Cupcake Decorating Masterclass!

I've had a really fun day today, decorating cupcakes!  When Jac from Tinned Tomatoes spied this class at 3D Cakes in Edinburgh, being offered on Groupon, she contacted me to see if I wanted to go too.  We finally found a date which suited us and Claire of A Kiss of Cookies joined us too.

It's a good two hours drive to Edinburgh for me,  I had planned on getting the train which is only an hour but with the Bank Holiday, the trains were disrupted by work on the line.  Luckily my SIL lives just outside Edinburgh, so Brian drove up and took his Mum over to see her after dropping me off at Roseburn Terrace.

Our Cupcake decorating tutor was called Sue and she started by telling us about 3D cakes and some of the unusual cakes they have made, like a lion and lioness for a wedding anniversary cake.

Sue started us off with flowerpaste which we learned to roll very thinly and use cutters to cut out butterflies and daisies.

The dusting and decorating came later, but I was surprised how easy it was to make an effective flower with the cutters.  We then moved on to the trickier rose, again helped by a special cutter for the petals.

Mine is slightly dodgy but it looks rose-like enough for a first try.  The leaf is cut from green flower paste,  the veining is part of the cutter.


We left our flowerpaste efforts to dry and moved on to working with fondant.  I love the little parcels with fondant bows and can see that I will be using these quite a lot.

Again I could probably do this better with more practice, but learning the technique by 'show and tell' followed by making them yourself and getting personal attention from Sue, really made the difference.


We also made some chunky hearts, I didn't use mine on my cakes as I had enough other things to use, they also look a bit rude ;-)

Here are few of the decorations before they were dusted and glittered.  I think I like the parcels better without the glitter.

We then learned how to make ladybirds.  They are rather large but that was how we were shown.  I'd like to try making them smaller, now I  know how.

I also cut out some little hearts with some cutters that were at our work stations.


We then made fondant roses, they took a bit of getting the hang of, but I think I may be making more of them. 

Now it was time to dust and glitter, dry brush for dust, so all that had to be done first, then damp edges and dip in glitter.

Here is Claire, working hard making something, look how fast her hands are moving!!!

And here is Jac, relaxing with her finished decorations.

The next step was to pipe the butter cream onto the 12 cupcakes provided for us to decorate and then place our fondant and flowerpaste on top of the swirls.
I haven't actually eaten any of the cupcakes yet, but  they do look pretty and I am definitely going to have a go at making more. 

Many thanks to Jac for organising the day out and to Sue for creating such a relaxed atmosphere.