The Cupcake Bouquet

So today I continued on a little further with the making of the cupcake bouquet.  I'd planned to have more done by now, but, 4 small children have a way of upsetting the best laid plans so for now, I'm still 'getting there'.  Tomorrow is a pupil free day for the school aged kids, so, I'm calling this an official three day weekend, and therefore, I have not failed to meet my deadline.  Plus, its only 7pm, and sleep is for the weak, right!?!

Anyway, back to the cupcake bouquet. These are the little suckers I baked yesterday.  I baked them in pretty coloured liners (not visible in this picture, lol), to help with the 'colourfulness' (if that is even a word) of the finished product.

Today was buttercream and piping time.  I decided to go with two colours, again, to enhance the whole 'colourfulness' I was trying to get going on.

The Buttercream Recipe
125g Copha
125g Unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
4 Cups Pure Icing Sugar
2 Tablespoons of Milk


Cream together the Copha and Unsalted butter until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla and then begin gradually adding the sifted icing sugar.  Beat well the entire time, scraping down the sides of the bowl regularly.  When all the icing sugar has been mixed in, it will be very thick and stiff.

At this point, I halved the mixture and added a Tablespoon of Milk to one bowl, then, some Rose Pink colouring and Strawberry Essence.

Now, here is where you'll see the separation of the 'trained' cooks, and, me.  I'm self taught. Well, I did do a 4 week course many moons back when we bought a franchise and learnt to ice donuts, but, the course was 6 weeks long (I am such a quitter, lol) and the people teaching it didn't really give a rats if you did a good job or not, they had your $$$ already and acted accordingly.  But, I digress.  What I want people reading this to understand is that I don't use technical terms, I don't have all the latest flashy equipment, and I have no formal training.  So when I use incorrect terms for utensils, or, guess at what they might be, go easy on me!  I also have limited tools, am slowly gaining an appreciation for so many more, but, as I'm self taught with everything, this takes a lot longer than your average baking blog queen.

Back to the task at hand...

Whipped it until it was light and fluffy and the colour was consistent  (scraping the bowl down a few times along the way is a given) then pulled out the trusty Loyal piping bag and a large star nozzle and began to load up ready for action

Simple swirl, going from the outside to the inside on top of each cupcake

Repeat, repeat, repeat, stuff up a few, repeat, repeat, repeat.  Put aside the good ones

And pop them in the fridge.

Next, the Banana Buttercream.  Again I added a Tablespoon of Milk, plus some Banana Essence.

Once it was whipped, again I loaded up a clean piping bag then began the process of swirling once more, this time in yellow.

As you can see I opted to pipe the yellow icing onto the cupcakes in the pink liners, and the pink icing on the cupcakes in the green liners.  Colourfulness.  That's the word (that's not a word) here today people.  I like bright, it cheers people up, and if I don't anchor these suckers into the styrofoam ball correctly, the colour might be the only thing to bring a smile to the face of whoever is the lucky recipient of my bouquet (I'm betting my neighbour, who just dropped off a massive box of washing powder she picked up on special for me) as the cupcakes on the sides drop off.  The top will save it.  It will take serious movement for those to topple, but, I worry about the sides...