Disney Princess Cupcakes

So I have finally gotten around to uploading some photos of my last cake order in Korea.  I have since had requests for more orders but *sob* *sob* I have been unable to take any of them on.  Please see my previous post for some ideas for other places to buy some cupcakes off the counter.
 
It had to happen some time.  I have always loved Disney cartoons and had always wondered at the creative genius behind the marketing person who dreamed up marketing the Disney Princesses as a product by itself.  So when I got the request for Disney Princess inspired cupcakes... YAY!

I wasn't sure I'd do a good job making the Disney Princesses with gumpaste and figured they will look prettier if it was the actual figurines themselves and R who ordered these cupcakes for her daughter's 3rd birthday liked the Princess cupcakes I made a few months ago so requested for something like that.  We spun a lot of ideas and finally decided on a customised cake/dessert stand so we can put the smash cake on top, R had a good idea of standard sized cupcakes and mini ones to break up the symetry a bit and have the frosting in Disney Princess colours.

I got the idea for the cake stand from Cake Journal who has a good tutorial on how to make your own.  I had to get some of the material from Malaysia (the cake boards) as I could not find good thick round ones here.  I got cake dummies as base for the tiers.  These were made from styrofoam and you can buy them from Wilton Deco.  I managed to get wrapping paper that went well with the frosting colours too.

R chose Strawberry for half the mini cupcakes, Rose flavour for the standard cupcakes and Mud Chocolate for the cake and the other half of the mini cupcakes.  The designs for the cupcakes may have been simple but the colours made them so appealing!  I created a special design with 3 hearts on top of the cake so R could put 3 Disney Princess figurines on top whch would have completed the look but she didn't in the end as she was afraid she would ruin the cake.  ^_^   I heard the party was fabulous and the birthday girl had a great time.

The cake stand was customised to compliment the colours of the icing.  I got the idea to make a cake stand from Cake Journal.  I  decided against using a single coloured paper to make it a little more fun.  Look under Cake Journal's tutorials to learn how to make it, I can't add the link here as the site is temporarily down.

These are the mini strawberry cupcakes freshly frosted and topped with a sugarpaste flower.

Standard sized cupcakes with super pink frosting topped with a sugarpaste butterfly lovingly brushed with petal dust and sprinkled with sugar pearls.

These butterflies were quite easy to make with a plunger cutter.  Dusting it reminded me of art class when I was in school.

The finished cupcakes all packed and ready to go.

The cake stand with the top base missing as that would be assembled on site.

The finished product.  The Disney Princesses are to stand on top of the hearts on the smash cake.

Cupcakes Inspired by Marie Antoinette

In the last 2 months I have had 2 close friends who have left Seoul to start new lives.  One moved to another country in Asia and the other all the way to Europe.  I find that the older you get, the harder it is to make new long and lasting friendships.  So it was sad to see them go.  I am confident though that I will see them again even though it won't be quite the same as when we were living in the same city.

We threw a farewell party for Wani and as it was potluck I decided to bring dessert.  What a surprise! ; )  W has been very helpful in sampling new flavours and giving feedback.  I mean when you love baking, you've got to have an audience who is willing to be guinea pigs.  Also I find that whether it is cooking you enjoy or baking, you want to share with others.  So I've been lucky to have W who has been very obliging even when the result is a bit under par.

For her farewell, I decided to make Orange Almond cupcakes (recipe from Australian Women's Weekly) with Tangy Orange Buttercream.  The colours were inspired by the sweet yet extravagant styling from Marie Antoinette the movie with Kirsten Dunst.

I dropped 2 of the boxes when I got out of the car as I had to grab my daughter who tripped.  I was so upset but luckily the frosting was still quite hard as it had been in the fridge so only a few of the cupcakes were damaged.  A couple of flowers were missing part of their petal and a couple of the words were a little smudged.  The most important thing was they were enjoyed.

Princess Themed Cupcakes

You've heard it once from me before and you'll hear it again, I love decorating cakes or cupcakes for little girls.  What's not to love about candy floss pinks, tiffany blues, sunshine yellow and so many more shades of pink?

