Cupcake Baking and Decorating Class

So back in the Autumn my friend Jenny suggested that we buy a Living Social voucher that she had spotted for a 3 hour cup cake baking and decorating class for £22 from Zarina's House of Cakes.  We booked it for today to give us something to look forward to after Christmas and it was really good fun.

First of all we had a look at some of the cakes that Zarina had decorated whilst we waited for the rest of the class participants to arrive and were offered a coffee.  We were then shown through into Zarina's lovely (and huge!) kitchen where all our ingredients were ready and laid out for us - just like on a TV cooking programme!

  
There were 4 of us in the group in total and the first thing that we had to do was to bake our cakes after we'd been talked through the recipe - similar to a sponge recipe, but with the addition of cornflour to make it a smoother mix.  The recipe from memory was as follows:

4 oz self raising flour
4 oz stork / butter
4 oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons corn flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

All the ingredients were added into a bowl and then whisked for exactly 1 minute.

If you've ever wondered how to make cupcakes that don't bake too high...then we learnt how to do this - using an ice cream scoop you fill it 2/3rds full and then use the scoop releaser to put the cake mixture into the cupcake case.

The cakes then went into bake and Zarina showed us how to make our fondant icing decorations to go on top of the cupcakes.

First of all we blended two blocks of white fondant icing with our chosen colour pastes.  I went for Tangerine and violet and Jenny went for claret and ice blue.

We then used Zarina's huge array of cutters to cut out decorations for our cupcakes.  The cutters we used included butterflies, shoes, stars, flowers and geometric shapes.  Some of the cutters just cut out the shape, but others emboss patterns on top.  We also layered up the decorations and used just a drop of water to attach the icing pieces together.

After we had made enough decorations for 6 cupcakes, we took our baked cakes that were almost perfectly flat and Zarina showed us how to ice them with very smooth and perfectly whipped butter cream icing.  First of all we were shown how to "Flat ice" the cakes - spreading the butter cream icing over the top of the cake and using a palate knife to neaten up the edges.  

Zarina then showed us how to pipe butter cream roses onto the cakes - simple, but a definite technique required to make them look like roses.  Then when we had iced our cakes with butter cream roses or flat icing techniques we placed our fondant decorations on with some really lovely results - even if I do say so myself.  (Mine are on the left and Jenny's on the right)

Zarina then gave us a cupcake carrier box to put our cakes in and I think that they are almost too pretty to eat!

We then went back to my house so Jenny could see my decorating efforts on a larger scale (I've just repainted my entire lounge - photos and post to follow shortly) and I introduced her to the wonder that is Kirkstall Morrisons with the best salad bar in the UK (only rivals I've found would be in New York!).  Jenny is here looking very pleased with the selection.

Hobbycrafts Craft Fair and Cake International

7 hours stacked full of craft and cake - a great day.

I got on the 8.12 am train to head down to Birmingham to meet my friend Celeste and use our £6 worth Tesco Club Card Vouchers for entry to both the Hobbycrafts Craft Fair and Cake International shows.  We met up at New Street Station and took the train to Birmingham NEC (it was a bit of a crush and apparently you can get charged for First Class tickets if they find you just in the vestibule area - cheeky!).

We started off with the Cake International Show and went straight over to look at all the amazing cake competition entries.  Everything bar a few internal supports and dummies is made entirely from sugar and it's quite overwhelmingly amazing just how clever people are.  

I took over 100 photos which is far too many to post here, but here is the link to the whole album.  However, here are a couple of my favourites:

This one was in the Handbags and shoes category - I was really impressed that it's literally been knitted/crocheted together with icing.

This one was in the cupcakes category - I had thought that cupcakes would be a fairly straightforward entry,but I was really impressed how creative some of the entries were.  I particularly liked the typewriter in this one.

These two were in the wedding cake with "at least 2 tiers category" and there were so many entries and they were all amazing.  I liked the Halloween themed cake and I also loved the really tall square tiered cake as it was really different.

This category was flowers made from sugarcraft and they were startlingly realistic.  I was really impressed with the tiny detail on them.

These two were in the "Sculpted novelty cake category".  The Roast chicken looked really realistic and the glaze was really convincing.  Slimer was great too, the shaping was really clever, but there was also some sugar "slime" as well.

These two were in the younger category and I loved Oscar who was in the 12 - 18 year old category - really realistic, fun and reminded me of my favourite Sesame Street character.  I apparently insisted to my Mum when I was about 2 years old that it was "arsker" and not "Oscar" as she was trying to get me to pronounce it.  The Dinosaur was in the Under 12 category and was more impressive than I think anything that I might be able to manage! 

This was my favourite cake - Hagrid's house.  The detail was incredible, the pumpkins, the toadstools and best of all even inside Hagrid's hut had amazing detail.

I'm in so much admiration of these cakes, I'd love to have the time and energy to be able to create something so detailed and impressive - not sure that I would be able to bring myself to be able to eat it though after so much work!

We stopped for some lunch and I showed Celeste some more photos from my trip to Bali and had some Sushi and Edamame beans.

Next we walked around the sales stalls and I bought some chocolate "melts" in purple, red and brown (peanut butter flavour) some cellophane bags, purple and red lolly sticks.  I also bought some cellophane with patterns on them that you put melted chocolate on and when you peel off the cellophane the patterns stay on.  I'm going to be making some Chocolate Lollies for Christmas Presents that I learned at the Living La Vida Cocoa WI workshop in October.   I also bought some edible glitter to make them all a bit more exciting!

We then went into the Hobbycrafts, Crafts for Christmas and Arts Material Live section of the show.  

I bought a couple of goody bags as they are always pretty good value for money - the Prima bag was pretty good with some magazines and an OPI crackle nail polish in black which is itself about £8 and the whole bag was only £3!  The other bag was £6 and had loads in it, lots of card making papers and letters and some ribbons - apparently the value was circa £50 and I can believe it!

I then was enticed to buy some more nail polish after an impressive demonstration when I had a strawberry, flowers and a French Manicure drawn onto my nails in seconds using a set of 10 polish pens from Nails Supreme.  This morning I've turned all my nails into a French Manicure, they are great and really easy to use.  I paid £20 although apparently they are usually £30, but a quick google search revealed that you can buy them for £20 online.

I bought 4 balls of Rico Can Can yarn to make scarves to sell on the stall at the Buns & Roses craft stall.  I've used Rico Can Can before and it's so easy to use - cheat knitting really as it knits so fast and I will make it into scarves that look like this:

I can make a scarf up in about an hour or so in front of the TV, so it's a really good craft for winter nights sat watching my favourite programs from Sky Plus like The Bill, Fresh Meat and and of the CSI or Criminal Minds series.  It also only needs someone to know how to knit basic knitting and cast off, you don't even need to know how to cast on!

I then bought some really good value fabrics for patchworking - 4 pieces for £6 and then some Christmas smelling oil - cinnamon, clove, orange - really smells like Christmas!  Here is my haul!

Someone else was very interested in my bag when I got back in, not sure why as there was no fish or meat in my purchases!