Giant Cupcake Cake

If a regular sized cupcake doesn't quite hit the spot...why not make yourself a giant cupcake! I've always admired the pictures of giant cupcakes that I've seen but I've never made one myself. So when the Cake Decorating Store recently offered to send me an item from their website to review, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try out a Giant Cupcake Tin.

If you are looking for cake baking and decorating equipment then you can find everything you need at the Cake Decorating Store. If you want to make a giant cupcake or any other cake check out the Cake Decorating Store website for bakeware, boxes, icing, colours, dusts, cutters and lots more.

The cupcake tin came with a recipe and instructions for a Double Chocolate Pound Cake made with cocoa powder and chocolate chips. By using a pound cake recipe, it means it's a bit denser and will hold it's shape better and support the weight. The recipe did state that it would take 60-70 minutes to bake, mine took closer to 100 minutes but this may have been my oven! The good news is that it came out of the pan very easily thanks to the Easy Bake spray you can see at the end of the post.

You can obviously choose to decorate your cupcake anyway you choose as you can see from these images of other giant cupcakes on Google. I chose a fairly simple design covering the base in a teddy bear brown sugar paste and then using buttercream on the top. To get the raspberry ripple effect on the top, I coloured half my buttercream with a pink paste colour and then filled my piping bag on one side with plain buttercream and then the other side with pink buttercream. I then piped it on and used a palette knife to smooth it down.

To finish off I added some sprinkles, along with florist paste butterflies and flowers. You can make your own butterflies and flowers using the cutters you can see in the equipment picture. To get your butterfly wings to open upwards, fold a piece of card lengthways and place the butterflies in the fold to dry in position. You can also use the corner of a cut cereal packet for this which is what I use.

To present my cake, I put it on a cake drum that had been covered with white sugarpaste and then finished with a pretty pink ribbon around the edge. You could of course also put it on a plate, cake stand or an uncovered cake board.

The following is a list of equipment that you might find useful for making a giant cupcake, depending on your design, or any other cake that needs decorating:

1. Sugar Florist Paste - a firmer paste that dries hard, useful for making the flowers and butterflies.
2. Ribbon - Give a neat finish to your board.
3. Sugarflair Paste Colour - to colour white sugarpaste or florist paste. I also used it to colour my buttercream.
4. Cutters - to create butterflies and flowers, although a whole array of cutters are available. Used to cut the sugar florist paste.
5. Ready made flowers - if you don't have the time or inclination to make your own.
6. Piping nozzles
7. Piping bags
8. Sugar sprinkles
9. Sugarpaste - for rolling and covering cakes and the board.
10. Cake drum - to stand your cake on.
11. Lustre dust - to add an extra dimension to the butterflies and flowers.
12. Dusting brush - to apply the lustre to your decorations. 

If you haven't tried it already you might also be interested in Wilton's Bake Easy Non-Stick Spray. The recipe that comes with the pan suggests using a cake release and a light coating of flour in addition to ensure your cake comes out easily.

Disclaimer: I was sent the Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan free of charge but was not paid for this post. All opinions are my own and all other equipment and materials, I supplied myself.

3D Chocolate Owl Cake

This 3D owl is such a cute little cake and it's perfect for a birthday or christening. It's pretty in pink for  a girl but the decorations work just as well in blue or any other colour that you might choose.

I made this cake on a course at Pretty Witty Cakes which is located in Crowborough, East Sussex. Pretty Witty Cakes offer a great range of courses with something for everyone from beginner to advanced. They also attract a number of international tutors. I was particularly keen to attend this owl course as it was a great opportunity to learn about 3D cakes as the 3D aspect really adds something extra special to a cake!

At the beginning of the day this owl started life as a stack of sqaure chocolate cakes which were ganached together and then carved into the shape of the owl. At one point the whole thing did look a bit like a transformer with bits of the carving stuck on at other points to give the shape...however, the tutor did warn us in advance and as predicted the finished carving eventually morphed into the owl...although my owl ears are a little too pointy!! :-)

Once carved the cake was covered in two thick layers of ganache before being covered in sugar paste, the covering was a little tricky as it was tough to lay it over the cake without tearing it on the ears. With the hard work done it was down to the decorating using a template for the wings and some cutters for the eyes, flowers and hearts. You may also just be able to make out the stitching outline on the wings above which was made with a stitching wheel.