You really don't have to twist my arm to come up with ideas for a girl's party.  So when I was asked if I could make cupcakes for a little girl turning 1... oh YEAH!  A was planning a Princess themed party for her little princess turning 1 and I was more than happy to help.  She liked the marbled effect for the cupcakes like the ones I did for my daughter's cupcake tower when she had her 2nd birthday party.  At first I was a little hesitant as it's easy to make sure the portions are right for a standard sized cupcake but for a mini it is a bit more challenging to get it right.  I have to put 3 portions of batter into that tiny paper liner and we don't want to put too much otherwise the cupcake will swell too high and it'd look odd among it's fellow cupcakers. 

I don't know, I just want the cupcakes to be as uniform in size as possible.  I decided to give it a go in the end and there were some that were slightly overfilled but they weren't too obvious so they got in line just fine.  

 Here they are just swirled and waiting to be baked.

 Fresh out of the oven

  It looks so pretty inside, I just want to eat it!  Actually I did.

 

I topped them with little fondant blossoms cut using the PME Flower Plunger Cutter.  These little babies are a pleasure to use as the spring function allows you to push out the flowers after they are cut instead of using another thin implement to try to push them out and sometimes when you do that, you get odd little marks on the flowers which I hate.

 

To complete the whole Princess theme, I made a little Tiara with diamente and a little scepter/wand for the birthday girl.  Unfortunately I did not manage to get a picture of both the Tiara or the little scepter/wand but you can see it in the picture below that A kindly sent me.  A rented the cupcake stand from me and arranged the lovely display even though I am sure she must have been quite busy getting the paty ready.

A better picture of what the tiara would look like is below which was made by a friend from my cake decorating class: 

The Tiara is actually extremely delicate as A will attest to.

Here's the birthday girl enjoying her cake.  I couldn't resist, she just looks so adorable!

More cake please?

Baby Shower with Bunnies

I have never had a baby shower for either of my children, so I am always delighted to create cupcakes for a shower. A friend of mine, L was expecting her 2nd baby last month and wanted a baby shower as an excuse to get together with close friends and of course to celebrate the impending arrival of the new wee one.

We explored a few themes to try to get the right 'feel' for the baby. As it is a winter baby, we toyed around with the idea of snowflakes first and then a tree to signify life but we also wanted something obvious so that people will know that it's for a baby shower! My friend liked the idea of bunnies so we focused on that, I added the tree branches with snowflakes on them against the wintry sky. I was going for the kind of greyish blue that always reminds me of winter. Sort of whimsical. I got the colour I wanted but after awhile the colour darkened a little. It matches beautifully with the pink but a little lighter and it would have been perfect. Ok, I need to stop obsessing about the small things. I bet no one even noticed.

L was kind enough to take some photos for me

For the bunnies, I piped them with Buttercream and added the ribbons with 2 heart shaped confetti and the nose with a type of rainbow chocolate chip. The cupcakes were Lemon Cupcakes and Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

Update: L gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Sena who weighed almost 4kg!

A Cupcake a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

This post has been long overdue! I went on holiday a week or so ago but the run up to the holiday was pretty hectic with replacement classes (again) for my cake decorating course, getting last minute things sorted and trying not to pack half the house with me. I just don't get this packing light business. I try... and somehow I always fail. At least I never run out of clothes to wear! : )

A good friend came to me a couple of months back to make some cupcakes for the opening of a women's clinic and natural birthing centre in Gangnam. This friend of mine also got me the "What's New Cupcake?" book by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson which has so many fabulous ideas. Let's just say that she helps fuel my passion for new designs, so I was more than happy to oblige.

We decided on a flower theme to coincide with the name of the clinic and some vibrant colours to brighten things up. To personalise it a bit more I made some cupcake toppers with the clinic's logo on it. Next we had to choose the flavours. Another friend got me the cookbook from my favourite London bakery, The Hummingbird Bakery so we went through that and as she likes hazelnute spread, she choose half the cupcakes to be Hazelnut and Chocolate cupcakes (with Nutella filling). For the 2nd batch of cupcakes, we went with something light and fruity, Lemon Cupcakes with fresh lemon curd filling.

