Peppa Pig cupcakes

My friend’s little girl is obsessed with Peppa Pig! So, for her fourth birthday, the whole family travelled over from Guernsey for a holiday on “the Mainland” culminating in a two-day visit to Peppa Pig World. First though, they visited us here in Bath, so I decided to make some Peppa Pig cupcakes (and, as my rhubarb in the garden was ripe for picking, some rhubarb crumble muffins) to welcome them!

I had a quick flick through Pinterest for some inspiration and as I didn’t have loads of time, I decided to keep it reasonably simple: decorating 6 cupcakes with the Peppa theme and 6 with a simple pink rose swirl.

I made the Peppa cupcake toppers the night before making the cakes: this allows the icing to dry and firm and means that it is less likely to absorb the moisture from the buttercream and go floppy! Getting the right thickness is difficult – mine were too thick! I’d probably aim for about 1-2mm thick. For the images on top, I used cutters from this set. 

This set is fantastic! I have a rather huge collection of fondant cutters and plunger cutters, but this set is the one that I use time and time again! I don’t have a set of number cutters (must buy some!) so I cut the number fours from a triangle of icing.

As the cakes were for a four-year-old, I decided to go for a very simple vanilla cupcake, filled with raspberry jam to liven them up and help them last a bit longer. Adding a filling like jam to cupcakes not only boosts the flavour, but it also helps to increase the life of the cakes: as the cakes age, they tend to dry out a bit and so the jam adds moisture.

The final result: well, the Birthday girl loved them (and so did her mum!), which was the main thing! For me, they weren’t the best thing that I have ever made – the red outline on Peppa doesn’t quite work right – it should be pink (but I don’t have a pink food colour pen!) and the blue disks were way too thick! However, the cake was light and fluffy and tasted good – which is the main thing!  

Vanilla cupcakes with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream

Ingredients

1. 110g butter, at room temperature
2. 225g golden castor sugar
3. 2 large eggs
4. 150g self-raising flour, sifted
5. 125g plain flour, sifted
6. 120ml semi-skimmed milk
7. 1 tsp vanilla extract
8. 4 tblsp raspberry jam

Buttercream:

1. 110g butter, at room temperature and very soft
2. 500g icing sugar, sifted
3. 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. 60ml milk 
5. Pink paste food colouring

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160C/350F/GM4.
2. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy this will take at least 5 minutes with an electric hand mixer – don’t rush this stage).
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition. It should result in a lovely light mousse-like mixture.
5. Combine the two flours in a separate bowl.
6. Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a jug.
7. Add one third of the flours to the creamed mixture and stir gently to combine.
8. Pour in one third of the milk mixture and stir gently.
9. Continue to add flours and then milk mixture alternately, stirring gently after each addition, until all have been added.
10. Spoon mixture into the cupcake cases, filling to about 2/3 full.
11. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until lightly golden brown. The cakes will spring back lightly when touched, if cooked.
12. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes, before carefully placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

While the cakes are in the oven, make up the buttercream:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half of the icing sugar until smooth.
2. Add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Put buttercream into a piping bag with a large star nozzle.

Once cakes are cooked and cooled:

1. Use a tea spoon to cut a cone out from the centre of the cakes.
2. Cut the top disk off each cone and retain.
3. Fill the hole in each cake with a teaspoon of raspberry jam and then replace a cake disk onto each cake to seal the hole.
4. Pipe rose swirls onto all of the cupcakes.
5. Top cakes with a Peppa disk.

Peppa-themed cupcake toppers

1. Pale blue, yellow, pink, red and white fondant icing
2. Black writing icing / black food colour pen
3. Red food colouring
4. Pink food colour pen

Method

1. Roll out the blue fondant icing to 1-2mm thick and cut out 6 circles with a 75mm round cutter.

For the sun cupcakes:

1. Roll out the yellow fondant to about 1mm thick
2. Cut out two 25mm circles and 16 small rectangles.
3. Use a paintbrush and a very small amount of tap water to stick the suns to the blue disks.

For the cloud cupcakes:

1. Roll out the white fondant to 2-3mm thick.
2. Cut out two flowers and then carefully roll over each flower in one direction with a rolling pin.
3. Use a number or a letter cutter to cut out an age or initial.
4. Use a paintbrush and a very small amount of tap water to stick the clouds to the blue disks and then the numbers to the clouds.

