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.