Hi. I do do some amateur cake decorating but not usually cupcakes. I need to make some cupcakes for a fundraiser on Friday though and am hoping I might get some pointers in here. The cakes are for primary school kids so need to be eye catching and super yummy (of course).
I thought of doing a pudsey face with an eye patch on but was wondering what the quickest and easiest and most effective way to do the eye patch is.
I thought I would do a few different styles too so I also thought of doing some with butter cream? on top and a few brighly coloured discs of different sizes but I have a couple of questions...
1) How do you get the butter cream to whirl on top? Do people use some sort of pre-prepared aerosol or something?
2) Would I just use the same sort of fondant icing I use to decorate big cakes to make the coloured discs out of?
And finally, does anyone else have suggestions for other designs?
Thanks in advance :)
click here for the cupcake gallery and hold onto your socks, These CC decorators are fabulous.
There are so many great decorators posting here that you will be amazed.
If the cupcakes are for the kids, then they will probably want two flavors: chocolate with chocolate frosting, and vanilla with vanilla frosting.
Since you are in the UK, you may not have made American Buttercream. That is what is used for the cupcakes in these tutorials. You may need to do a google search for a UK version of American Buttercream (many of the USA recipes have ingredients that may not be available in the UK).
http://www.wilton.com/technique/1M-Swirl
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=1M+swirl&sm=3
Sprinkles are great! Kids LOVE sprinkles! Adults LOVE sprinkles! Everybody LOVES sprinkles. Sprinkles must be applied while the buttercream is still "tacky" and has not developed a "crust".
"Would I just use the same sort of fondant icing I use to decorate big cakes to make the coloured discs out of?" Yes.
I am located in the USA, and I am not familiar with Pudsey. (Looked him up on Google.) If you have access to edible images that can be placed on fondant, you could see about putting the Pudsey image on edible frosting sheets, then put them on fondant. If you are fast with fondant, use black fondant for the eye patch.
AGo to lakeland if you have one, they have loads of Pudsey bits. I bought a Pudsey choc mould and I'm going to put them on choc cupcakes. You can also get a nozzle for piping swirls and food bags. I'd suggest a 1m to get you going.
Maybe I'm looking at this from a different angle, because I do have a cake business....
... but bear in mind (ha! no pun intended!) that these cupcakes will probably be sold for 25p or 50p each.
As someone who has a cake business, it's soul destroying to be asked to donate items for fund raisers, only for them to be sold at less than cost!!! After all the ingredients, equipment and time involved, I'd be better off not even making anything at all and just giving a cash donation!! I realise this sounds very bah humbug and I don't mean it to! It's lovely to see the little children's faces as they get to choose from the pretty cakes. I do honestly get that and I loved doing that when my two were at primary (now they are secondary school, the students bake their own things to sell in the teaching kitchens!)
All I'm saying is don't over-think them! I would keep them simple. Top with buttercream and Smarties to represent his polka-dot eye bandage.
Suzanne x
Thanks guys for all of your replies.
Firstly, Suzanne / Relznik I completely agree with you. If I think about cost I would be far better off just buying a pack of cakes from the supermarket. People keep asking me to make cakes for them and my response is that to cover costs I would have to charge them professional rates and if they were wanting to shell iut that sort of money they would be better off getting a cake made by a prossional as mine would just not look anywhere near as professional. In addition I won't even get to see the kids faces as I wont be able to attend the cake sale. To be honest though, I just love everything cakey and everything to do with cake decoration but I'm by no stretch of the imagination professional and I want to improve my skills and develop new techniques so this is a great opportunity to do that. I am LOVING the smarties idea though. I think I'll go out and buy a pack of those mini smarties so they go further too :)
Cupcakemaker, the nearest Lakeland is a fair trek away so not an option although I may order some online for next year. Unfortunately I need to bake and decorate these cakes tomorrow and there's no way a delivery would arrive in time. I did pop into my local cake decorating shop but they don't have anything pudsey related :(
Apti, thanks for the links and flavour suggestions. It's great to know what will go down well. Edible images would look great but again, difficult to get done in time :( I have PLENTY of sprinkles though :) Over here we just use icing sugar and butter to make butter icing. That's why I love it... sooooo yummy and soooo easy :D I'm not particularly fast with fondant so I may give that a go and then if / when I start getting short of time I may just use an edible pen, although that won't look anywhere near as nice :( We will see.