For the Peppa cupcakes:

1. Roll out red fondant to about 1mm thick.
2. Cut out two triangles.
3. Use a circle cutter to cut off one corner (to sit the head on) and to round off the opposite edge of the triangle (to sit against the side of the blue disk).
4. Repeat for the second triangle
5. Roll out pink fondant to 1mm thick.
6. Cut out two ellipses.
7. Use a knife to turn the ellipses into Peppa heads (whistle-shaped!)
8. Use a paintbrush and a very small amount of tap water to stick the red dress shapes to the blue disks and then stick on the Peppa heads in the correct position.
9. Roll four very small balls of pink fondant and flatten each slightly.
10. Stick these flattened balls in place as ears.
11. Roll very thin sausages of pink fondant and then stick in place as arms.
12. Use the pink food colour pen to outline Peppa’s head and ears, and define the nose, nostrils and mouth.
13. Add eyes with the black food colour pen.
14. Dilute a tiny amount of red food colouring in a tiny amount of water.
15. Using a paintbrush, use this diluted food colouring to paint on Peppa’s flushed cheeks.  

Superman Chocolate Birthday Cake

So, third chocolate cake in three weeks! Not bad for someone who doesn’t make chocolate cakes! This week’s cake was for one of my good friend’s son’s 4^th birthday – his requirements were that it had to be chocolate and had to have Superman on it! 

I did consider buying a Superman – maybe a Lego Superman – to pop on top of the cake, but somehow I let EHH convince me that it would be a challenge to make a Superman figure out of icing and that I would enjoy it. Hmmm – enjoy isn’t quite the word that I’d have used on Thursday night as I wrestled with red and blue icing, trying to convince it to come together into the muscled physique of an action hero. The ripped torso was actually fairly easy – it was the sticking on of limbs and the creation of the head that were the tricky bits. However, after a bit of swearing and the help of a few cocktail sticks, it all came together. His nose ended up a bit squashed and his red pants looked a little like a nappy, but he was clearly recognisable (red pants over the top of a blue superhero suit and a big Superman sign on his front always help with this!) and that would have to do! I left doing the red cape until he was actually on the cake to help with positioning.

Making the cake was the simple bit – having made two others in the last two weeks! I followed the same recipe for the cake as the KitKat cake but replaced the booze with water and added a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Rather than filling with jam and fresh cream, I simply filled and topped the cake with chocolate buttercream. As the cake was for children rather than adults, I made a milk chocolate buttercream (recipe below) rather than the richer dark chocolate buttercream.

Once the cake was made and filled and topped with buttercream, I left it to set in the fridge for about an hour. This allows the icing to firm and makes covering it in rolled fondant much easier. I covered first with a fairly thin layer of plain white rolled fondant, followed by a thin layer of navy rolled fondant. You could tint the fondant yourself but I always find tinting a big batch of dark coloured fondant very messy and time consuming, and it also requires a lot of food colour – even when using the decent paste food colours – so I always buy pre-coloured fondant for dark / bright colours. When rolling the fondant out, I suggest rolling it onto parchment paper that has been lightly dusted with icing sugar – you can then simply lift the parchment paper up and turn over onto the cake.

Once the cake was covered in navy fondant, I rolled out some black fondant and cut out various geometric, building-like shapes and stuck them onto the cake with a little water. I then added some white to the black fondant, rolled it and cut out more shapes that I stuck on top of the black cut-outs. I then repeated this – adding more white to create a lighter grey fondant and creating more shapes to create a third layer of buildings. I then used yellow writing icing to add some windows and, along with some red writing icing, to set one of the buildings “alight”! Popped Superman on top and rolled out some red fondant to make his cape, sticking it on carefully with a little water.

Finally (at about 1.30 at night!) the cake was complete! It took quite a lot of time and effort but I was fairly happy with the end result!

  

Milk chocolate buttercream icing

Ingredients

1. 175 grams milk chocolate
2. 250 grams unsalted butter (softened)
3. 275 grams icing sugar (sifted)
4. 1 tblsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool slightly.
2. In another bowl, beat the butter until it's soft and creamy.
3. Add the sieved icing sugar and vanilla extract.
4. Beat again until light and fluffy.
5. Add the chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth.