This is a great little trick to learn just in case you run out of piping bags… or you just want to show off your amazing cupcake knowledge and skill! Great for royal icing piping and other delicate details.

What you’ll need…

Greaseproof Paper
Scissors
Stapler
Nozzle

1. Take a section of greaseproof paper and fold side to side to form a triangle, then trim off any excess paper, so it creates a square when unfolded (this will make 2 piping bags)

2. Cut the paper in half along the fold, to leave you with two triangles of equal size

3. In your left hand hold one paper up high, at the corner, with the longest side of the triangle running down the length of your forearm

4. Take the other corner of the longest side and take it across to meet the remaining corner, while curling it inwards to form a cone, keeping the point as tight as possible

5. Keeping hold of the joined corners in your right hand, bring your left hand down towards them and around the back, continuing to wrap the paper around itself, then holding all three corners in your right hand

6. Keep the point of your cone tight and hold all three corners together. Here you’re looking to have three ” peaks” at the top back of your cone

7. Fold over the three peaks and staple into place to keep your cone stable.

8. Cut a small hole in the point, big enough to fit your nozzle and fill with icing, ready for wonderful piping

Laura x

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! We hope you’ve had a lovely day and have all been spoilt rotten, but we’re already thinking about another of our favourite days…. Pancake Day! So why not use our zingy but sweet lemon and sugar cupcake recipe to bring something new to the table next week.

Lemon & Sugar Cupcakes (makes 12 cupcakes)

125g Caster Sugar (plus roughly another 75g for sprinkling)
125g Unsalted Butter
2 Eggs
125g Self-Raising Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
3 tbsp Whole Milk
Zest of 2 unwaxed lemons (finely grated)
Juice of 2 lemons
Plain Buttercream

1. Turn your oven to 170C and line a muffin tray with 12 cupcake cases (preferably yellow in colour!)

2. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

3. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until smooth (if your mixture starts to curdle add a little of your flour as you mix)

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. Then add to your mixture, stirring in by hand until nearly combined.

5. Add your milk and the zest of 1 lemon and mix until just smooth, being careful not to over-beat the mixture

6. Divide the mixture between the 12 cupcake cases and sprinkle the top of each cupcake with a little of the extra sugar

7. Bake for 15-18 minutes (oven temperatures and cooking times may differ so cook until just golden on top)

8. Once baked, take out your cupcakes and allow to cool. Prick each cupcake all over with a cocktail stick and drizzle each one with lemon juice (vary depending on how zingy you’d like your cakes to be!), then add another sprinkling of sugar

9. Decorate your cakes with lovely buttercream swirls and oodles of lemon zest

10. Treat everybody with, not one, but 2 deliously lemony delights on Pancake Day

Happy Baking!

Jenny x

The nation’s love of “vintage” is here to stay and we will continue to embrace it as long it wants to be here! Cupcakes are perfect for adorning with edible vintage style decorations and when done well, can really enhance the look of any wedding or event based on the theme. One finishing touch we’ve always loved is lace or ribbon trim, added to the cupcake just before displaying, it can make a wedding tower or tea party spread that little bit more beautiful, not to mention making your Valentine’s Day cupcakes even more romantic! It’s so effective, but I’ll let you into a little secret…. It’s so easy to achieve!

We’ve made up two tutorials today, to show you just how easy it is to create two different looks using lace and ribbon on your cupcakes.

Lace Trim

What you’ll need…

Length of lace, preferably with one straight and one scalloped edge
Good quality double sided tape (reasonably thin)
Scissors
Cupcake
Tape measure (optional)

1. (Optional) If you want to be thrifty with your lace and tape, first measure the circumference of a ready baked cupcake at the top of the case (one of your own as everyones’ differ in size!), but giving yourself an extra 1cm or so per cake. Then times by the number of cakes you’d like to have trim to find out exactly how much you’ll need. However, it doesn’t hurt to buy extra, prepare and use at a later date, or find something else wonderfully vintage to use the left over lace on!

Tip! Most material shops cost their ribbon and lace per metre rather than by imperial measurements, so bear this in mind when measuring out how much you’ll need.

2. Lay the strip of lace flat along a surface. Carefully stick the double sided tape as neatly as possible along the straight edge of the lace, trying to keep it below the top of the lace (so its hidden from view). Leave the free side of the tape covered.

3. Now cut the number of pieces you need, using the measurements from earlier, or if you decided to stock up and didn’t do any measuring. Simply take a scrap of tape/paper and place around the outside of the cupcake, cut the scrap to the right length (plus roughly 1cm) and all your pieces of lace trim to the same length.

4. Carefully stick to your finished cupcakes, as close to the top of the case as possible, overlapping the lace at the back of the cupcake.

