Sugarcraft Flowers ♥

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Wendy

XO

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Happy Halloween!

I originally made these for an autumn themed baby shower but they'd work equally well at a halloween party! 

The cupcake itself is vanilla! I added the green food colouring to the icing at the same time as the milk and vanilla essence. :) 

The pumpkins were complete guess work but they worked out pretty well.. they were all different shapes and sizes haha. I'll just put a few steps below as to how I did them... 

Fondant Pumpkins 

1. Color the white fondant icing orange (approx 250g), adding some icing sugar if the mixture got to wet. This was completely trial and error..it took a lot of colour to make it go orange.
2. Colour a small amount of the fondant brown and roll it into a long skinny sausage, then chop it into half inch pieces = stems.
3. Colour a small amount of fondant green and roll out small balls into strings and coil them around toothpicks. Don't let them set fully as they'll harden and break on you as you put them on the pumpkins.
4. Roll the orange icing into balls and create the indents using dental floss.
5. Make a hole in the top of the pumpkin, add the stem and green coil and hey presto you have a pumpkin! 

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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Fondant Baby Booties

SO CUTE! ♥ Quite easy to make too...you just need some time and of course....patience :) 

Instructions 

• Using yellow fondant roll out marble sized balls and press down one side with your thumb.
• Create pea-sized balls with the same yellow fondant place it on the flat part of the 'boot'.
• Using a ball tipped modelling tool or the end of a chopstick create an indent in the pea-sized ball.
• Use a toothpick to create the lines or 'sock effect'.
• Again, with the toothpick dot around the front of the boot. 
• I used a flower plunger cutter to create the flower and I pushed it into the boot so the yellow came through the center. :) 

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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Gluten Free – Dairy Free- Lemon and Lime Cake

Originally, I wanted to make a yoghurt icing for this cake but everywhere I read online was not impressed with 'dairy-free' margarine/butter. So, I decided to just use icing sugar and soya yoghurt knowing full well that it is full of water and probably wouldn't work!

Long story short - it didn't work, I strained the yoghurt - it ALL went through.. I used the 'thicker' stuff.. it did NOTHING when I added the icing.. except go a horrible grey colour.. I will figure it out. But for this, I stuck with simple, yet effective, lemon icing. :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two 8 inch baking tins with baking powder. 

Ingredients

250g dairy-free margarine

250g caster sugar

4 eggs

250g plain gluten free flour

½ tsp. gluten-free baking powder

2 tbsp. full fat soya milk

2 tbsp. lemon & lime juice

Zest of a lemon & lime

•        Add the margarine, sugar and zest to a bowl – beat it with a paddle mixer until the mix is well combined.

•        Add the eggs one by one, it may look a little curdled but don’t panic it will look better once the flour is added.

•        Sift in the flour and baking powder – mix on low to combine.

•        Then add the milk and juices.

•        Bake in a pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.

Sugar Syrup

50g caster sugar

50ml water

1 tsp. lemon & lime juice

•        Boil the sugar and water on a low heat until all the sugar is dissolved.

•        Remove from the heat and stir in the juices.

•        While the cakes are still warm, skewer some holes into the cake and pour the sugar syrup over them.

Icing

250g icing sugar

Lemon juice

•        Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lemon juice tsp. by tsp. until the mixture is a ‘droppable’ consistency.

•        Pour the icing into the centre of the cake and let it pour over the edges. 

•        If you made the cake in two tins, add some icing to sandwich the sponges together. 

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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Animal Print 21st Cake

Well, this was a bit of an adventure outside my comfort zone - decorative icing! Worth it though for the finished result and it was Mollies 21st ('baby' sister!!). You'll need apricot jam to brush over each cake to help the icing stick :)

• Tiger cake - for this layer we need around 1.5 boxes of fondant and plenty of orange food colouring. It took a long time to incorporate it evenly throughout the icing but we got there in the end (the same goes for the black icing). Paint the sides with water to help the black icing stick. It really was just guess work for the black - we started with straight lines using a pizza cutter. Then we just did random curvy lines - short, medium, long etc and stuck them on. 

