Spotty Dotty Flower Tutorial

A couple of months ago - and by a couple I mean 3: ) - I posted a recipe for Malva Pudding Cupcakes, and a few people asked how I made the spotty flowers that I'd decorated them with.

So, I've reproduced them, and taken a couple of photos along the way to show you how:

Spotty Dotty Flower Tutorial :

You'll need:
Tylose paste / gumpaste in 2 colours - white and pink, in this example.
Flower cutter
Small circle cutter
Roller
Cake smoother
Tylose glue
Toothpick.
Egg tray
A little Holsum (white vegetable fat) to grease your work surface, if needed.

Roll out the white paste and cut out several dots. I use a PME plunger cutter for this (love!) but you can also use the tip of a large plain icing nozzle, or any other round cutter.
Cover with plastic, and set aside.
Roll out the pink paste.

Distribute the white dots over the pink paste - use a dab of tylose glue or water if necessary to stick them down - flatten with a cake smoother.

Cut out flowers and place in an egg tray to dry.
















Make buttons for centre of flower - cut out rounds out of tylose paste (don't roll the paste too thin) and use a toothpick to make the central holes.

Glue in place in the centre of the flowers.

Allow to dry completely before using to decorate cupcakes.

Pretty simple, yes?

Happy decorating!

xxM

Snail Cookie Cutters

WhileI was scrolling through all the (cupcake, cake and cookie) photos stored on my computer - trying to get rid of some to make space for more (cupcake, cake and cookie) photos - I came across the one below that I snapped while cutting out snail cookies for the Spring Cookie classes. 

I was going to send it straight to the trash bin, but thought I might as well share this first: - 

If you are battling to get cookie dough out of narrow spaces in a cookie cutter, a fondant ball/ bone tall is a great help. As you lift the cutter away from the cookie dough, gently press down the dough that is wanting to stay in the narrow part of the cutter. That should prevent this area from breaking off. 

And if you don't have fondant tools, then any slim blunt-ended instrument will do - the non-business end of a pencil or paintbrush, for example. 

Is there anyone on this planet that benefitted from that "tidbit", or was I just justifying the photo I took and explaining something totally obvious?!?

Happy baking!

xxM 

Dark Chocolate and Cranberry Cupcakes

As I typed the opening lines - "A couple of weeks ago" it occurred to me that it's only here in South Africa that we use "a couple" to mean three or four, and the rest of the world knows it means two! (Could it be because we permit polygamy here in this glorious Kingdom of KwaZulu Natal?! Oh, boy - let's not go there!)

Anyhoo... back to safer territory - baking : )

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Lindt inspired choc-mint cupcakes and my brain went off on one of its there-could-be-a-theme-here tangents. So, here I am trying out another Lindt Intense inspired combination - dark chocolate and cranberry.

I was in two minds about including cranberries in the cupcake batter (instead of just the icing), but in the end I did. Not many -  just a couple few per cupcake, but enough to add some taste and textural interest without overwhelming the chocolate.

Cranberry Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
Recipe by Tea, Cake and Create

Preheat the oven to 180'C
Prepare 2x 12hole muffin trays with cupcake cases.

2 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup boiling water **
1tsp Vanilla (8-10drops of Vanilla Girl vanilla extract)
1/2 cup dried cranberries

** for an extra intense flavour, replace boiling water with a cup of strong, hot, black coffee

Sift together all the dry ingredients. Whisk to combine. Mix in the cranberries.
Make a well in the centre, and pour in the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla.
Mix well.
Add the boiling water. Mix until combined.

Pour into the prepared cupcake cases - do not fill more than halfway!
Bake at 180'C for approx 20min, or until a skewer inserted comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
Remove cupcakes from muffin trays to cool.

Ice when completely cool.

Cranberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Recipe by Tea, Cake and Create

5 egg whites
1 cup white sugar
1tsp vanilla extract (or 8-10 drops of Vanilla Girl vanilla extract)
300g butter at room temp, cut into cubes.
125 ml (1/2 cup) cranberry jelly.


Put the egg whites and sugar into a mixing bowl, and place that over a suitable saucepan of simmering water. The bottom of the mixing bowl must not be in contact with the water, and the water should not be boiling.

Whisk constantly, until the sugar granules have dissolved and the mixture is hot to touch.

