There’s no denying it, Christmas is well and truly on its way and we couldn’t be more excited! So we’ve made a very cute little parcel to get us in the festive spirit (as though we needed any help!)

What you’ll need….

Sugar paste & 2 different gel colours or pre-coloured sugar paste (we used pre-coloured red sugar paste and Grape Violet gel colour mixed with sugar paste)
Trex
CMC powder
Bow cutter (we used the smallest in our set of 3)
Angled palette knife
Cocktail sticks
Edible glue
Paintbrush
Non-stick smooth rolling mat
Non-stick rolling pin
Cupcake & buttercream
Edible glitter (we used white)

1. Firstly, we need to make our bow so it can dry out over night. So colour a little sugar paste if you’re not using pre-coloured and add some CMC powder until it starts to stiffen up (roughly 1tsp CMC powder to every 250g sugar paste).

2. Using your bow cutter (we’ve used the smallest one in our set of 3 for a really dinky present but you could make yours bigger if you liked!), make a bow… please CLICK HERE to see our Youtube video tutorial if you need a little help with this one!

3. Leave to dry over night.

N.B. Make sure you keep a little of this colour spare for the rest of your ribbon! Wrap tightly in cling film, leave in a cool dry place, and work until pliable before using.

4. Once your bow has dried out, colour another piece of sugar paste (with your second colour), once again adding some CMC powder.

5. Take a walnut sized piece from this and using both thumbs and fore-fingers, mould into a small square shape. You don’t need to be too precise about this as a lumpy present is always more enticing!

6. Take the sugar paste coloured the same as your bow and roll VERY thinly.

7. Using your angled palette knife, cut 2 thin lengths for the ribbon wrapping your present.

8. Apply a little edible glue in a cross over your parcel and gently lie your ribbons over the top, cutting off any excess at the under side.

9. Add a little more edible glue and delicately fix your bow in place.

10. Add to cupcake with a little glitter… Wow everybody!

We hope our first festive blog got you in the mood for wrapping presents and putting up the tree, but more importantly, making Christmas cupcakes! There’s more to come next week so keep your Santa hat on til then…

Jenny x

One of the questions we get asked a lot is how to use our moulds, including what paste to use. So we thought we show you a step-by-step guide!

We recommend you use sugar paste mixed with CMC powder, which gives it a firmer consistency than sugar paste alone. To save turning our hands red with gel colour (!) we’ve used ready coloured sugar paste today and will be mixing it with CMC powder.

We’re making roses for the tutorial today but you can apply it to any of our moulds!

What you’ll need…

Red sugar paste
CMC Powder
Trex
Rose mould
Cupcake
Buttercream
Angled palette knife

1. Mix some CMC powder into your red sugar paste (roughly 1tsp CMC to every 250g sugar paste), working it with your hands until the powder is incorporated and you feel the paste start to stiffen up a little.

2. Put your paste to one side and, using your finger, brush Trex all around the inside of the mould, making sure to get it into all those nooks and crannies!

3. Now take your sugar paste and push firmly into the mould. Fold the paste in on its self over and over again, to make doubly sure you reach all the crevices of the mould.

4. When you’re sure the paste is in as far as it will go, make a neat bottom for your rose by gently scraping away the excess sugar paste with your palette knife from the centre outwards. Once removed use your finger to smooth the sugar paste left in the mould. (This step can be missed out if placing the rose in deeper buttercream).

5. To release the rose, place both thumbs in the centre at the back of the mould, and pull back the top outer edges gently working around the edge of the mould if necessary, until the rose is is freed.

6. Leave to dry overnight.

7. Use to give your cupcakes that perfect finishing touch! We piped a classic buttercream swirl and simply added the rose to the top. Lovely!

Enjoy!

Jenny x

Do you tweet? Have no idea what Twitter is? We use Twitter for business and we love it. So, for today’s Tuesday Tutorial we thought we’d give you a little introduction. It’s relevant if you’re a cake baker for fun or if you’re running a cake business.

