Wired Decorations

Wired decorations are a great way to make a cake or cupcakes stand out from the crowd. The best ingredient to do this with is petal paste or sugar paste, fondant is okay but you must serve it once it has hardened otherwise it goes sticky and slides down the wire!

My favourite shapes to use when making wired decorations are stars, flowers and hearts, as they are simple shapes that can have decoration easily iced on and make a really stunning impression.

When using wire shapes on cupcakes, make sure you use a dainty and small cutter, otherwise you drag away the attention of you beautiful cupcakes to the giant blob stood in the top!

When you use wired decorations on a larger cake, experiment with the length of the wire, created a more interesting visual effect with the different heights.

Coloured wire is also a really good thing to include in a sugar flower arrangement, it can be curved slightly or wrapped round a pen to create a spiral, this can then be added into your arrangement.

Happy Wiring!

Syrupy cookies

I know these aren't strictly cupcakes, but they are incredibly yummy.I made these syrupy cookies to take away camping this weekend,they're easy and very quick to make and a sweet treat perfect for wrapping up for lunch boxes or sharing with friends over coffee. If you fancy whipping up your own batch then here's my recipe:

(makes approx 16 cookies)

100g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

200g self raising flour

1 tbsp golden syrup

a few drops of vanilla extract

Pre-heat you oven to Gas 5 / 190 oc and line a large baking tray.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Fold in flour and syrup until a soft dough is formed.

Using the palm of your hands roll the mixture into small balls, place on the baking tray and then press each one down lightly with the back of a fork

Bake for 6-10 minutes, once golden and cooked remove from the oven and let them cool slightly on the baking tray and then transfer to a wire cooling rack and leave to cool completely. Store in an air-tight container.

Lemon blossom cupcakes

These are the delightful little cupcakes I made for my friends 16th Birthday, they have a lemony cake with fluffy vanilla butter cream on top. I then decorated each cupcake with a pink fondant blossom flower on wire poked into the top of the sponge. They went down very well with the girls!

If you fancy making these scrumy little cupcakes then here's my recipe:

(Makes 12 cupcakes in muffin cases cooked in a muffin tin)

6 oz unsalted butter

6 oz caster sugar

6 oz self raising flour

3 eggs

1 lemon

Pre-heat an oven to Gas 5 / 190 oc

Cream the butter and sugar together using a electric whisk or wooden spoon.

Once pale and fluffy and the eggs one at a time mixing in carefully between each egg.

Sift in the flour and add the zest of the lemon and a drop of two of juice for an extra lemony hit, but be careful not to add to much as it can cause the mix to curdle!

Spoon equally into cases and bake for about 15 mins or until golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tray and then turn out onto a wire cooling rack and leave until cooled completely.

To make the butter cream:

6 oz icing sugar

3 oz unsalted butter

Using a electric whisk, whisk the butter in a bowl until pale, then add the icing sugar a table spoon at a time, whisking in between each spoonful to make sure your butter cream is light and fluffy.

If you wish to add colour to your topping add before you whisk in the last spoonful of icing sugar to stop the butter cream going all runny.

Fill a piping bag and nozzle and pipe onto your cooled cupcakes!

For the blossom decoration:

Add a small amount of red food colouring to a small piece of fondant ( about the size of your thumbs put together) and kneed the colour through.

Roll out to about 1/2 cm thick and use a 2cm flower cutter to cut out 12 flowers.

Leave them to dry out and insert a small piece of wire through each one.

Once dry insert into the top of the cupcakes!

Put onto a pretty plate, serve up and enjoy eating :D