I had a go at decorating fancy cupcakes for Halloween last year. Last night, I stepped my goal up a notch. I have started a cupcake design course, which runs for two hours every Tuesday night for three weeks. Tamara from tempt is our teacher; what a wonderful, creative, warm, energetic person she is. Enticed by the idea of learning how to bake and decorate fancy cupcakes like the ones in her window, the course quickly filled up and is now fully booked until the end of May.We began with two basic recipes for making 36 cupcakes; one chocolate and one with a vanilla base. They taste every bit as good as they look. Tamara gave us lots of simple variations for each, eg add 1 1/2 cups of frozen raspberries to the vanilla mixture, or two grated orange zests to the chocolate mix for jaffa cupcakes, or a cup of chopped nuts to either mixture. There were lots of little tips and tricks along the way for making these simple cupcakes (a good beater makes life so much easier) and my notebook is already filling up with notes.
Then we got onto making buttercream frosting. We tried two flavours: a plain vanilla type (which can be coloured), and chocolate. We had a go at piping some basic frosting, and here is my first attempt in chocolate. (The person next to me coloured the vanilla icing pink - definitely not my choice!)Tamara promised that we would go home having made a little rose like the one on her ad. [Gulp!] Using gum paste, she showed us how to hand-mould the bud, then each of the five petals into a rose shape, and voila! I also had a go at colouring my gum paste purple, naturally. With a bit of practice, these roses are fiddly but not all that tricky to make. Apparently they will last for months if they are kept away from moisture; I'm already thinking about making a whole pile for party favours for my parents' big wedding anniversary party in June, but that will depend on how much patience I have!
4 comments:
Wow!! They look delicious :)
That looks like so much fun!!!! I want to take a cake decorating course later yet (in my 101 as well) and cupcakes are something I'd LOVE to decorate too! Mmmmmm...
Oh they are just so precious!!! The roses look so professional, I'm so impressed you did that in just one lesson!! I'd be all fingers and thumbs. Can't wait to see what you produce next week.
That looks like so much fun! I've been looking at taking a cake decorating class here. I can't decide if I want to do one at the local crafts store or at a local bakery. I can't wait to see what you do next week!
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