Bow Trim

Much the same as the lace trim, but adding a very cute bow to the front of your cupcake. You’ll need the same things to make this, just replacing the lace with twice as much ribbon, remembering that slightly thinner ribbon will work best.

1. Cut a piece of ribbon long enough to reach around the circumference of your cupcake, plus a cm or two extra. Cut a piece a little longer, which will form your bow.

2. Lay out the piece of ribbon to go around your cupcake on a surface, then tie the other ribbon around it in a knot, as close to the centre as you can.

3. Tighten the knot and tie your bow with the same piece of ribbon, shaping and cutting off any excess and neatening up the ends.

4. As with the lace trim, apply the double sided tape and attach to your cupcake.

We hope you enjoyed reading this week’s blog and then enjoy finding out how simple it is at home! Also remember that if you’re transporting your cakes its best to add your trim when at your venue, so all of the trims stay in place and don’t get knocked/squashed on the way. This way is no where near as stressful when you have perfect sized strips of ready-taped lace all prepared for when you arrive, rather than unsticking trims from boxes and other cakes, and trying to straighten wonky bows and uncrease scalloped edging!

Jenny x

This week we’re gearing up for Valentine’s Day, and have a touch of the Robin Hood’s about us (if he borrowed Cupid’s arrow for the day that is).

If you need a bit of inspiration for your Valentine’s gift, look no further! Give your loved one the gift of cake!

What you’ll need…

Non-Stick Smart Mat
Rolling Pin
Pre-coloured Red Sugar Paste
Angled Palette Knife
CMC Powder
Heart Cutters (Set of 3)
Edible Glue
Raw Spaghetti – cut 2 pieces roughly 4cm in length (We dusted ours with a little white lustre dust)
Cupcake, piped with a classic swirl
Ribbon (optional)

1. Mix your red paste with a little CMC powder and work in until it becomes a slightly tougher consisitency. Then roll out to about 3mm thick.

2. Cut out one full heart (we used the largest of the 3 hearts) then using the pointed end of the heart, cut out another piece, missing off the double curve at the edge of the sugar paste, so you have a a triangle.

3. Cut another triangle in the centre of the triangle using your palette knife and fan out slightly to make your “feather”. Then use the palette knife to mark shallow scores along the sides of the feather.

4. Dip one end of the spaghetti pieces into the glue and gently slide into the crease of the heart and the other piece into point of the feather, being careful not to break the surface. Leave to dry over night.

5. When dried hard put your pieces either side of the swirl on a cupcake.

6. Romance your loved one!

We tied a piece of red ribbon around our cupcake case for added affect, but if you have a little trouble with this see next week’s blog for tips and tricks for tying perfect bows around your cupcakes and making light of romantic lace trim.

Have a great week everybody and we look forward to seeing your Valentine’s Day creations!

Jenny x

National Marriage Week is fast approaching (7th-14th February), closely followed by Valentine’s day, and did you know its traditional for women to propose to their man in a leap year? According to Irish legend, St Bridget struck a deal with St Patrick to allow women to propose to men every 4 years. This is said to have been agreed on in order to balance male and female roles, much the same way the leap day is intended to balance the calendar. If however, the proposal was refused, the male was expected to buy the woman many pairs of gloves in order to hide the shame of her not having an engagement ring.

We feel we’ve moved on (just a bit) from this so if you’re planning on proposing, not proposing, being proposed to, not being proposed to, it really hasn’t crossed your mind, or you couldn’t imagine anything worse, forget the gloves and the ring and lets all just make and eat beautiful cakes instead and if it happens, it happens, we’ll deal with it then!

What you’ll need…
Non-Stick Smooth Rolling Mat
Rolling Pin
Florist Paste (Or sugar paste mixed with CMC Powder)
Ruler (30cm)
Cutting Wheel and/or Quilt Design Wheel
Heart/Arum Lily Cutter (Small)
Glitter & Brush (Optional)
Cupcake covered with sugar paste or piped with swirl

1. Roll out a piece of florist paste, making it very long and very thin. Using the cutting wheel and ruler cut the paste to length of the ruler. Then cut a thin strip for your ribbon.

2. Using the quilting wheel carefully run it down each side of the ribbon, to create a stitched effect.
3. Take the small heart cutter and use the point to cut a triangle into each end of the ribbon.

4. With the stitching facing upwards fold the ribbon in half to make a good crease.

5.Then unfold and start to shape the heart, crossing the ribbon at the point and twisting to create a whimsical finish!

6. Leave to dry overnight and place on your cupcake.

Enjoy!

Jenny x

If your supply of edible glue runs dry and you’ve got some Blue Door Bakery CMC powder handy, fear not! Whip yourself up some more glue overnight with this very simple recipe…

What you’ll need…

CMC powder
Warm water
Empty pot
Paintbrush (for stirring)
Teaspoon
Homemade edible glue label (optional)

1. Put about one quarter of a teaspoon of CMC powder into your empty pot

2. Add roughly 20ml of warm water to the powder and stir quickly and thoroughly with the end of your paintbrush. The mixture may look lumpy at this point but don’t worry! All will be fine in the morning!