Twitter is essentially just millions of people posting messages which are 140 characters long. You can follow anyone you’re remotely interested in (not like Facebook where you’re normally real life friends too). In your timeline you’ll see posts from any of the people you follow. Twitter names are normally always preceeded by an @ sign. When someone mentions your nickname with an @ sign in front, you’ll see this directly, so you can see they’ve been talking about you and this is also a way of sending (public) messages to one person.

So, you could follow @marksandspencer, @nextofficial, @bodenclothing, and @Topshop and all most of the tweets you’d see would be about clothes. Or you could follow @ocadoUK, @Sainsburys, @Asda and @Morrisons for all the latest supermarket offers.

To see all your different tweets neatly put into columns, we use a free program called Tweetdeck, which we think if fab. It shows you the tweets of everyone you follow in one column, the tweets where someone has mentioned your name in another and any private messages in another. Very simple!

Listening to what the people you follow say is only half the story. When people have a go at using Twitter and they think it’s rubbish, it’s generally because that’s what they’ve been doing. What fun is a one sided conversation?! Twitter is no good if you don’t use it and interact. So, when @marksandspencer ask “How are you celebrating Christmas this year?”.. Answer them! For example you could say “@marksandspencer I’m going to be sitting in my Rudolph jumper eating brussell sprouts.” Not everyone will reply, but it’s how your start conversations and meet people through Twitter.

Ok, now you’re wondering, what the buttercream has this got to do with cake? Well, there are millions or amazing, knowledgeable and friendly cake bakers and businesses on Twitter, making it a great resource for learning, networking, asking for help with baking problems and being inspired. This applies if you’re starting a cake business or just love baking. It’s quick and easy to use. But remember, if you do sign up; join in, don’t just watch!

To get you started, here are some of our Twitter friends who have all been to our classes. Follow them and introduce yourself!

@ClassicCakeCo
@BostinBakes
@Cupcake_Belle
@bellascupcakes7
@BellaTortaHFD
@louisesims
@Trudy__Smith
@cup_kates_co_uk
@ame100
@2cousinsbakery
@tiny_sarah_lou
@Babyrog33
@Jjscakes
@Jellifer
@nabootique40
@MsAgustini
@sammyjo007
@NinaIlkiw

Do come and say hello to us if you sign up!

Sarah x

If you ‘Like’ us on Facebook, you will probably have heard that we are moving to a new purpose fitted premises, the Blue Door Bakery Studio, (next week all being well). This is obviously amazingly exciting as it’s given us the chance to create exactly the sort of space our students have told us they would LOVE to spend the day. Sparkly worktops? Kitchen Aid mixers? Brilliant coffee? A small sprinkle mountain? All that and loads more, but we’ll tell you more of the details during the coming week.

To give you a good excuse to visit us for a class, have a nose around and enjoy a day out before Christmas, we’d like to give you a £25 voucher to use in our shop, with every booking made for pre-Christmas classes. You can use this online or in person in our new shop at the Studio. To claim this voucher, all you need to do is choose your class date from our schedule, go to book as normal and when you checkout, in the “Additional Information” box, please write “I can’t wait to visit!”. When you receive your booking confirmation email and directions from us, the code to use the voucher online will be included.

This offer will only last whilst we have availability for these classes, so please book before they are sold out!

(In the absence of any decent photos of the building works in progress, here’s a photo of our new mugs, ready for the move. Just because we like them!)

This offer is valid for classes PRIOR to Christmas only and only valid on new bookings made from today onwards. Vouchers will expire on 31st December 2011. This offer can’t be used in conjunction with any other offer, including our 4th class half price offer. We reserve the right to change or end this offer at any time.

