Last weekend I met up with 8 other Plymouth bloggers at Mrs Brown’s, a local bakery and decided to do a vintage cupcake masterclass.  I’ve always loved making cupcakes, although finding less time as the children get older and more demanding of my time.  I’m a huge buttercream fan and tend to stick to this as is easy to work with and tastes delicious so it was interesting to work with other types icing and learn how to create different effects.  I certainly picked up a few tips that I’ll be putting into practice the next time I bake.  Can you believe I decorated all the cakes below with my own fair hands!

First off we learnt how to make an edible rose decoration.  Would you believe that you start with 11 little balls of icing and by using your fingers to flatten and mould they become petals which in turn become a finished rose.  Spray on a bit of silver lustre, add a sprinkling of pearlised balls and voila, my cake is done!

We then tried some other ideas before stopping for a break and trying a piece of a rather huge Victoria sponge cake, covered in chocolate coated strawberries, that Georgie (owner of Mrs Brown’s) had made for us.  We then went back to our decorating class before boxing up our four creations ready to take home.

Here we are showing off our handiwork:

It was a great way to spend a couple of hours and I couldn’t wait to get home and see what the children thought.  I think the pictures below show you of their approval for mummy’s cakes!!

Going to the cupcake class really reignited my love of baking and although I have a hectic few months ahead, I do hope to try out some new things and bake more regularly in the future!