3. Put a lid on the pot and store in the fridge overnight.
4. In the morning the mixture should be of a syrupy consistency and run from the brush so if it seems a little thick simply add a touch more water until you have the desired thickness.

5. Stick til your heart’s content!

We hope you enjoyed our tutorial this week, and don’t forget, you can buy CMC powder and edible glue in our online shop (might be best to get two pots next time….)

Jenny x

One of the things we get asked about the most is the mighty giant cupcake, from recipe to decoration. So this week we thought we’d tell you exactly how we do it! Below is the recipe and instructions for our vanilla giant cupcake.

Ingredients

350g Unsalted Butter
350g Caster Sugar
6 eggs
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
350g Self-raising Flour
175g Plain Flour

You’ll also need a giant cupcake pan. Our favourite is the Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan for shape and ease of use, so the baking method is based on using this particular mould. We use this with Wilton Cake Release, which is used to grease the pan, making the cake easier to remove.

1. Turn the oven to 140C/275F/Gas mark 1 and grease the giant cupcake pan with the Wilton Cake Release
2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl, using a standalone or hand-held mixer
3. Add the vanilla and the eggs gradually, mixing all of the time, until combined
4. Mix in all of the flour by hand using a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth
5. Spoon two thirds of the mixture into the side of the pan intended for the bottom of the giant cupcake
6. Bake for roughly 20 minutes
7. Remove from the oven and spoon the remaining mixture into the side of the pan intended for the top of the cupcake
8. Replace in the oven and bake for a further 70 minutes or until both sides are baked. To test whether the cake is cooked right through, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean your cake is cooked, if not return to the oven until cooked. If you find your top is a little drier than the bottom adjust time accordingly.
9. Leave the cake in the pan on a cooling rack until cooled
10. The cake should come away from the pan fairly easily, but carefully slide a palette knife down the sides of the cake to release it if it sticks a little
11. Leave until completely cooled before decorating

For a master-class on how to ice a giant cupcake please click HERE to see our Youtube video!

If you’re finding your giant cupcake a little dry, try adding 1 tsp glycerine, which primarily helps keep moisture in the cake, making it a little softer. And if you’d rather make a chocolatey giant cupcake simply leave out the vanilla extract and replace 60g plain flour with good quality cocoa.

Enjoy!

Jenny

Firstly, happy new year! We hope you’ve had a brilliant Christmas and are ready and raring to go into 2012. It’s that time of year again, to think about what we want to achieve in the coming year and make some resolutions..

Jenny and I have resolved to not eat chocolate for breakfast, Laura’s resolution is to only ever eat her Slimming World lunch when working and Gemma’s resolution is to eat more of her favourite brie and grape sandwiches that we serve as part of our class lunch selection. (Better up the sandwich order Jen’..) Anyway, true to form most of our resolutions are food related.

What are your resolutions for 2012? Lots of people have been in touch with us to book classes to inspire them in starting a cake business this year, so I thought I’d give you some tips about where to start if you’re thinking of making the same leap, and aiming to ditch the day job, as one of your resolutions.

1. Think about your strengths and weaknesses.
Yes, I know this sounds boring and like something a careers advisor would say, but really it helps in loads of ways. It allows you to prioritise your spending by getting help only where you really need it (are you a bit of a techy but hate numbers? Think about writing your own website but pay for plenty of accounts advice then). It should also influence the basis of your business and the customers that you market yourself to (do you thrive on pressure of a big project but hate waking up early all week? Think about focussing on weekend wedding orders).

2. Learn as much as possible
Learn as much as you can before you start, because when you’re in the midst of being busy with orders, it’s much harder to make time for this. So, read any business book you can lay your hands on, go on bookeeping and tax courses (often run for free by HMRC), learn about online advertising and social media and of course perfect your sugarcraft techniques!

3. Only listen to business advice that is relevant
When you start to think of running your own business, EVERYONE will have some advice for you. On pricing, who to sell to, what to sell, how to market yourself, where to advertise, the list goes on. My advice is listen to it all, but only act on the bits which come from people who have experience of what you’re trying to do.. Listen to an accountant for accounts advice, a website designer or book for web design advice and someone who has run a (successful!) CAKE business for advice on that. Selling cakes is VERY different to selling cars or candles or keys!

4. A final word on cupcake businesses…
The first question I’m often asked in our business classes, is how to survive in a marketplace that is now so full of competitors. I feel really strongly about this. It isn’t bad to have competition, it means that the market for cakes and cupcakes particularly is buoyant and people are more aware of their availability. Rather than worrying about the competition, you need to focus on two things if you’re going to be successful; firstly, what’s going to set you apart, make you different and better than them and secondly, how you are going to run a profitable business, after all, if there’s no profit, you’re not running a sustainable business. These two things will really help to take you from being a person who bakes as a hobby to someone who is running a successful cake business.