Here they are waiting to be eaten

My friend told me that doctor and the guests didn't expect the cupcakes, it was a yummy surprise.

The Giant Cupcake

I am so knackered today and I spent 3.5 hours in class decorating a small 3-tiered fondant covered cake. Need sleep... But probably won't sleep till at least midnight. Stubborn, stubborn brain.

After my witching hour rant yesterday, I am pleased to show you the pics I took of the contest cake, or should I say GIANT CUPCAKE! Mwua ha ha ha!!!

Oh dear... see what lack of sleep does to me?

Anyway, I am quite pleased with the result. The flowers ain't perfect but I love, love, love the colours! They are sort of autumn colours but somehow reminiscent of Spring. I got a lot of inspiration from a huge Tulip Show I went to with my sister last year in Melbourne. I was looking through photos there and picked the sort of colours I like best. It reminded me of the beautiful weather, warm yet not the sort of heat that makes you icky and sweaty, a lovely fragrance in the air and being with family. I tried to incorporate that into my cake.

Although I didn't know how to make tulips I used the colours on different flowers like the Apple Blossom, Rose, Wild Rose and Violet. I was happy with the results but cautiously so. It is a competition after all and my humble entry will likely be drowning amongst all the wonderful stuff the other entries have created out of buttercream. My teacher said it was "Nice" ie. it's passable but not the best I have seen. Whatever it is, I'll take it!

I thought I'd do a collage of the photos and not make you scroll down and down... I wanted to upload the cake in so many different angles. Hee hee.

Baby Joy with Mini Cupcakes

Last week I got funky with scissors, glue and toothpicks to design a customised cake board to display 36 mini cupcakes ordered by K to celebrate the arrival of her daughter Baby Baek with her colleagues.

I got this order while I was on holiday and you can sure I was thinking of all the things I could do with buttercream to create a theme for a little girl. Colours are important too of course and I didn't want it all pink. I thought of a few ideas including safety pins, flowers, alphabet cubes but decided on a ballerina/tutu, booties and a ribbon.

The Little Pink Tutu

The booties were inspired by the Wilton Baby Booties which had a few steps to complete. They are relatively easy to do but requires quite a steady hand for the tiny ribbons and ruffles. It was really nice seeing them come together. Piping the tutu was a technique I learned in one of my cake decorating lessons where I piped ballerina bears. So that was certainly useful here and did I mention I love making ruffles with leaf tip #67?!

The Baby Booties with a pink ruffle and ribbon

The cake board was an idea I got from having seen some simple but colourful storyboards/themes from Marth Stewart's Cupcake book as well as the Australian Women's Weekly Cupcake book. These are two books I highly recommend for both recipes as well as ideas on decorating not just with icing but with sweets/candy, non-pareils, cachous, sprinkles etc...

Simple and beautiful.

**Customised cake boards are at an additional charge, based on size and quantity of order. Pplease enquire by email at orders@buttersugarcream.com**

**New Flavour** Coconut

This flavour tastes like Pina Colada but without the alcohol.  Coconut shreds are actually used quite often to cover a Red Velvet cake that has been frosted with Cream Cheese in America.  Although I haven't tried it yet on a Red Velvet, it looks really nice ie. must taste good.  Or I would hope.  Admittedly Coconut is not for everyone but this flavour is quite subtle with a Italian Meringue Buttercream infused with a subtle flavouring of coconut milk and coconut cream.

My First Cupcake Stand at the SIWA Coffee Morning

4 days ago, I went to the Seoul International Women's Association Coffee Morning and set up a table to sell my cupcakes. I am a member of SIWA and was encouraged to sell some cupcakes there to get some publicity for my little cakes. I hadn't done this before but really relished the idea.

Here's Yoko helping me set up

Here we are all good to go

When I was in school, we had Canteen Day once a year where each class would bring things to sell in a sort of bazaar where parents and students buy coupons and use those to buy whatever goodies they wanted to during that day. I used to love bringing food or drinks and selling them. I think that started my appettite for sales which grew into a enjoyable career for me.

