Christmas Cupcakes Classes 2012

We had a busy Cupcake Saturday with two Christmas Cupcake classes.

Lots of new cutters and sprinkles to help decorate our cupcakes with.

The cakes were full of orange zest, orange juice, mixed spice, rum .... delicious!

Here are the six boxes from the morning's class:

In the afternoon we had a lovely group from Falkland, who were very creative 

Christmas Gift Vouchers

I've put together the Spring Cupcake dates

HERE

A Cupcake Class would make a great Christmas Present.

I have Gift Vouchers ready to send out, please email or call

emily @treetops-newbury.co.uk

01635 44850

Butterfly Cupcakes

I enjoyed making these lovely Birthday Butterfly Cupcakes

Vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream, topped with rice paper butterflies, fondant butterflies, flowers and hearts.

Thorngrove School Christmas Fayre

I will be having a stall at Thorngrove's Christmas Fayre this Sunday.

A table full of nozzles, cupcakes cases, colour pastes, cutters, cupcake boxes, and maybe a few edible Cupcakes!

Come and see me, and enjoy all the other stalls.

2pm - 5pm

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

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.

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:

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.

New Class Coming Up - Vintage Cupcakes

Our new class is called Vintage Cupcakes.

We will be using new moulds, cutters and embossers, along with mastering new skills with lustres, pastes and royal icing.

Come and learn some new decorating ideas to perfect your Cupcakes.

Pastel shades, flowers, bunting, buttons and bows.

The next two Vintage Cupcake Classes are on:

Monday 1 October 11am - 1pm  £50

or

Saturday 13 October 11am - 1pm  £55

Our Coach Trip to The Cake and Bake Show

We had great fun on our Colourful Cupcakes Coach Tour to Earls Court last weekend.

Twenty five of us left Newbury Wharf at a rather early Sunday hour, and made it to Earls Court in good time (thanks to Weavaway Travel) to queue ready for the opening hour. 

Most of us rushed straight to the main theatre area for Mary Berry's 11am demo.

It was well worth the wait to see the lovely lady in person, and as a baking bonus, her demo was gate crashed by Paul Hollywood.

The pair of them have a great banter and friendship, and the audience was used to vote for Paul wearing a) polo shirts or b) smart shirt, as Mary prefers him in a smart shirt.  The audience agreed too!

Mary demonstrated a Hazelnut and Raspberry Meringue Roulade

And Paul was there to taste .... 

Mary also made a delicious chocolate cake, which was shared amongst some very lucky children in the front row.

There were plenty of stalls to look around during the day.  At lunchtime it was incredibly busy, but you could go and listen to talks, see demos, queue for book signings etc.

I really enjoyed the Squires stand and Peggy Porschen stand.

It was good to see what the new trends are, have a look at new products and to have the opportunity to ask questions at the various stalls.  There's always a new gadget that needs explaining!

In the afternoon I sat down with my cuppa to watch Edd Kimber (2010 GBBO Winner) do his demo and answer any GBBO questions we had.  He has a new book out, which is obviously so good, it completely sold out! 

I saw Eric Lanlard demonstrating some decorating techniques to a small group.

One of my favourites of the day was Paul A Young, who makes fine chocolates and truffles, he has stores in London.

He was an excellent speaker, and had made over 3000 truffles for the show classroom events and tastings.  The way he described the ingredients and the flavours with such passion (and excitement!) was wonderful. 

If you are in London, please visit, they are divine.  (Islington, Soho and City)

I loved the creativity of these party tables from Tempting Cake.

We nearly didn't make it out of London as Tina was very busy cuddling Paul Hollywood!  She swooned the whole way home on the M4!

Our two mini bakers Georgia and Freya were over the moon to meet Mary and to have their photos taken with her AND get her autograph! 

The Show was a complete sell out, and I know it will be even bigger and better next year.