Class Dates

Friday 26 October 2012

Halloween Cupcakes


We are usually away at Halloween but this year we will be here making everything orange, black and scary!

I made some dark chocolate cupcakes today, with some fun toppers and some plastic spiders that I found in Tesco, I thought they were the perfect size for a cupcake, they are soooo effective.

There are lots of orange, black and purple cupcake cases around in the shops, to theme your cupcakes.

Flavour wise, chocolate is ideal to make a dark halloween cake, you could have chocolate buttercream (I added cocoa powder to my buttercream) or make a choc orange buttercream by adding some freshly squeezed orange juice and finely grated zest.

Use an orange colour paste, to make a rich dark orange for your swirls.  Or use it to colour a vanilla cake mix, to have bright orange cakes.  To get really gruesome, buy some 'Party Green' paste, and colour your vanilla cake green, add some jelly slimy worms to the decorations and the cupcakes will look great.

Scoop out the centre of the cupcake and add some strawberry or raspberry jam before decorating, to make oozing blood cupcakes!

You could have fun making some spiders and bats with black sugarpaste, this takes forever to colour, so buy it ready made, Lakeland do a good ready to roll black icing for £1.49.

Happy Halloween Baking



Monday 22 October 2012

Pretty Cupcakes


Here are some pretty pastel vanilla cupcakes in one of my favourite tiered
Laura Ashley stands.

To shape your leaves, scrunch up some tin foil, then just slightly stretch it out, and lay your cut out leaves over the raised lumps and bumps of the foil, to give them some shape.  Leave them to dry and harden for 24 hours.


Sunday 14 October 2012

Stage 1 Cupcake Class - 13 October


Yesterday afternoon we had 5 new people arrive for our Stage 1 Cupcake Class.

We covered baking, buttercream icing, fondant icing and decorating techniques, I think it's really great that we have a class that covers the actual baking, as it's a great opportunity to ask questions and have the kitchen full of lovely baking smells whilst we work!

This group were so confident and speedy, here are their cupcakes:








Vintage Cupcake Class 13 October


Saturday morning was spent making some Vintage Cupcakes.

Learning how to use the embossers, moulds and lustre powders, all in pale vintage shades.


Here are the beautiful boxes of Cupcakes that left Treetops:







Monday 1 October 2012

Vintage Cupcakes Class - 1 October


We had a really enjoyable Monday morning at Treetops, making Vintage Cupcakes.

The Cupcake was a delicious lemon flavour, with a lemon syrup and buttercream.

Working with a limited palette of pale vintage colours, we learnt how to use florist paste, silicone moulds, stencils and embossers.

Not only did everyone take home their beautiful cupcakes, they also had a good selection of pretty buttons, butterflies, flowers, bows, brooches and other decorations that they had made.
   



There are a couple of spaces left on our next Vintage Class which is on Saturday
13 October  11am - 1pm  £55.