Move off the stove, and to the mixer.
Using the whisk attachment, whip until it forms a thick and glossy meringue.

When the mixing bowl feels neutral to touch, change over to the paddle attachment, and add the butter one cube at a time, beating on low-medium speed.
It may curdle, but just keep whipping until it reaches a satiny smooth consistency and holds its shape. Add the vanilla extract and cranberry jelly, beat well to incorporate.

Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Enjoy...a couple or 3 or 4...
; )

xxM

Sugar Paste Puppy Tutorial

Sugar paste puppy:

Here's the inspiration:

He's looking a bit bedraggled and is hung up to dry because he belongs to a 3 year old, and she decided that he needed a bath.  (Wondering why I haven't got my kids any real live pets yet...?!)
; )

You'll need:
- A ball of white fondant/ plastic icing with some tylose powder added to it.
- A small ball (less than pictured) of black fondant with tylose powder added to it.
(The official amount is 1tsp tylose powder per 250g fondant, but I just go by feel. Too little and the paste won't hold it's shape, too much and it becomes hard and cracks easily.)

-You'll also need a scallop tool - AKA a"smiley mouth" tool; a small palette knife, and some tylose glue / water and a paintbrush to apply it.

These are the basic shapes to begin with:

Then slightly elongate the legs by rolling the narrow end of the teardrop in your palm:

Position limbs on the sides of the body. Attach with a little tylose glue / water.
Place a stick of spaghetti in the body to support the head.

Roll out two small balls for ears.

Flatten them, and pinch the ends.

Position on the head - correct positioning is important. Play around with them a bit before attaching  with glue, if you are not sure.

Use the small palette knife / the blunt side of a knife to mark the muzzle.
Place the black patch on the face where one eye will be marked, and stick on a little black nose.
Use the scallop tool to mark the closed eyes (the black eye too - you just can't see that in the photo).

Attach the head to the body - use a little glue.

Add a tail and some other details...

I used the stitching tool to make it look more like a toy puppy.

Allow to dry.

Let sleeping dogs lie ; )

xxM

Lime and Coconut Cupcakes

Have I told you before that can be I can be a little one track minded obsessive compulsive??
 So in the past week I've made three different kinds of cupcakes with coconut cream. I'm not too sure what started it - this pursuit of a great coconut-containing cupcake.  (Maybe the upcoming Tropical Island Cupcakes theme??  That's a rhetorical question -  don't try answer it. I can't either. If I figure out the origins of this latest fixation, I'll let you know!)

But, anyway, it did lead me to try out this recipe - which I might not have done if the whole coconut-craze-thing wasn't happening.
And it's a keeper....

Lime and Coconut Cupcakes

Adapted from a recipe from Nikki Palmer

Ingredients
150g cake flour, sifted.
175g butter
120g caster sugar
2 eggs
75g shredded coconut
1 tsp baking powder
120ml coconut cream.

Preheat the oven to 180'C
Line a 12 hole muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl between additions.
Mix well.
Stir in the coconut cream, then fold in the shredded coconut and flour.

Spoon into the prepared cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Remove from muffin tray and allow to cool before icing.

Lime Mascarpone Icing.
Recipe by Tea, Cake & Create

250g mascarpone
1/2 cup (125ml) whipping cream
1/3 cup sifted icing sugar
1 lime - zest and juice.
Green gel colour *
Coconut flakes

Chill the mixing bowl and whisk attachment in the freezer for 20 minutes.
Place all ingredients into the chilled bowl, and whip until stiff.
*Add a drop of electric green gel colour if desired.
Pipe onto cooked cupcakes.
Top with coconut flakes.

Hmmn... flavours of the islands ; )

Enjoy!

xxM

Spring Cookies and Royal Icing

It is Friday the 13th.
So far, so good. *Touch wood*. Not that I'm superstitious or anything!
We had a lovely "Bugs and Butterflies" Cookies class this morning, and the mischievous Spring weather didn't  play any tricks on us.

Actually, the number 13 always conjures up the phrase "a baker's dozen" in my one-baking-track-minded brain. And that's about the extent of the significance of 13 for me!

