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

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

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

This weekend we just loved these pumpkin cakes we created for a bride and groom who got married on Halloween… Yes, those are little teeny pumpkin sprinkles.

Here’s a random photo of me visiting ‘Pumpkinfest’ on a recent trip to New England, which helped inspire the cakes! Pumpkinfest ROCKED.

I’ve had so many people get in touch after our brilliant day at Stone Manor Wedding Fair on 24th January 2010, I thought I’d show you some photos of the cakes on display. We met so many lovely people and had a fabulous day talking about weddings and sparkly, beautiful little cakes. There’s going to be some very lucky wedding guests..

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www.bluedoorbakery.co.uk
telephone 07876 708 715

See the full gallery on Posterous

Towards the end of October we provided some of our tasty cupcakes for a beautiful wedding celebration at Hotel du Vin Birmingham.

Congratulations to the happy couple! The cakes were vanilla sponge, with buttercream icing, fondant flowers and heart shaped sprinkles in co-ordinating red cases.

See the full gallery on Posterous

This month we exhibited at the brilliant I Will Wedding Fair at the Malvern 3 Counties Showground. It was a fabulous day, with about 200 visitors and we offered every one of them our tasty cake samples.

We displayed a cool and funky tower of daisy cupcakes topped with a giant cupcake, a stunning tower of cupcakes in a purple and silver theme and our heart shaped brownie favours.

We met so many lovely couples and took lots of bookings for next year and even one for December 2011! You can never be too organised where cake is concerned…