We hope you love the new Blue Door Bakery Studio as much as we do!

x

A long time ago, when I had a ‘proper job’, one of my favourite things about working in an office all week was Fridays. Not just because it was almost home time, but also because we used to make a weekly pilgrimage for something sticky and sugary to inspire us through the final afternoon of the week. The snack of choice was often Krispy Kreme donuts. All those oozy fillings are a serious sugar rush! What could be better? I’ll tell you what, a cupcake with a deliciously squelchy surprise filling.

We teach a method of filling our chocolate cupcakes with homemade ganache in our Choc-Tastic Cupcakes Class. We though we’d show you how to create a similar effect, to make a jam donut cupcake or a Victoria sponge cupcake.

Often people suggest cutting the tops off of cupcakes to fill them. We think this is not a great method as if the cupcake gets tipped over, the weight of the buttercream just takes the whole top of the cake off. You can also buy a special nozzle to fill the cakes as we’re explaining below, but you don’t really need it if you hold the piping bag in the right way and applying plenty of pressure.

You will need:-

Vanilla Cupcakes
Seedless Jam (we prefer the texture of seedless inside the cupcakes, and it’s also much easier to pipe as it’s smooth.)
Small Saucepan
Disposable Piping Bag
Scissors

1. Gently warm your jam a little in the saucepan. It doesn’t need to be runny, but just a bit softer than when it’s in the jar. Be careful, if you overheat it, it will seriously burn as the sugar will be super hot.

2. Carefully fill a disposable piping bag with the warmed jam.

3. Holding the bag tightly twisted and closed at the open end, hold it upside down, so most of the jam is resting inside the bag, on your hand. (If you don’t do this the jam will push out straight away.) Snip the end off of the piping bag using the scissors, just about 3 or 4 mm.

4. Working quickly, (so you’re not losing jam) you need to hold the bag correctly so that there’s plenty of pressure at the top end. If you don’t do this, the tip of the bag will just get squashed as you push it into the cakes. It’s the pressure on the bag that will allow you to push it into the cakes. Rest the tip of the bag in the middle of the cake and press in, not too far, just about a centimetre or two. Squeeze the bag, squeezing the filling in, until you see the top of the cake rise just a little and pull the bag out. Don’t worry if there’s a little overspill.

5. Ice your cupcake as normal and enjoy the surprise centres!

Sarah x

One of the questions we get asked most often is the difference between florist paste and sugar paste, so we thought this week we’d share the low down and give you some tips.

Florist Paste

Florist paste is the best product to use for making any delicate decorations, including flowers and cut out shapes. It’s very tough and can (and should!) be rolled very thinly. It feels like a relatively expensive product when you first start cake decorating (about £5 per 250g) but because you roll it so thinly and can make mountains of decorations from a small pack, it’s actually really good value. You need to use florist paste if you want to shape your flowers using a ball tool or similar as it’s tough elasticity allows you to do this.

Florist paste dries very hard, decorations made from it should be left to dry (ideally) for a day or two before use. This allows them to dry out fully so you won’t be in fear of the drooping at a crucial moment!

Adding vegetable shortening to florist paste makes it lots easier to use. Always store florist paste in a completely sealed container with no air to avoid it drying out.

Our preferred florist paste brand is Squires Kitchen. If you’re buying a different brand, do check it is edible as they aren’t all safe to eat! You can buy florist paste here from our online shop.

Sugar Paste

Sugar paste (or sugarpaste – either is okay!) is also known as rolled fondant, ready to roll icing, covering paste or Regalice. It’s rolled out and used to cover cakes as icing, rather than for making decorations. It has the consistency of play-doh.

It’s sweet, quite soft and is rolled much thicker than florist paste. It should always be kneaded until warm and pliable before use (especially when covering large cakes).

You can use sugar paste to make decorations but it’s unstable as it doesn’t dry hard enough and as it’s very soft, you can’t roll it thinly enough to make anything delicate. It is good fun to use to make decorations with children though!

You can buy sugar paste from cake decorating shops, when we move to our new premises in the next few weeks, you’ll also be able to buy it in person from us.

Happy cake decorating!

Jenny x