Cupcakes . . .

ahh, cupcakes!

. . . the crispy yet sticky top

. . . the soft and fluffy middle

. . . an amazing amount of icing (because that's whats acceptable with cupcakes!) 

. . . and not to mention the gorgeous and mouthwatering appearance!

well, last weekend I made some plain vanilla cupcakes with a buttercream icing, just a simple recipe from the Internet but they turned out really yummy which was a bonus!
the main reason that I wanted to make them was to practice my icing, I had been given a tutorial on how to do a rose swirl and after looking on YouTube I got some other ideas as well, I ended up with the rose swirl, a daisy inspired pattern, a weaved look and a few others that were total experiments! here are my final products . . . 

my new stand :)

yum!!



normal swirl



two toned rose swirl



mm. . .

 

up close!

I also had my first try with gum paste, im still not entirely sure what its real purpose is as I was looking for sugar paste (not sure what the difference is but any way)  it worked fine for me! first I coloured it with the Wilton colour pastes and rolled it out until it was really thin. I then cut out some butterflies and placed them in a foil shaping thingy that I made to make the wings stick up. Once they had dried I put them in an air tight container until the cakes were ready. One thing that I didn't really predict was that once the butterflies went on the cakes and in the fridge they collapsed over The icing. I'm not sure weather this was caused by the moisture of the cakes or the fridge itself but I will experiment with that next time I make them. And here they are . . !