Hahaha yes, you'd think that living in Cumbria would mean that it wouldn't be far! I'm only 20 minutes, if that from the edge of the Lake District, in fact I used to live there BUT I'm at the northern end and Lakeland is at the southern end and with all those blessed mountains and lakes in the way it takes a good hour and a half to get there! (*sigh*) ...Unless you have a private helicopter... which unfortunately I don't lol. So near, yet oh so far!
Smarties is a brilliant idea, maybe you could dye the icing that bright pudsy yellow, with the different coloured smarties its very obviously children in need. If you want some with an eye patch, maybe forget the bear face altogether and just have a strip if white and dot some red dots on with gel colour, red icing balls or whatever, actually i think the dots are multicoloured now so a mixed pack of those sugar balls would be find, just cut them out and leave then to dry a day or so and stick on top of yellow icing. So glad I read this thread, its all making sense now, thought I was going mad yesterday when I went out for lunch and superman was walking down the high street...
AAll done :). Fairly pleased with the outcome although I would have liked the ears to be better. I had a few spare cakes so I coated them with piped butter cream. Unfortunately I didn't have the right nozzle. I shall have to go shopping and get me one of those nozzles that must be used on all of those posh looking cupcakes. Unfortunately I added cocoa to the butter cream before reading the last post :(. So I had chocolate butter cream covered in holographic powder and with multicoloured mini discs made out of fondant on top. I'm not going to post a picture of those though as I'm not at all keen on my butter cream piping. Maybe next time once I have the right nozzle...
[IMG ALT=""]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3139464/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
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All done
. Fairly pleased with the outcome although I would have liked the ears to be better. I had a few spare cakes so I coated them with piped butter cream. Unfortunately I didn't have the right nozzle. I shall have to go shopping and get me one of those nozzles that must be used on all of those posh looking cupcakes. Unfortunately I added cocoa to the butter cream before reading the last post 
. So I had chocolate butter cream covered in holographic powder and with multicoloured mini discs made out of fondant on top. I'm not going to post a picture of those though as I'm not at all keen on my butter cream piping. Maybe next time once I have the right nozzle...Awwww.... Pudsey is fabulous! The ears look fine, but something else to try would maybe to have used half a circle instead of the whole circle... or perhaps kept the whole circle thicker and just thinned out the lower bit... like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallthingsiced/4116686551/
I'm not saying this to criticize... it's only because you mentioned it that I thought perhaps it would give you ideas to try next time!! :)
Suzanne x
A[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3139789/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
Here are mine.
Thanks guys. :)
Quote:
Awwww.... Pudsey is fabulous! The ears look fine, but something else to try would maybe to have used half a circle instead of the whole circle... or perhaps kept the whole circle thicker and just thinned out the lower bit... like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallthingsiced/4116686551/
I'm not saying this to criticize... it's only because you mentioned it that I thought perhaps it would give you ideas to try next time!! :)
Suzanne x
Thanks for your comments Suzanne. To be completely honest, I'm glad to receive your pointers. I'm certainly all for constructive criticism. Otherwise how do we ever learn? :) The ears in the picture you linked to were what I was trying to achieve and I think it may actually have worked but it didn't, partly because (like you say) I needed to make them thicker so they were easier to pinch thinner at the bottom end and partly because I cut them out ready for my daughter to put on once she returned from school and then went to pick her up, during which time they dried out a bit and were not as pliable. Lesson learnt! Any more tips please DO send them my way :)
Loving your cupcakes cupcakemaker. I NEED to get the nozzle you used for the butter cream.
PS does anyone have any ideas of what to do with left over buttercream? Don't want to throw it out but don't know what else to do with it... something quick and simple that the kids could maybe help with would be great.
Helen x
Yes, I'm sure the fact they were cut out and left was a main factor. But honestly, they DO look GREAT!
Leftover buttercream - either freeze for another time. Or cakepops! Kids will love helping make those! Crumble cake into crumbs, then add just enough buttercream so you can squish it together into balls. I don't want to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs so won't go into the whole thing now, but if you do need more just let me know. x
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOve cake pops never mind the children lol. There seem so many ways to make cakepops so it's good to read your recipe :) Thing is... I don't have any left over cake so I'd have to make cake before making the cakepops. It might be something we could do on Sunday IF I get enough housework done this weekend lol.
The other easy option I've just thought of... and I'm not convinced it would actually work is... rum truffles. Do you think rum would mix in with the butter cream or not? If so I could add rum and the roll in chocolate hundreds and thousands and refridgerate and tadaaaaa :)
AI just freeze excess buttercream. That choc buttercream was frozen from a cake I made a few weeks ago. I just re-whipped it. The nozzle is 1M by the way x
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