• Leopard cake (1 box) - this layer was painted using a mix of food colouring and vodka. The main icing was white fondant with a little bit of brown food colouring to create a 'tan' colour. Then it was a case of painting circles in brown and half circles on the outside with black.....or something like that.

• Zebra cake (3/4 box) - this followed the same 'method' as the tiger cake but with white and black. Good Luck! haha. 

I didn't actually use cake boards between each layer but I would the next time as dismantling the cake was a bit of a disaster...who cares though, it all got eaten in the end. 

Chocolate Biscuit Cake (12 inch) - Tiger

550g butter

300ml golden syrup

450g chocolate

400g digestive biscuits 

400g rich tea biscuits

1 large packet of maltesers

• line the tin with greaseproof paper before you start.
• melt the butter, golden syrup and chocolate in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water.
• to a very large bowl add the biscuits and maltesers.
• once the chocolate mix is ready, pour it over the biscuits and mix to combine.
• I recommend eating 5 or so biscuits from each packet... there was a LOT of biscuits in this cake.

Chocolate Cake (9 inch) - Leopard

185g butter

330g caster sugar

2½ tsp. vanilla essence

3 eggs

75g self-raising flour

225g plain flour

1½ tsp. bicarbonate of soda

80g cocoa powder

280ml buttermilk

Chocolate Cake (7 inch) - Zebra 

165g butter

300g caster sugar

2 tsp. vanilla essence

3 eggs

65g self-raising flour

200g plain flour

1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

70g cocoa powder

250ml buttermilk

Chocolate Cake Method

• preheat the oven to 180°C and line each baking tin with greasproof paper. 
• beat the butter, sugar and vanilla with a paddle attachment until light and fluffy.
• add the eggs one by one, ensuring they are incorporated each time. 
• transfer to a large bowl.
• alternatively fold in the flours, cocoa powder and bicarb with the buttermilk.
• transfer to the prepared tins - bake th 9 inch for 1¼ hours and the 7 inch for 1 hr 10 minutes.
• always test the centre of your cakes with a skewer, if it comes out clean - its baked! 

Happy 21st Birthday Mollie!
19/092013

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Wendy

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Amaretto Bakewell Buns

One of my favourite 'treats' (I'm not going to lie, there are many - sssh, secrets) is bakewell tarts - they are just perfect. 

Almonds ✓

Cake ✓

Icing ✓ 

Cherries  ✓

Yum ✓

Anyway, I really wanted to bake some.. but I was missing most of the ingredients so, I improvised and this is what happened! They were delicious. Go make them...right now. 

First, preheat the oven to 180°C and line a muffin tin with cupcake cases, now go!

Buns

150g butter

150g caster sugar

100g self-raising flour

3 eggs

½ tsp baking powder

60g ground almonds

1 tbsp amaretto liqueur

• beat the butter with a paddle attachment until its soft and creamy.
• add the sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, almonds and liqueur and beat until smooth.
• spoon the mixture into each case (approximately 12) and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
• leave to cool on a wire rack while you prepare the icing.

Icing

250g icing sugar

3 tbsp amaretto liqueur

12 halved walnuts

4 tbsp jam 

• sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the liqueur to form a thick icing, be careful not to add too much liquid as it will become runny and difficult to reverse (see above ha-ha). 
• using an apple-corer remove the centre of each cake and fill with jam.
• add the icing with a teaspoon and top each cake with a walnut - enjoy! 

PS - I am 100% going to try out cherry bakewell buns or maybe even tarts, we'll see. Either way, it'll be yummy! 

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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Oaty Soda Bread

The oats in this bread give it a lovely texture! This recipe is so quick and easy - give it a go and enjoy :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C and have an 8 inch round tin to hand to transfer the dough into :)

Ingredients

400g plain flour

50g oats

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

300ml buttermilk

6 tbsp cool, boiled water

• sift the flour, bicarb and salt into a bowl, add the oats.
• using a dough hook attachment, on a slow speed, pour in the buttermilk and water to form a very soft dough.
• transfer the mixture to a tin and bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
• remove from the tray and leave to cool on a wire rack.

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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