Cupcake Decorating Workshop

Last night me and Suzie joined Sarah in her Blue Door Bakery for a lesson in swirls, sugar shapes and sprinkles. It was pure cupcake heaven!

As well as me and Suzie, 5 other ladies joined us including Louise who writes a food blog Comida yVida.  We all sat round a table full of cutters, gel colourings, spatulas, rollers and sprinkles in every shape, size and colour you could imagine.

We learnt about sugar paste and we able to use different gel colours to create beautiful shapes from the dozens of cutters she had.  (Sarah had made a purple sprinkles section for me to sit next to!)  These were mine and Suzie's creations.

Can you guess which ones were mine!!?

Sarah taught us how to make the best tasting fondant and butter cream icing and then how to create perfect peaks and rose swirls.

We each had 12 cupcakes to decorate with our icing, sugar shapes and sprinkles.  It was so much fun!  We even had the chance to fill our cupcakes with a chocolate ganache Sarah had made earlier, yum!

Look how proud we are!

A closer look at our cupcakes, mine...

Suzie's...

You'll see Suzie perfected the rose swirl, a lot better than my attempts!  We had such a fun time and I would definitely recommend a workshop to anyone who loves cupcakes and baking.

Suzie and I also left with a cupcake decorating kit, which includes loads of goodies needed to recreate these decorations at home.  You can buy these online or when you attend one of these workshops.

Thank you Sarah for being a wonderful host and teacher... I want to do it all again!!

Guess where I'll be tonight?!

Here!

Hopefully making gorgeous looking cupcakes at the Blue Door Bakery Decorating Workshop  I can't tell you how excited I am!

I shall post the outcome tomorrow....!

Win a Cupcake Decorating Workshop!

Blue Door Bakery are offering a free Cupcake Decorating Workshop voucher to one very lucky winner.  Visit the Blue Door Bakery Facebook page to enter!

Competition closes at midday on the 18th May 2010


I'm booked in to one of these amazing workshops at the end of May and I seriously can.not.wait!

Bride and Groom Cupcakes

As we're not having a traditional wedding cake we don't really think the traditional bride and groom statue on top of the cake will look right.  Saying that I still want the cupcake tower to look like a wedding cake, I want our guests to instantly recognise that as our cake and not just dessert!  We're having white icing and keeping the purple sprinkles subtle, so hopefully this will help, but I've been thinking of having bride and groom cupcakes.

I've seen quite a few of these around and think they look really cute.  I'm not 100% sure on what to have yet but I love these ideas.

Top Left: Super cute pirate and ballerina toppers the bride found at a local knick knack store.  This is such a sweet idea but I'm not really sure of what I would have on my cupcake?

Top Right: Sugar icing circles with the bride and groom's initials.  I really like this idea and may go with something in between this and the bottom right photo.  I'd love the idea of having a purple sugar heart with our initials either iced or embossed on to it.

The bride and groom toppers in the bottom left photo are traditional with a twist.  I love these but have no idea where to get hold of them?!

Not only will this help people identify the tower as the wedding cake, I think it will ensure Has and I actually get a cupcake!  I have visions of them all being gobbled up before we get chance to enjoy one.

Magnolia Bakery

Made famous by Sex and the City, Magnolia Bakery has opened up a new stand in Grand Central Station.  When ever we've been to New York we always say we'll go to one of the stores but as of yet we still have not tried one of these famous little cupcakes!

from here, here and here

Seeing as we're usually based around Grand Central Station and tend to hop on and hop off the subway stop there we shall have no excuse not to drop in for a few cupcakes on our honeymoon!

Cupcake class is in session!

The very lovely and very talented Sarah at Blue Door Bakery is opening her kitchen doors for cupcake decorating classes!

I love baking cupcakes but even more than that I love decorating them! As soon as Suzie is back from her honeymoon I intend to grab a date in Sarah’s diary and meet up to learn all about sprinkles and swirls. Too exciting!

Who knows maybe one day I'll be able to create amazing cupcakes like this?!

February? Already!

Wow!  Time is flying by!

I've been looking at my "to do" list I made at the start of the year to make sure I'm on track.  So far I'm doing pretty well.
I've made my hair appointment for the wedding day, looked at potential hair styles for me and my bridesmaids, I met Sarah from Blue Door Bakery and spoke extensively about cupcakes, emailed my friends about "Hen and the City" and booked our flights from San Francisco to Oahu!

Well today I crossed off two more things from my list.

First of all I registered our gift list with John Lewis, we don't have to decide on what we want yet but at least it's all set up ready for us to zap our way around the shop!

Has: "What does this do?"
Laura: "I have no idea?  Lets get it!"
Zap!

Also today I sent off our deposit to Sarah at Blue Door Bakery to confirm our booking for our yummy wedding cupcake tower!

