Oh - I had such good fun making these !
This little bear was my first ever attempt at making a sugarpaste character. I recently discovered Astral's blog http://theartofbeingperfect.blogspot.com/ and followed her excellent tutorial to make this little sugar paste bear.
I used a fair bit of Wilton ivory gel paste to colour the fondant for the body, as I didn't have any brown shades - but it still came out quite well with the limited gel paste colours I have. I'll need to expand my collection of gel pastes now, as I think I'll do some more playing with sugarpaste now I know I can achieve decent looking results !
I think they looked fab though in our new zebra print cupcake cases which I've been dying to try out for a while. We've even got these same liners in mini muffin size.
The cakes were a Magnolia bakery recipe from another of Astral's tutorials along with the buttercream. I did double up on homemade vanilla extract so it really punched a good vanilla hit. These really were lovely and moist and the buttercream was ace.
Oliver couldn't wait to get hold of the teddy bear cake and really hassled me as I attempted to take the photos. He's been talking about it every day since I made these on Monday !
Astral's tutorial for the cupcakes is here - I've posted the recipe below
Vanilla cupcakes
113g butter (soft - room temperature)
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp good vanilla extract
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 rounded cup of self raising flour
1/2 cup of milk
Cream butter and sugar until white and pale. Beat in egg.
Mix in 1/2 sifted flours followed by 1/2 the milk. Repeat with remaining flour and milk.
Bake for approx 20 minutes at 170deg C, or maybe a bit less time if using a silicone bakeare muffin mould as I do.
Frost with your favourite frosting and then decorate !
Vanilla frosting shown here was 125g salted butter, 4 cups sifted icing sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup of milk. Add some more icing sugar if desired consistency is not thick enough (mine shown here was perfect first time)
Been practising piping my swirls and rather pleased with the results. :grins:
These are the new red hearts and swirls papers . Aren't they pretty ?
I've been trying to upload a little video of Oliver's attempts to scoff the teddy bear cupcake, but it keeps failing for some reason. Sorry !
Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - the silicone bakeware moulds specialists. February 2011
