In this week’s Tuesday Tutorial we’re “winging” our support to everyone celebrating the International Day of Peace…

“Each year the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on 21 September. The General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.” http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/

In support of such a worthy cause, we’re showing you how to make one of the most widely recognised symbols of peace, a lovely dove.

What you’ll need…

White Sugarpaste
Coloured Sugarpaste (in yellow and black)
Non-Stick Smooth Rolling Mat
Rolling Pin
Ball Tool
Curved Heart Leaf Cutter Set
Heart/Arum Lily Cutter Set
Flower Veiner
Edible Glue & Paintbrush
Cupcake Covered in Sugarpaste
Sugarpaste Flowers in Various Colours (optional)

1. Take your white sugarpaste and section off one piece the size of a walnut and one piece the size of a peanut. With the walnut sized piece, shape it into a 3D tear drop shape, then curve the narrower end upwards and sit on a desk (it should look a bit like an apostrophe when up-ended!) Roll the peanut sized piece into a ball.

2. Glue the head to the body and gently mark where your dove’s eyes and beak will be with your ball tool. Then cut out two curved hearts and one normal heart (both using the smallest cutter in the set). Emboss your wings on the flower veiner – remembering they will go either side of your dove so need to be opposites of each other. Emboss the tail on both sides.

3. Glue the wings and tail in place, with the wings sticking up slightly from the body and the tail wrapping around the bottom of the dove’s bottom and sticking up. Take very tiny pieces of yellow and black sugarpaste to form the eyes and beak and glue into place.

TIP! The reason we leave his eyes until our dove is finished is so that the black sugarpaste doesn’t mark our fingers or our dove, keeping him as white as possible!

4. Place your dove on your cupcake with a little glue to fix him in place. We’ve added a few pretty flowers to finish our cake.

And there he is! We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s tutorial, please don’t forget to check out what’s being done for International Peace Day. You can read all about it HERE And remember, there are lots of blog tutorials on our website, all free of charge and unique from our classes so please do have a browse!

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