These were how the individual cupcakes were packed when someone bought one

I found these small chubby tumblers in Saero in Bangsan Market

I did a lot of work to prepare for it including scouting for packaging items for my mini cupcakes and getting durable (and nice looking) boxes that can hold 1 and 2 cupcakes. Yoko a friend who lives 3 doors down came to help me prepare the night before and also helped out at the event. She was fantastic! I think I made more sales when I wasn't even at the table!

The Lookbook was created to give people an idea of what I can do so it was filled with pictures of the cakes and cupcakes I have made in the past

This is me posing with my cupcakes. I was conscious that people were watching while I was taking numerous photos of the table (I was the only one doing it) and then of myself. How vain right? But I wanted to capture the moment

The cupcakes got a lot of attention and I think we had the prettiest table amongst the other 20 vendors who were there simply by the nature of what we were selling. I created 3 flavours and made a dozen of each. A new creation was the Chocolate Cherry Truffle cupcakes which was a Valrhona Chocolate cupcake with a Chocolate Cherry Brandy Ganache center and frosted with a Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Buttercream. It was then topped with hand-shaved chocolate curls and a red rose petal dusted with sparkle. It was decadent, rich and so SO fragrant. The Red Velvet with Cream Cheese frosting was very popular and the Strawberry cupcakes weren't too shabby with a large floret buttercream frosting and a shiny pretty butterfly sitting on top.

Chocolate Cherry Truffle Cupcakes

I also had 6 boxes of 6 mini cupcakes which sold out. They were Chocolate with Chocolate Buttercream, Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting and Vanilla with Vanilla Fluffy Frosting. People thought they were "so cute" in their little egg carton boxes so they were gone in a flash. They make great gifts and favours as well. I can always customise the flavours to suit your occassion in case whoever is reading this may be interested in ordering. Hee hee.

These are the adorable mini cupcakes with the sample box on top

My OH, Maddog said I should have made more just the night before. But that was 11pm and I didn't have the time or energy. Like Donna Hay says, "Beautiful food tastes better." So I hope it was fantastic for everyone who took some home.

**The Mini Cupcakes Nesting were featured on the CutestFood blog on 23 September 2010**

My First Appearence on the Cupcakes Take the Cake Blog

I was so uber excited to find out that my bridal shower and moustache cupcakes made it on the most popular cupcake blog around, Cupcakes Take The Cake!!!  When I first started to decorate cupcakes, I had always aspired to have a cupcake featured on that blog and I cannot believe it has happened so quickly. 

I ran around the room waving my arms in the air going, "EEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" 

My kids thought I was acting really weird.  

But who cares?!  It's the kind of encouragement I needed.  My husband is probably going to give a big sigh when he reads this as he will probably be thinking, "Great, as if she needs more encouragement.  We're in for even more late nights now".

Mini Cupcake Tower for a 1st Birthday Party in Seoul

2 weeks ago I had the opportunity to be a part of a little boy’s (Super J) Doljanji (1^st birthday party). Instead of just the traditional Korean rice cakes for the occasion, his mother wanted some mini cupcakes to be a little different.

Since it was a kid’s party, I wanted to go for something colourful, so we worked out the colours of the cupcake liners and frosting colour to pair it with so that it would compliment the colour theme for Super J’s party. The cupcakes were Vanilla with Fluffy Vanilla Frosting then topped with sprinkles or 100’s and 1000’s. I also made fondant letters spelling “Super J” which I planned to put on top of 6 cupcakes on the top most tier.

When I got to the party with my Mom and my 1 year-old, I quickly got to work assembling the 3-tier dessert stand and arranging the cupcakes. While I was trying to do s, my daughter was being very unco-operative and insisted on having a cupcake. She already had 6 the night before and 5 that morning!!

To appease her, I had to give her one and my Mom had to try to distract her with the balloons (that lasted a minute) so I could get back to the cupcakes without toppling the whole display. It looked very attractive when it was all set up but I must admit I was a little nervous arranging the cupcakes. The pressure was on as there were already some guests there and they were watching. I was chanting in my head, “Don’t drop the cupcake. Don’t drop the cupcake”.

These little babies are just nibbles. I saw several people having 3. They just pop into your mouth and they’re gone. We erred on the side of caution and more then doubled the amount of cupcakes to the number of guests and I think we estimated well.