Roses......

I was asked to make some cupcakes for a birthday present and was left to come up with my own decoration. I thought it would be nice to make some roses to go on top of them. At first I was dabbling with the idea of using marzipan or sugar paste but then I came across the recipe for chocolate plastic. Basically chocolate and glucose syrup. It is quite easy to make and work with. It holds its shape, tastes better than sugarpaste ans looks pretty too.

To make the chocolate plastic you can use white, milk or dark chocolate. I simply melted mine in the microwave or you can do it over a bain marie. Then you add glucose syrup to the melted chocolate and stir it until it thickens and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

You should then transfer the chocolate plastic mixture onto a piece of clingfilm and pat it into a disc about 6mm thick. Cover it with another piece of clingfilm and leave it in the fridge to harden. To use the chocolate plastic take it out of the fridge and leave it for about 10 minutes at room temperature.

To make the roses I cut out the bits I needed and rolled them in my hands to make them smooth and pliable. This was my first attempt at making the chocolate plastic and attempting the roses. I was quite pleased.

For more information there are plenty of tutorials on the net on how to make these roses.

For the recipe for the plastic chocolate I used 200g chocolate and 4 tablespoons of glucose syrup.

Here are the cakes I made.

Vanilla cupcakes topped with vanilla frosting and then a white chocolate rose.

Chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate frosting and milk chocolate roses.

finishing touches.....

So I finished the cake this morning ready for the party this afternoon. I was going to stick one of my nephews toy Lightning McQueen cars on top but I thought I'd have a quick go at making one. I spent five minutes making this sugar paste version. I was having trouble with the paste it was very soft and decided to keep the detailing to a minimum. But I think it looks ok and I'm sure my nephew will like it. Thanks to the person who gave me the idea for the cake.

Birthday cakes.......

At work the other day I was asked to come up with a quick cake for one of the receptionists. I had lots of other work on so I quickly put this together. A chocolate fudge cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate writing. She was happy.

TodayI have been decorating my nephews birthday cake for his party tomorrow. He wanted a Lightning McQueen cake, from the animated movie Cars. I saw one that was very similar on the internet and this is what it looks like so far. Tomorrow I will add the finishing touches.

Its a chocolate cake witha chocolate ganache filling and topped with sugar paste decorations. The desert is made from crushed digestive biscuits.

Birthday cupcakes......

Today I dropped off some birthday cupcakes for a family friend. Her son turned 14 so she wanted some cakes with a few of the things he likes on top. Wallace and Gromit, Batman, Bart Simpson and Ben 10. I managed to mould some gromit heads and my boyfriend made the little batman cutouts, and for the other characters I made some little tags and attached them to cocktail sticks.

I found a great bargain last week whilst shopping, a big tin of black treacle for 12pence. One of the best recipes I have using this dark, luscious stuff is ginger cake. So I took out my trusted recipe that I was given at catering college and got to work. Its really easy to make and stays deliciously moist for up to a week if kept in an airtight container. Great as it is or topped with lashings of cream.

This will easily serve 10

250g butter

250g muscovado sugar

250g black treacle

300ml milk

2 eggs

375g plain flour

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon allspice
3 teaspoons ground ginger

Butter and line a 9inch cake tin. Heat the oven to gas mark 3.

Place the butter, sugar and treacle in a saucepan and heat gently until dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the milk. Add the eggs beating well.

Mix the flour, bicarb and spices in another bowl then make a well in the centre. Pour in the treacle mix and mix well. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 70 minutes. Check if its done by inserting a skewer, if it comes out clean its done. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.

Will keep for a week in an airtight tin.

Enjoy.