Skip to main content

Am I not pretty enough?


You could be forgiven for thinking that the life of a baking blogger is all sugar and spice and all things nice. There is an ugly side.

Welcome to “reality baking” in a domestic kitchen where sometimes the cakes just don’t bake pretty.

Uneven edges, baking papers coming away from the cake – there’s no rhyme or reason why it happens. But when it happens to an important order, it’s annoying to say the least.

The cakes themselves were fine (di-licious in fact) but they just didn’t look great. Even a generous swirl of buttercream couldn’t hide the fact that the papers were distorted.

In order to get these cakes to the party on time, I rewrote the rules for cupcakes and tried something a little unorthodox - I gave them a head to toe makeover.

Firstly, I removed the offending paper cups. Just like the plain-Jane secretary taking off her glasses and shaking out her hair, all of a sudden my ugly duckling cupcakes turned into swans with serious potential.

Next, I neatened up the edge of the cakes by cupping them in my hand and pressing in the rim – instant facelift!

You can’t go to the ball without a dress so I put the cupcakes into new mint green cases. I actually love the effect of the fanned out papers.

Then using a Wilton 2D tip, I piped beautiful buttercream roses on top. (The trick is to start piping from the centre and then spiral outwards – it creates the rose petal effect.)

The final result – lovely Rose cupcakes with rosewater buttercream – dressed to impress.


What do you think? Are they pretty enough now?


Comments

What a clever way to beautify a cupcake! :D I love that rose tip!
Gourmantine said…
Your cupcake is so lovely and cute! Beautifully done :)
Baking is not always sugar and spice and everything nice is it? Great makeover job, the rose is beautiful!

Popular posts from this blog

Olive's Carrot Cupcakes {Recipe}

"Mummy, I'm hungry. Hungry for something sweet." Sound familiar?  If only it were "Mummy, I'm hungry for green vegetables!" Sometimes getting kids to eat something healthy is a battle.  The harder you try, the more they resist. We've been pretty lucky with Olive - she devours fruit.  And while she's adamant she'll never eat a tomato (too many Charlie and Lola bedtime stories), she will eat green beans, peas and corn (and sometimes raw broccoli!) without fuss.  The one veg she absolutely adores though are carrots. A carrot stick is a great snack for a hungry preschooler but when they're pining for something sweet, why not make them something healthy and sweet and bake some mini carrot cupcakes? These mini cupcakes are based on Stephanie Alexander's Simple Carrot Cake from The Cook's Companion . I like this recipe a lot because it uses olive oil which has lots of health benefits. If you have a food processor, you could ea...

Rainy Day Double Choc Cookies {Recipe}

This week Olive and I went on an eBay road trip to pick up her 'new' tap shoes. I could have just had them posted but I had an ulterior motive.  The pick-up location, although right over the other side of town, was reasonably close to my old neighbourhood which happens to be a mecca for great food and coffee. After picking up the tap shoes (and bonus ballet shoes the seller thoughtfully included) I was looking forward to lunch.  But as soon as I pulled out of the car park, the sky turned black and the rain started to pour.  Bugger.  I kissed my lovely lunch dreams goodbye and did what any sane parent of a three year old would do in the same situation - I headed for the nearest shopping centre with an underground car park. Ten minutes later I was sitting in the food court eating  ricepaper rolls while Olive got Happy (I think you know what I'm talking about).  Not quite the foodie experience I'd been hoping for. Every cloud has a silver li...

How to make sugar carrot cupcake decorations

The internet gods have not been kind to us this past week.  Apparently a static-y phone line can interfere with our ADSL connection, putting to bed any hopes I had to bring you this tutorial and Mr Di-licious completing an online test for his law course.  Sigh. At least I had my iPhone - I was still connected to the world so to speak, even if in a limited, small screen kind of way. But I digress. As promised, here is a 'tutorial' to help you make the cute as a button sugar carrots for the carrot cupcakes I made last week. They are embarrassingly easy to make.  Before you know it you'll have a carrot patch that's the envy of Don Burke (sorry, Aussie joke). Tutorial: Making sugar carrot decorations To make the sugar carrots, you will need: orange fondant (I used Americolor Orange to colour) green fondant (I used Americolor Avocado to colour) a skewer or pointy modelling tool to make a dent in end of carrot small, fine paintbrush water ...