drawers upon drawers of cookie cutters this recipe and tutorial is going to be pretty handy. Keep reading for our cute pink peppermint candy cane cookies recipe!
01: In a stand-up mixer cream the butter and sugar together with the peppermint extract or essence. Make sure to mix until just combined. If you over beat the mixture this can lead to misshapened over spread cookies whilst baking. Not a good thing!
02: Add in the egg and lightly mix. Again you don’t want to over mix your ingredients. You’re also going to be adding in the dry ingredients soon which will then mix in the egg a little more.
03: Add in the flour and set your mixer to a low speed. Combine until a dough forms. You don’t need to use the dough hook for this if your stand-up mixer came with one. We always use the simple paddle attachment.
04: When a dough has formed separate it into two halves. Set one half to the side and add some pink food colouring to the half left in your mixer before then mixing it on a slow speed until it’s lovely and pink (you can colour it red or green instead too).
05: Gather up both doughs and wrap each separately with cling film before leaving them to chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour and 30 mins. It’s OK if you have loads of other things to do and end up chilling the cookie dough for 4 hours to even a full day. We’ve never had a problem with this.
06: Whilst your dough is in the fridge you’ll need to preheat your oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4.
07: When chilled remove both doughs from the fridge and knead them a little after taking out of the cling film. Flour your work surface (with plain flour) and roll out to a good thickness. For these cookies try to roll them to a thickness of 4-5mm each colour.
First roll out one colour dough and set it aside. Then roll out your other colour. When ready take one and lay i over the other dough before rolling both a little more.
08: Now you need to twist and shape them into candy canes! Take a sharp knife or a pastry cutter and cut off any ragged edges from your rolled out dough so that you’re left with a tidy rectangle or square. Then cut this piece into a series of long strips around 1 1/2cm wide each.
09: Pinch the strips of dough together along all sides so that both colours bind together.
10: Using a cake smoothing tool roll out the strips to form even ‘ropes’. You can do this by simply rolling your pinched strip of dough forward and backward with the smoother.
11: Now whilst working on your cookie tray gently twist your two toned dough to form candy cane-like stripes running up them! Try not to pick up your cookie dough. You can twist them with the palms of your hands. Roll one end of the cookie dough towards you and with your other palm roll the opposite end away from you.
12: Curl and arrange into candy cane shapes and place them in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
09: Once they’re ready and chilled you can put them in your preheated oven for around 6-10 minutes. Set your time to 6 minutes first and test them. To check if they’re ready poke one lightly. If the cookie stays dented then it needs to bake for a little longer. If the dent comes back up then they’re ready!
10: Leave to cool for around 1 hour and enjoy!
We like these cookies left plain, but if you want to add a little bit extra festive cheer why not drizzle with white candy melts and add cute sugar snowflake sprinkles? You can even dip them into melted chocolate and then sprinkle on crushed candy cane pieces!
