Father's Day Cupcakes

I couldn't let Father's Day pass by without a few cupcakes so I have created a batch for my dad and one for my father in law. Dad likes golf and cards so I did two separate themes for him and my father in law is a gardener. It was ideal to make these themed cupcakes together as they could all have green buttercream icing so I wouldn't have to faff around with loads of different colours.

I made these over two evenings. The first night I made my first ever run outs. I'm pretty pleased with the results but next time I will put a bit more effort into the planning and use some templates to trace over.

My freehand icing left a little bit to be desired. The plant pots on the garden cupcakes were originally run outs but they looked so bad, I made some 3D ones out of modelling icing instead.

The freehand watering cans weren't too bad. My favourite was the grey one that looked like an old stainless steel can. I added a little flower to pretty it up a bit. 

The other run outs were for the black suits of the cards (the clubs and spades suits). The hearts were created using a heart plunger from rolled out modelling icing and the diamonds were cut out using a knife. I tried to do run outs for the red suits but they ended up just looking like blobs!

I did several run outs for the lawnmower handle for the garden cake. Good job as all but one broke whilst trying to assemble the pieces. 

The ladybird and dice were the easiest to model, the ladybird just had a bit of liquorice pen detail on top for her spots. 

I was really pleased with the new grass nozzle I bought last week, it was really easy to pipe on and looked really effective. The first piping bag, a reusable fabric one, burst after about three cakes, so I think I'll use disposable ones from now on. 

I think these are the best cakes I've made so far. Still a long way to go yet though. 

Charity cake sale

A friend just texted me and asked whether I want to bake some cakes for a charity event she is part of?

Er, YES! It took less than five seconds to consider the request and already my mind is a whirl of potential cupcake toppings and biscuit designs.

The event is organised by New Cross hospital maternity unit in Wolverhampton as part of National Breastfeeding Week 2012. It's planned for Thursday 21 June at Bantock House in Bradmore, Wolverhampton.

Pregnant mums, new mothers, families and health professionals are invited to bring a picnic and join in the fun, including live music presentations and activities. The event runs from 10am to 3pm.

More information can be found on the West Midlands regional infant feeding coordinators network web site http://www.infantfeedingwm.org.uk/nbw.aspx.

I'm thinking big buttercream toppings for the cupcakes, in typical candy colours and some simple heart and circle biscuits with patterns from my new embossing mats. I am going to pack them into little cellophane bags to make them more hygienic for the stall and hopefully easier to transport.

The problem won't be making them it will be knowing when to stop!

Jubilee jamboree

Today's lesson learnt was "plan how you're going to transport the cake before you begin to make it"!

Last week the Victoria sponge cake with 'cheesecake cream' topping was very well received and I was asked to bring another one to the jubilee party we were invited to. Being a bit cocky, and thinking that our right royal majesty deserved something a bit special, I decided to do a three layer cake with a union flag fruit design on top (probably the most popular cake topping this weekend) and a bit of extra decoration.

The oven played up again so one layer was a bit, well, shall we say well done rather than burnt? I used my cake leveller to sort it out and trimmed the top of the cake off. Also the layers were a bit wonky when I placed them on top of each other but I thought the icing filling would sort that out.

In the end I think it looked cool and deserved of a place on the party buffet table.

The problem came when we tried to transport it. The cake box I had for it wasn't tall enough. The other half suggested our really tall casserole pot to place over the top of the cake. I'd put it on a cake board so this seemed a reasonable solution. What I hadn't considered however was the flower decoration on the board. Hubby covered this in a bit of grease proof paper. I'm not sure that he could have honestly thought this was enough to protect the small delicate icing flowers, but the casserole pot obviously squashed them into a blue and red mulch.

