Valentines cooking

Have you ever had one of those eureka moments when you do something, and its just amazing, you're almost shocked you've actually managed to do it yourself, combined with the fact that you're amazed how straight forward it is? Well today I had not one, but TWO of these! Both relating to baking these rose cupcakes.

The first is SUPER smooth buttercream icing. I have for quite some time been following the buttercream/frosting recipe which the Hummingbird Bakery use ( 150g butter, 450g icing sugar, 50ml milk and 1 tsp vanilla extract). I have also followed their instructions too, which is to mix on high for 2 minutes, which with a hand whisk makes your arm ache, but it always produced lovely buttercream. Then I saw a friends photo of her buttercream on facebook and it was SO much smoother than mine. How did she do it? Well I asked the question and when she said 5 minutes I thought, my arms can't take it! But in the name of smooth icing I gave it a try, and 5 painful minutes later I had the most AMAZING icing! Who knew just an extra 3 minutes mixing would make such a big difference. The second eureka moment was piping the roses. I had tried to pipe them using my usual piping nozzle, but they didn't look great, so I googled and youtubed it (well in this technological world you can find literally anything you want to online, and I did!) and I found I would be better using a Wilton 2D nozzle, which I promptly went out and bought. I think the buttercream being so smooth made a huge difference, but piping was a dream.

I'm amazed at how much like a rose they look, they are so pretty, and will be being sold next week for Valentines day in aid of the Lymphoma Association charity along with other cakes and cookies being made by my class at school.

These are just samples for our posters to promote the sale.

 
Here are some almond cookies I made and iced using the flooding technique I learned the other day over here. They could be a little neater, but for a first attempt I think they're ok! Still need to practice my icing writing technique!!! Hope you like and are inspired to try and make some supersmooth rose cupcakes!!!