The Splat Cooking Blog

These are about to hit the UK with the wedding season almost upon us and we like to get in first with new ideas…….so Splat Cooking are very pleased to announce our very first Cupcake Bouquet workshop on Saturday 13 March from 2.30-4.30pm for children aged 7-13 years…………..’oh, that’s not fair’ I hear you shout, what about the adults.

Don’t panic, we haven’t left you out, you’ll just have to wait a little while, the adult workshop will take place on Friday 25 June.

These are relatively simple to make – I’m not going to tell you they’re dead easy for three reasons;

1.  You wouldn’t book on my workshop.

2.  You’d feel really awful if you found then difficult, wouldn’t want that.

3.  Depends how confident you are at icing – come to our workshop and I’ll boost your confidence, promise.

So, book quickly, these are going to be super popular.

Cupcake Bouquet

Miniature cakes not fairy cakes or cupcakes, these are the gorgeous small cakes covered in sugarpaste or fondant that are served on their own little cake board. You’ll have the opportunity to cover and decorate 4-6 cakes during the day. This is a hands on course so you’ll try out and practice all the techniques yourselves and hopefully leave full of confidence to carry on when you get home. Whether you want to start you own cake business, make cupcakes for your wedding or just want to learn some techniques to impress the other Mums at your child’s party this course will equip you with lots of ideas and skills.

The course takes place on Friday 20 November from 9.30am-2.30pm

Jay's Wonky Wedding Cake

Here’s the finished photo of my  god-daughter Jay’s wedding cake.  This was our wedding present to her and Phil and after 2 weeks, vast quantities of marzipan, sugarpaste and sugar diamonds (grrrrr!) plus 350 mile car trip it arrived in one piece for their wedding.  My daughter Ellie (13) made the cake jewellry and was excused bad language whilst she fought with the floristry wire but it was worth it.

A big thanks to Andy Trueman (Lindy Smith’s manager and mate of mine) for all the advice, especially when I realised that making a 12″/9″/6″ wonky fruit cake would be fine so long as no one had to lift it and suggested that I do a 12″ cutting cake and do the rest as a 10″ fruit cake with 7″ and 4″ as chocolate sponge which was heavy enough.

The story of Jay’s cake will be up on the blog shortly while the pain remains, it tasted fantastic and Jay and Phil were really pleased which is what counted.

Classic icing for butterfly cakes, this basic recipe can be flavoured to compliment your cakes, it can be spread over the cake or piped onto the cakes.  If you wish to use the buttercream icing plain without flavouring then it’s best to use butter at room temperature to achieve the best flavour, it’s harder to mix but tastes a lot nice than using margarine.  If you are flavouring the icing then soft margarine is fine.

300g icing sugar – sieved

100g softened butter or margarine

1-2 tablespoons milk

Mix all the ingredients together with a wooden spoon or in a mixer until smooth.

Flavourings:

Chocolate – add 60g melted dark chocolate and 2 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder, sieved (don’t be tempted to use milk chocolate it’s too sweet and sickly when added to the icing sugar and butter.  My son calls this ‘chocolate poo icing’ if it’s piped onto cakes – guess why?

 
Mint Chocolate – as for chocolate but add in 1/2 a teaspoon of pepperrmint essence

Chili Chocolate – add a deseeded, chopped FRESH red chili – do not use powdered or dried chili it doesn’t work, make sure that you remove all the seeds and the pith of the chilli and chop it very finely, the larger the chili the less heat it contains and the seeds and pith contain most of the heat.  For this icing you want the flavour and a little heat, you don’t want the icing to blow your socks off!

Lemon, orange or lime – add the juice and finely grated rind of one of whichever fruit you wish to use, leave out the milk.  If it’s too runny add a little more icing sugar, if too thick add a little more juice.

Coffee – add 1 teaspoon of instant coffee mixed with a little warm milk until it’s dissolved.

Raspberry, strawberry or  blackcurrant - puree handful of the fruit in a mini food processor or hand blender, sieve and add the juice to the icing, leaving out the  milk.  This will also turn the icing pink or in the case of blackcurrant a shade of mauve.

Check out our website http://www.splatcooking.net for cool muffin and fairy cake cases and sprinkles to go with this icing.

Brides Magazine’s November/December features Splat Cookery School’s Wedding Favours workhops on page 75 as well as using our glitter in the Winter Wonderland cupcakes on page 66. Brides thought the workshops were fabulous as we’ll tailor the whole workshop to exactly what the Bride wants to achieve from colour scheme to flowers and at the end she’ll come away with the skills to make her own wedding favours or cupcakes with the effects she wants to make a dramatic difference to her big day.

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