Buttercream

Buttercream is called buttercream as it contains butter.

Dont ever use soft margerine as a subsitute.

It's too soft for piping and doesnt look or taste as good.

Years ago this was my attempt using margering, eeek

Quick cake decorating tip

A quick way to decorate a sponge cake in a hurry is to;

place a doyley over the top of the cake and sprinkle icing sugar over the top.

Remove the doyley and you have a lovely pattern on the cake!

Coloured Icing tip

When mixing coloured icing, make sure you make more than is needed, as it may be difficult to achieve exactly the same colour again.

Cigerello Cake

Making a ciggerello cake

Ingredients for cake

250g margerine (at room temp)

250g of caster sugar

4 free range large eggs

2 tbsp milk

245g self raising flour

65g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

Ingredients for decoration

250g unsalted butter (at room temperature)

440g icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

60g cocoa powder

1 x box of cigerellos

1 x bag of chocolate curls

Equipment

8" round cake tin

Turntable

Palette knife


Method:
Cream your butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy
Beat eggs, vanilla and milk together, put to one side.
Mix together the flour, cocoa, and baking powder in a seperate bowl.
Alternate adding the wet and dry to the butter / sugar mixture.

Spoon into your tin (ensure greesed and lined) bake at 160 for approx 1 hour

Shop around for your cigarello's they can really vary in price. I bought these from The Chocolate Trading company. http://www.chocolatetradingco.com/

Once your cake is baked and cooled, make your buttercream in the usual way. Cut the cake in half and sandwich back together with a layer of buttercream. Smooth bittercream around the outside of the cake and the top, refridgerate for 15 mins before repeating the process, then once you have added your second layer of buttercream start placing your ciggarellos to the outside of the cake. Once all round the edgesprinkle all your chocolate curls on the top.

Finished with a bow!

New workshops added to our schedule

Stencilling / Embossing workshop

In the New Year we are offering lots of new workshops this is one of them.

The stencilling / embossing workshop is aimed at those that have already attended cupcake decorating workshops, and are now looking to take their skills to the next level.

Make your cupcakes even more eye catching and proffessional looking with a number of skills / techniques.

You will have 12 freshly baked cupcakes to decorate using a variety of stencils and embossing materials.

You will also be able to purchase many of the tools we use during the workshop.

2.5 hour workshop £40 per person.
payments can be made on the website http://www.bake180.co.uk/adult_workshops.asp or email me for payment link hello@bake180.co.uk

Bake180 £1 Raffle....

Fancy getting your hands on a £40 Bake180 gift voucher?

Redeemable against anything we do, workshops, products, cakes, equipment, printing, cupcake jars etc

We are running this raffle from today until 5th November 2011

To partake you pay £1 per entry, click link below
http://mall.payvment.com/h/5Ke4

On the 5th November all names will be entered into random.org where a person will be picked at random to win a £40 Bake180 voucher which is valid for 12 months so it would make a great Christmas pressie (no one will know what you paid for it)

Good Luck all

How to make a cupcake bouquet........

Want to make a pretty cupcake bouquet for someone?

What you will need:

A container; watering can, flower pot, vase etc.

Oasis *

Inserts: flowers, butterflies etc *

Tissue

Ribbon

6 cupcakes

1/2 pack of bouquet spikes*

To assemble:

Take the container and fill with Oasis (you may need to shape this)

Place a sheet of coloured tissue in (you may only need half a sheet)

Arrange inserts

Place cakes in the spike holders see how they look

(you may need to do this a couple of times to ensure they are stable, well positioned etc)

Twist tissue inbetween spikes for more stability, add inserts of your choice.

As you can see from the first picture on this blog I added a row of pearls to the container and a butterfly, you can me as creative as you like!!

All items marked with a * can be bought from Bake180

See pictures of our bouquet workshop here