The course tutor was Michelle Rea of Inspired by Michelle Cakes. Michelle is from Australia which is where she runs her business, but her classes are in demand internationally so she's currently in the UK for a few weeks, teaching a number of classes including this 3D owl cake. As the techniques for creating the owl were learnt on a course I can't go into too much detail about how to make the cake...but if you'd like to learn I'd definitely recommend attending a course with Michelle or at Pretty Witty Cakes.

Chirpy Chick Easter Cupcakes

Well Easter is nearly upon us, so I thought I would get my Easter baking underway this weekend as I'm going away for a week from Good Friday. For this reason I thought I'd stick with some simple Easter bakes this year and I also tackled Simnel Cake, Hot Cross Buns and Traditional Easter Biscuits last year.

I love these Chirpy Chick Cupcakes they're so cute and perfect for kids. You can use any vanilla cupcake recipe but I particularly like this one from the Hummingbird Bakery. You could also flavour the cupcakes, lemon would be good!

I piped a swirl of buttercream on top of each cupcake with a Wilton 1M nozzle. Buttercream is easy to make, it's just 500g of icing sugar to 250g butter or any 2:1 ratio. I also add 1/2-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and a tablespoon or so of water if it needs loosening.

To make the little chicks on top I used yellow sugarpaste which was mixed with some CMC. CMC stiffens up the paste to make it a little more robust and it means that the circles won't flop when placed on top of the buttercream. I cut out the circles using an Ateco cutter a few hours before I needed them and then left them to harden for a while.

For the wings it is the same sugarpaste with CMC. Each wing was cut out with a heart cutter and then the cutter was twisted slightly to one side and the paste cut through again which gave the wing shape. The eyes are little balls of black flowerpaste and the beak sugarpaste with CMC which was cut out freehand. To finish off the chicks, little flowers were added. These were cut out of white flowerpaste which I coloured up and then PME blossom cutters gave the shape.

 

The design for these cupcakes comes from Seasonal Cupcakes by Carolyn White which is a very reasonably priced little cupcake book and I think the finished product is very effective. The desgin can also be modified to make a number of different bird cupcakes. I previously made some Christmas robin cupcakes which were similar.

These cupcakes are my entry into this month's Calendar Cakes with the theme being Easter Extravaganza. Calendar Cakes is hosted here at Laura Loves Cakes on alternate months with Dolly Bakes. If you'd like to enter you can find all the details here.

 

I'm also entering them into Utterly Scrummy's Easy Easter Baking Blog Hop.



Minnie & Mickey Birthday Cakes

It's been a few months since I properly decorated a cake but I've been getting back into the swing of things this week with these cute Minnie and Mickey Mouse cakes. They were for a joint third birthday party for a boy and a girl.

I've described the method previously for similar stacked cakes so I'll just give a brief overview of how they were made. I started with two slabs of cake and cut around the cake board to give three circles of cake for each of the individual cakes. These three layers were then stacked on each of the cake boards and sandwiched with buttercream and raspberry jam before crumb coating the outside and placing in the fridge, for half an hour or so, to firm up ready for the sugarpaste covering.

 

Each cake is made up of a 7 inch cake on top of a 9 inch and the board at the bottom is 12 inches. In order to support the top cake and stop it sinking into the cake below, there are three dowels in each of the bottom cakes. The board was covered in icing separately to the 9 inch cake sitting on it, the cake went on first and then the board was iced around it.

 

The little Minnies and Mickeys around the bottom tier of the cake were cut out using a sugarpaste cutter that I found on amazon. They are cut  out of black flower paste which is stronger than sugarpaste and can therefore be rolled more thinly. Mickey was then finished with a bow tie and Minnie with the bow in her hair, these were again made out of white flower paste that I coloured up. They're stuck on with royal icing and then Minnie's bow was finished with small piped dots of royal icing.

Normally for a birthday cake I might personalise it with a name around the cake board at the bottom  with the letters being cut out with tappits but I thought that with everything else going on this might look a bit crowded. So I opted for a simple initial on the top of each cake which I was very pleased with as when I added them it just finished off the cakes! 