This is the tower we saw at the wedding fayre at Stone Manor Hotel.  Ours will look really similar but with a giant cupcake on top!

I want to try and make the chalkboard placecards this month too, I now have all the things I need after buying 4 more packs of wooden hearts from Hobbycraft this weekend, so there's nothing really stopping me!

Last night Has found the flights for Honolulu to Anchorage, Anchorage to Seattle and Seattle to New York so we should be able to get those booked up soon too!  Full steam ahead!

Blue Door Delicious!

Today I met Sarah from Blue Door Bakery at Stone Manor Hotel's Wedding Fayre.  I got to see her gorgeous cupcakes in the flesh and let me tell you they we're amazing!  Just standing by the stall talking to her we could smell them!
Sarah had two arrangements one was an 80 vanilla cupcake tower with purple embellishments, including purple and laser cut cake cases and another made entirely from chocolate, crowning the chocolatey tower was a rather impressive giant cupcake.  The presentation of each cake is perfect.  You can tell Sarah obviously puts in a lot of care and effort.

After I had introduced myself to Sarah she said "Oh I have something for you!" and pulled out a little cupcake gift box from under the table!  So sweet!

Not only do they look and smell absolutely delicious they taste incredible!  The cakes are so light and fluffy and the frosting is heavenly!  My words seriously can not do these cakes justice.  You really have to try them for yourselves!

Needless to say the first thing I did when I got home, aside from devouring the cakes, was to email Sarah with the nitty gritty details of ordering these for our wedding.  Our guests really are in for a tasty treat!

It was lovely to meet you Sarah and thanks again for the scrummy cakes!  x

Busy busy busy!

I have a rather wedding packed weekend on the cards!  Tomorrow I shall be visiting Hobby Crafts to see if I can find the materials to make chalkboard place names. If I get time I'll also have a go at putting one together.

The it's off to Suzie's house to drop off something special... what could it be!?  Not telling!  If Suzie spies this post the surprise will be ruined!  I promise to post about it once she has it!

I'm also out with some friends tomorrow night for pizza, drinks and dancing so I may as well kill two birds so to speak and curl my hair and play around with some wedding styles.

Then Sunday bright and early (depending on hangovers) we shall be eating cake from Blue Door Bakery.  The lovely Sarah will be at the Stone Manor Hotel Wedding Fair.  Hopefully I'll be able to cross off another "to do" item from my January list.  I'm really looking forward to meeting her, we've chatted over email and twitter so it'll be nice to put a face to the tweets!

Jealous?  You should be!!

Happy Weekend! x

Cupcake wrappers by Laura!

So I found a template online, bought some cute paper and spent about 30 minutes making my own cupcake wrappers.

Ok so they're not fabulous, but I think they look quite good for half an hours worth of work.  I used left over bits and bobs from other craft projects just to see how easy they would be to make.

It turns out pretty easy!

I couldn't find my hole punches but they would look really sweet with different shapes punched out.  A great idea to jazz up any shop bought cupcakes for parties.  It just goes to show you don't need to spend a lot to get cute looking wrappers!

Speaking of cupcakes...

I seem to have cupcakes on the brain today!

I've been thinking about the cupcake flags and cute sayings to put on them.  So far I have

"Eat me!"
"Let there be cake!"
"Love is sweet!"
"The best is yet to come!"
"Be happy, eat cake!"
"Be mine!"
"Sweets for my sweet!"
"Delish!"
"Yummy!"
"Enjoy!"
"Cute as a cupcake!"

Can you think of any more?

They'll be super easy to make, I just think they'll be one of those things that will be really worth it!

Cupcake Liners

found these super cute cupcake liners on Etsy yesterday, I've been looking for alternatives to the boring generic white cases most cupcakes come in and Esty didn't let me down!

I haven't even booked a cupcake supplier yet or even discussed the possibility of them being wrapped in gorgeous cases but these are seriously too cute not to mention!

I'm loving the bright colours of these cases from Cupcake Social.  So fun!

Then I came across these from Cupcake Flair

Laser cut cases = gorgeous!

These have to be my personal favourite.

I absolutely adore the embellished cases from Sugar Cat Studio.

Why oh why do all the gorgeous things live in America?!  Why does it have to cost me the Earth to ship them over? And why can't I be clever enough to make them!  Oh wait... it actually looks quite easy!

UPDATE: I bought some cute paper at lunch time, so I'll have a go tonight and report back!

Christmas Cupcakes

Friday night Suzie and I made Christmas Cupcakes.

They were incredibly yummy and so easy to make.