Anyway... It's been a while since I posted anything about cookie decorating and royal icing.
So I thought I'd go back to the basics. Apologies if you've heard this a baker's dozen times at my classes : )

Getting good results with royal icing is all about consistencies and various layering techniques. And practice and patience!
Once you've made a batch of icing (recipe here), you need to water it down, literally teaspoon by teaspoon (slowly - because you know what icing sugar is like with liquids: a drop or two too much, and you go from too thick to too thin faster than you can say drat-darn-it!) until you reach the desired thickness. I generally work with two consistencies - 15second icing and - to use a highly technical term - "peanut butter" thickness ; )

I use the 15s icing for both flooding and general outlining, and the thicker peanut-butter icing - let's call it medium-consistency icing for short : ) - for some detailed work, finer outlines and stenciling.
If I'm doing very fine detailed lacework, piping royal icing roses or ruffles, etc then I use a stiffer icing. But generally, I prefer using the medium-consistency icing because it doesn't peak or "break" as much.

I use tiny Ateco 00 or PME 1.5 nozzles for fine detail work.

So, here's an example - a simply decorated blossom biscuit.

1st step
Outline and flood the centre with 15s icing (and Ateco 01 or 02 tips).
Allow to dry partially (anything from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the humidity)
This allows the icing to "set" a little, so that there will be a textural difference between the centre of the blossom and the surrounding icing.

2nd step
Outline and flood the petals with 15s icing

(It looks about as appealing as a rubbery fried egg at this stage, doesn't it?!)

Leave to dry partially -again, anything from 10minutes to 1 hr.

3rd step
Layer on a few details:

Outline petals

and use a contrasting colour to pipe small dots around the centre of the flower - see how these layers now add interest and 'life' to the cookie?
(Piped with small Ateco 00 nozzles and medium- consistency icing.)

Allow to dry completely - 24 hours - before serving or packaging.

For a few more tips on cookie decorating basics, see this post


Happy decorating!

xxM

Choc-Mint Cupcakes

Warning: if you typed Lindt and chocolate cupcakes into a search engine an arrived at this place, these cupcakes don't actually contain any Lindt chocolate....well, maybe!

But I'm talking about Lindt anyway....
And it will be sort-of relevant, if you're open-minded and think laterally  ; )

Ok, so Lindt...
It is by far my favourite type of chocolate. There are probably other great chocolates out there, but I'm in much too much of a comfort zone to find out.
My only hesitation with Lindt is which flavour combination of their Intense range to choose: Blueberry.... Caramel.....Orange .... Mint. Oh, um...
Mint and blueberry are probably on a par as my favorites, though.
(And as far as Lindt Wasabi Intense goes.... What were they thinking??)

(Getting to my point)  - the combination of chocolate and mint is, in my opinion, a classic winner.
 and so here is a wannabe- cupcake version of it - an intense dark chocolate cupcake with a minty, rich chocolate icing.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
adapted from the Hershey's chocolate cake recipe.

Preheat the oven to 180'C
Prepare 2x 12hole muffin trays with cupcake cases. (Plus an extra 6 if you aren't using larger "American"-style muffin cases)

2 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup boiling water **
1tsp Vanilla (8-10drops of Vanilla Girl vanilla extract)

** for an extra intense flavour, replace boiling water with a cup of strong, hot, black coffee

Sift together all the dry ingredients. Whisk to combine.
Make a well in the centre, and pour in the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla.
Mix well.
Add the boiling water. Mix until combined.

Pour into the prepared cupcake cases - do not fill more than halfway!
Bake at 180'C for approx 20min, or until a skewer inserted comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
Remove cupcakes from muffin trays and cool.

Ice when completely cool.

Minty Chocolate Mousse Icing
Recipe by Tea, Cake & Create

(Enough for 2 dozen cupcakes)

150g butter, at room temp
1 1/2 tubs cream cheese (375g), cold from the fridge. NB use a dense cream cheese like the Woolworths brand or Lancewood.
1 1/2 cups sifted icing sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
Mint essence.
1 Peppermint Crisp  - roughly chopped.

Use an electric mixer to beat the butter until pale and soft before adding the icing sugar.
Mix until just combined.
Add in the cream cheese and cocoa. Mix well.
Add a few drops of mint essence until you've achieved your desired mintiness.


Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and sprinkle with chopped Peppermint Crisp. (Alternatively add the chopped Peppermint Crisp to the icing before piping).

Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.
But if you're thinking of replacing that with a square of Lindt chocolate - I like the way you're thinking : )

xxM