Finally, for the bows and ears on top I used flower paste again. I cut out the ears using a circle cutter and made the bow out of three separate pieces of paste. Two to make the side loops and one to wrap around the middle. The bow is stuck together using edible glue. All these pieces were left to harden overnight before being attached with royal icing. Here is a bow tutorial from the food network using only two separate pieces of paste which is good for smaller bows. The demo uses sugarpaste which is useful if you just want your bow to sit flat on top of a cupcake for example, but for all other bows where you want it to sit up with a bit of shape or you want to stick it on the side of a cake, you'd have to use flowerpaste. To keep the shape of the bow whilst it's drying you can also roll up some kitchen paper and pop it through each loop until it's set.

I was pleased with the finish cakes but had to brave the elements this weekend to deliver them which is never ideal!

 

The inspiration for the design came from Byrdie Girl Custom Cakes, although there seems to be many similarly designed cakes online.

Regal Jubilee Crown Cake

Well it's only two weeks until the Queen's Jubilee and I for one can't wait for a right royal knees up! Even if you're not a Royalist, it's a good opportunity for a get together. So to celebrate Her Majesty's 60 years on the throne I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate with a Jubilee themed cake.

The cake design is by Fiona Cairns, who made the Royal wedding cake no less. I just happened to see it online a couple of weeks ago and decided that I'd like to give it a go...possibly a bit gungho at that point!

So how is was it made? Well firstly the cake inside is made up of four 8" Victoria sponge layers, sandwiched together with buttercream and raspberry jam. The stack was then chilled to make it a bit firmer for carving. The top edges were carved to give a smooth curve and then the cake was tapered down to a 6" cake drum.

I love the colour of the sugarpaste for this cake,  Renshaw's amethyst paste...and it's the perfect colour to add a regal touch to the crown. To create the gold strips, it is just sugarpaste painted with a mixture of edible gold dust and dipping solution (alcohol). However, to make the ball and cross, I mixed the sugarpaste with some CMC the night before to make it really firm, otherwise the cross wouldn't stay up there on it's own.

To add the finishing touches, a 'fur' trim was created around the base...this is made out of priceless Fox's glacier mints, which were given an almight bash with a rolling pin...it's actually harder than you think to break a Fox's glacier mint! Then the little pearls were stuck on with royal icing, as were the jelly diamonds...I may have been a little cross-eyed after all that sticking! But the result...a crown fit for the Queen!

This month Homemade by Fleur is hosting a Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition so I think this is the perfect entry, what says Jubilee better than a Coronation crown. The competition is sponsored by Appliances Online.

Today is also World Baking Day and I couldn't resist joining in with a little 'Caking'. Check out the World Baking Day website if you want to find out more but it involved me taking my cake for a little walk and taking a picture of it in an unusual place! Here is the result, it drew more than a couple of strange looks from passersbys but the Royal Mail postbox goes perfectly with the Royal cake!

I hope you enjoy your Jubilee celebrations...God Save the Queen!

Cookie Writing

Last week I attended a two hour 'Cookie Writing' evening class at Cakes 4 Fun in Putney. It was a chance to go along and learn about a variety of different ways to write on and personalise your bakes. Many of these ideas can be used on larger cakes but for ease and due to the limited time, we tried out our new skills on cookies.

As you can see below we used royal icing for piping by hand, this is quite tricky and requires a bit of practice. There were also edible images, if you're feeling really keen you can print these yourself by using purchasing edible ink and using a designated printer for edible images!

Tappits can be used to give a nice uniform finish, as well as regular cutters to give the finish you can see in number 4. Finally, why not just style your own writing out of rolled sugarpaste, or alternatively you can use edible pens to write straight on! All of these suggestions are great ways of adding the personal touch to your cakes and cookies and as always the Cakes 4 Fun team came up with some fab designs and a great colour scheme which ties all the cookies together! 

1. Piping with Royal Icing                                           2. Edible Images

3. Tappits                                                                      4. Cutter

5. Rolled sugarpaste                                                     6. Edible Pen

I don't want to give too much away as if you want to learn more and find out how to use each of the methods properly, I'd definitely recommend going on the course. Cakes 4 Fun always run great classes and the tutors are lovely, so if you're ever in this neck of the woods, give it a go! :-)