I hope the tips have helped, I ran my own cupcake business for a long time before starting to teach classes, so really understand how daunting it can be when you’re starting out. If you would like mountains more advice, tips, knowledge and questions answered, we run Starting Your Own Cupcake Business Classes and there are a couple of spaces left on 16th January and 23rd January 2011. Please note, these will be the last of this particular class until later in the year as I’m going to be having some time off on maternity leave!

Loads of luck with your resolutions, let us know how you’re getting on!

Sarah x

In our last blog of the year we wave goodbye to a very eventful and enjoyable 2011 and say hello to an exciting 2012 with a fantastic cupcake companion… The New Year Clock!

We’re a fan of Martha Stewart’s book “Cupcakes” so thought we’d do our own version of her “New Year’s Clock Cupcakes”.

What you’ll need…

12 Cupcakes
Buttercream
White sugar paste
Black florist paste
Trex
Set of round metal cutters
Tappits Upper Case/Number Cutters (includes cutting template stick)
Non-stick smooth rolling pad
Foam drying pad
Rolling pin
Angled palette knife
Edible glue & paintbrush
Cocktail sticks
Edible glitter (we used silver)
Large cake board

1. Take your black florist paste and work it in your hands until soft and pliable (using a little Trex if necessary), then roll out very very thinly.

2. If you have one, cut out a strip of the paste using the template stick included with your Tappits (this gives the perfect size strip to cut out each number with your Tappits!). Then, placing the “1” over the paste, create a cross and push down firmly, wiggling the Tappit cutter to make sure you get a clean edge.

3. To remove the “1” from the cutter, quite firmly tap the end of the cutter against your rolling pin until the number comes loose. Carefully place the number on the foam drying pad and reshape if necessary. Continue to cut out all of the numbers until you have “1” to “12” and leave to dry. The numbers can be very fiddly so if you can, its best to use cocktail sticks to pick them up and reshape them.

4. Roll out your white sugar paste, leaving it quite thick for a smoother finish. Then cut out a circle using the circle cutter most similar in size to the top of your cupcakes.

5. Now, using your palette knife, put a small mound of buttercream in the centre of a cupcake, being careful not to push it too close to the edge of the cupcake or onto the case.

6. Gently pick up the circle of sugar paste and place it so that one portion of the side sits snugly into the inside of the cupcake case. Then slowly work around the edge of the paste, almost pulling back the edge to slot it inside the case. Gently tuck the last bit in and smooth all around the edge with a finger.

7. Add a very small amount of glue to the centre of the cupcake and add a number. Repeat until all 12 cupcakes are covered and have been paired with their number.

8. Place the cupcakes around the edge of the cake board and use either paper cut out or sugar paste dial hands (we rolled 2 pieces of our black florist paste into very long thin sausages – one slightly longer than the other)

9. As its New Year we added a little celebratory glitter to our clock cupcakes!

Thank you for joining us in our blogs, its been very lovely to have you! We hope you have a fantastic New Year party and an even better 2012!

Jenny x

Nearly there now! We’re so excited about Christmas here at BDB and will miss making our festive blogs each week, but we love our last one and hope you will too…

What you’ll need…

Cupcake, flat iced with buttercream
Buttercream coloured dark green (we used Sugarflair Gel Colour in Holly Green)
Piping bag
Wilton 1M nozzle
Non-Stick smart mat
Rolling pin
Ready coloured red & green sugarpaste (if colouring use Christmas Red and Holly Green Sugarflair Gel Colour)
Holly leaf plunger cutter
Sugar pearls

1. Firstly, roll 3 very small balls of red sugar paste to make your holly berries.

2. Then roll your green sugar paste thinly and cut out 2 holly pieces, using the plunger cutter to “vein” the leaf. Put these and the berries to one side to dry (preferably over night).

3. Cut a hole in the bottom of the piping bag, big enough to fit the 1M nozzle, and secure in place.

4. Put 2 or 3 spoonfuls of green buttercream into the bag, push down towards the nozzle end, keeping it as air-free as possible. Twist the top of the bag at the point where the buttercream begins.

5. Hold the piping bag at the twist between your thumb and forefinger. Now hold vertically over the cake, at the edge, and gently squeeze until the buttercream starts to come out. Almost immediately stop squeezing and pull away the piping bag. Continue to do this all around the edge of the cake until you reach the point you started at.

6. Before the buttercream dries add a few sugar pearls, just to the wreath.

7. Then add the 2 holly leaves, followed by the berries. Lovely!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from the Blue Door Bakery team, we really do hope its lovely!

Jenny x