Yum!

Anyone who knows me will know I like cooking. I love messing about and trying new recipes to see what I can come up with. And without being big headed, I do alright. I 'm pretty confident in the kitchen and I'll give more or less anything a go. I've never really done much baking though. I make a cake and I reckon it'd taste alright, it just wouldn't look that great. I haven't got a clue where to start with decoraing them. You see all these gorgeous cakes and cupcakes and I'd love to be able to do something like that. That's why I decided to put going to a cake decorating class on my challenge list.

While I've never really been much good at making cupcakes, I'm really good at eating them! Some of my favourites are from Hey Little Cupcake in town. It's not far from Dan's work and every now and again he'll suprise me by bringing a cupcake home. They are scrummy. I was really chuffed when he got me a voucher to do a cupcake decorating class there for christmas.

Today was the day of the class and I set off feeling all excited. I was a little bit nervous too though as I've never done anything like this before. I was convinced everybody would be better than me and I'd come up with the worst cupcakes they'd ever seen. I don't hink I did too badly for a first attempt though. Here's what I managed to create

The cupcakes were ready made for us, as was the buttercream. They did go over how to make everything but it was more about teaching us how to pipe and decorate.

 



We started nice and easy with the cookie monster - no piping! We had to smooth butter cream over a plain cupcake then roll it into blue sprinkles. The eyes were made with white chocolate buttons and chocolate drops and we used a mini cookie for the mouth. Really simple but it looks great. He's so cute!

Next up was the oreo cupcake. This was a chocolate cupcake with an oreo baked into it. Then came my first attempt at piping. Plain buttercream with a plain round nozzle. Getting all the air out of the piping bag was a bit tricky but once that was done the piping wasn't as difficult as I expected. Two and a half swirls then finish off with a mini oreo and some oreo crumbs.

La Paris was next. I love this one, it's very me with all its pinkness. Its a chocolate cupcake with strawberry buttercream. Trying to remember which nozzle it was, some kind of  inverted swirly one I think. I need to get my head round them all because I want some. The little hearts are chocolate and were just scattered over the top.

This one is like your classic cupcake and it's called Viva Las Vegas. Chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream, gold dragees and white chocolate stars.

My spring garden was the most difficult cupcake to make. The green buttercream is just plain vanilla with colouring added. The piping was tricky. It was like a spaghetti press and instead of swirling round you had to lift up and do a splodge at a time. The flowers and butterflies are made from sugarpaste. They had some really cute little cutters and I want them too! It was all a bit fiddly but worth it in the end. I love the colours.

The final cupcake was a cute little rose. The piping was tricky on this one. I'd got used to swirling up from the ouside but this one was piped from the cenre out and needed to be kept level-ish. It took me two attempts but once the buttercream was on I added a sugarpaste leaf and some edible glitter.

I had a really fun afternoon. I'm dead pleased with how well my cupcakes turned out and I'd definitely feel more confident to have a go at home now. I'm feeling a little shopping trip coming on when I get paid to buy nozzles and piping bags and other cute things to decorate with. I want to do some of their other classes too. In the meantime I've got six cupcakes to get through. Me and Dan have halved Cookie Monser and Viva Las Vegas and the were both yummy. Have to admit I'm a bit gutted about destroying my hard work but the feeling doesn't last long once you're eaing them. Yum!