Nevermind. The cake was for a family party and everyone groaned and rolled their eyes at the mishap but tucked in anyway. I obviously had a slice - just to make sure it was OK you understand - and I realised I'd forgotten to add the vanilla paste to the cream. It really made a difference so I must try to remember to add it next time. I used vanilla sugar in the cake mixture itself but didn't have much left so instead of my usual 1/3 vanilla sugar 2/3 caster sugar I just used what vanilla sugar was left and added a bit of vanilla paste in too. I used Fiddes Payne vanilla sugar, but I might try and make my own at some point.

Scrumptious.

I also made some cookies fit for a queen using my new emboss pattern mat. I rolled the icing and cut out the circles for the top of the biscuits before embossing the icing as the mat is not that big. I then added a couple of icing flowers with white icing centres. Don't mind admitting that these were delish too.

Jubilee baking competition with 'Homemade by Fleur'

I follow @cakeboule on Twitter who posted last week that she was going to enter the Homemade by Fleur, Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition.

Homemade by Fleur Jubilee Baking Competition

As we have three parties to go to this weekend, there were always going to be jubilee cakes to be designed and created, but I wanted to give the competition a bit more thought. There's £100 amazon vouchers up for grabs thanks to the competition sponsor Appliances Online so a simple red buttercream rose just wasn't going to cut it.

So, taking inspiration from the article in the latest Marks & Spencer magazine, which looks at Her Majesty's fashion through the decades, I thought I would celebrate events from the past six decades. I think that the jubilee should be about The Queen's entire reign, not just one weekend, so I got my thinking cap on.

I started with 1952 and the coronation, pretty obviously - although when I looked into the coronation a little bit closer, I discovered that it actually took place in 1953 so I can't really understand why we're celebrating this year but that's by the by. I used red buttercream, piped with my brand new rose tip, finished off with red sprinkles and a gold crown crafted using my new crown mould and gold lustre dust.

Jubilee Cupcake - The Coronation

Originally my 1960s cake was going to be all about the swinging sixties, but as there is also an international footballing competition starting next week I though the 1966 world cup would be more appropriate. I used green rolled out icing with white piping icing for the pitch and white rolled out icing for the ball.

Jubilee Cupcake - 1966 - England win the World Cup

I didn't have a clue what happened in the 1970s, having been born at the end of the decade, so Google came to the rescue declaring that decimalisation was introduced in 1971. I used the same buttercream but iced into a swirl rather than a rose and topped it with a £5 note and £1 coin.

Jubilee Cupcake - Decimalisation

Apparently, also according to Google via Wikipedia, the world wide web was invented in 1989, and that's about all that happened in the eighties. I tried to make a computer out of modelling icing and was delighted when baby puddle duck came home from nursery and said she wanted to eat the cake with the computer on - if she can tell what it is then I reckon it will be OK. I also used my new alphabet stencil to imprint the 'www'. I'm definitely going to need more practice with these.

Jubilee Cupcake - Invention of the world wide web

The 1990s were a pretty horrific decade. Google suggested some highly significant historic events, but neither the 9/11 terrorist attack nor Princess Diana's death were topics I would like to depict on a cupcake topping! So instead, I opted for the opening of the channel tunnel. Not my favourite subject for a cake but I was really struggling for a suitable theme by this point! I used blue icing as the background to depict the sea and created the Euro Tunnel logo and French flag out of modelling icing rolled out flat.

Jubilee Cupcakes - Euro Tunnel opens

The year 2000 was much more celebratory, and I wish that I'd bought a champagne glass or bottle mould when I bought the crown one as my attempts at modelling these out of icing were futile! I thought the millennium dome would scream '2000' so I plumped for that.

Jubilee Cupcakes - Millenium Dome

Finally I did some 'typical' jubilee cupcakes to represent 2012, and these are the ones I'm going to take to the party tomorrow. 

Jubilee Cupcakes

Jubilee Cupcakes - 1950 - 2012 - The Queen's reign through the decades

I hope Fleur likes the idea, even if the inspiration was more successful than the execution. I definitely need a bit more practice and lot more time to dedicate to crafting my cakes. Having my hair cut and coloured, feeding a nine week old baby three times and picking up a three year old from nursery meant these cakes actually took nine hours!