Christmas Cupcakes.
2 large eggs, cracked open
1 tsp vanilla essence
125g/4oz caster sugar
125g/4oz soft margarine
125g/4oz self-raising flour

A sprinkle of white chocolate chips

• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. 
• Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat them together until the mixture is smooth and slightly lighter in colour.
• Line a bun tin or cupcake tin with paper cake cases and half-fill each case with the cake mixture.  Suzie and I made bite-sized cupcakes so our mixture obviously went a long way
• Cook the cakes for 10-12 minutes.  (Cook for 18-20 minutes for normal sized cupcakes) You can tell they are done when they have risen up, are golden in colour, and spring back into shape when lightly pressed.

To decorate

140g/5oz butter, softened
280g/10oz icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
a few drops food colouring

• Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
• Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the milk.
• Beat until creamy then add the food colouring and mix well. 
• Add extra icing sugar to thicken or a little extra milk to make more runny if necessary.

We split our icing in half to make both red and green icing and then we used an icing tube to decorate our cupcakes.

We added silver balls and a star on top of our Christmas Tree Cupcakes and sprinkles icing sugar over our Christmas Poinsettia Cupcakes.

And because we hadn't had enough sugar that evening Suzie tested her new candy floss machine out on me!

Mmmmmm Sugary!

Cake Toppers

I'm not a huge fan of cake toppers but I've seen a few recently that are so cute they may be changing my mind.

Like these

from Sarah and Jaime's Wedding

They are so sweet without being cheesy plus they'd make lovely little keepsakes from the day.

Cupcake Flags

I'm thinking about having mini cupcakes on our candy table.  The first lady we spoke to about cupcakes makes to most adorable mini cakes.  If we do go ahead with this idea I really want to add cupcake flags like these.

1,2,3,4

I think they look super cute, especially when they have things written on them like "Eat me", "Yummy" and "Be Mine"

They'd be really easy to make and would take very little time but they would look so good!

More cupcakes

I've found another company today who make cupcakes.  Blue Door Bakery.

I have emailed Sarah and asked her about prices and whether we can go round for a tasting session (Yummy!)

Look away now if you're on a diet!

Blue Door Bakery

I've found her!

I've found my cupcake lady!

After the wedding fayre where we met Leanne, I lost her details somewhere amongst the wedding chaos!  I managed to get in touch with the company who organised the event and they gave me her contact details.

I have since emailed her and have arranged to meet up sometime in the New Year.  Hopefully she will prepare a few samples for us to try.  I want Has to understand just how amazing her cupcakes are!

These are her cupcakes

Yummy!

Her name is Leanne and her company is called The Natural Cake Kitchen.  She doesn't have a website yet but she does have a Facebook Fan Page.

P.S I tried one of the pink cupcakes in the bottom photo! Delicious!

Cupcake Chaos

Friday night Suzie and I spent over 3 hours baking and decorating cupcakes!

It was soo much fun and they tasted amazing!  Look!

Yummy, Laura likes cupcakes...

... a lot!

Sugar rush!

Squish and Moo's Cupcake Kitchen!

Heaven in a Mouthful

I went to a wedding fayre the other week at a local hotel.  I’m not a huge fan of these things because they are full of pushy brides who use their elbows to get to the front of the best stalls and you usually end up with about 3 people all displaying the same thing, it was chair covers at this one. 

After squeezing through the corridors past the hordes of elbows, pushchairs (Who takes a pushchair to a wedding fayre held in the smallest venue possible!?) and mothers-of-the-brides to be (they’re the worst elbow offenders!) I found a lady who was displaying cupcakes.  She had arranged them on a stand to mimic a wedding cake.  Mom and I stood their drooling over how gorgeous the cakes were when the lady asked us if we’d like to try one.  Never one to turn down a cake we took one to share and went off to find somewhere to eat it.

Oh my sweet, sweet tooth it was amazing!!  Without actually saying anything other than a few muffled cake filled mouthful “Oh my god’s” and “MmMmMMMM’s!!!” we both turned around and headed straight back to her table to offer her compliments in between bites. 

The lady makes everything herself from scratch including the delicious jam that surprises you when you bite into the middle.  The icing was light and fluffy and beautifully whipped on top.  Not only did her cakes look gorgeous, they tasted gorgeous and, best of all, they are really reasonably priced!  I was sold!

The one thing, out of all the wedding planning that Has has been the most vocal about is the wedding cake.  “I don’t want a square cake”   “I don’t want fruit cake”  So I wasn’t sure how he would take the idea of a cupcake wedding cake.  At first he wasn’t so sure, we both agree that if you don’t do it right then it can look a bit, dare I say, tacky!

We’ve decided when Has gets back from India we are going to arrange an appointment with the cupcake lady, Has can then taste the amazing “heaven in a mouthful” cupcakes and see for himself.

I have actually been researching a lot of cupcake towers to see what works best.  I’ve found these examples and will definitely be taking these to the cupcake lady when we go see her.

This is my favourite!

here

here

here

This is the cutting cake which sits on top of the tower.  I love the pearl decoration.