I have had a query on an old post about how i colour my buttercream icing, so i thought i would tell you all about the Sugarflair food colouring pastes i use.

These pastes are much much thicker than the liquid food colouring you buy in the supermarket, about as thick as toothpaste. You add them to your buttercream using a toothpick and slowly adding it a small amount at a time until you build up the colour you want. You can mix colours to create the exact tone you need. If you are colouring red or black you can buy Black extra or Red extra which are concentrated so you don't have to use as much to get intense colour.

I find it works really well for buttercream and you can colour large amounts really easily. But if you are colouring fondant with a very deep colour i recommend you buy ready coloured fondant or use a powdered pigment colour as the paste tends to make the fondant wet and sticky if you use too much.

I think i may have finally found the white cupcake cases for vintage themed wedding cupcakes.
 
I tried these Culpitt cases (which are the only white cupcake cases Surbiton Sugarcraft sell) with the last Herman cake cupcakes and despite the mixture being a dark, chocolate colour i got very little discolouration and virtually no oil seepage. I think with a lighter colour sponge they will stay white! Fingers crossed!

Eloise helped me bake today. We had another go at a sourdough Herman cake. This time we made a Nutella muffin version.

Eloise was very good at helping with the stirring (although i did have trouble stopping her eating the mixture!). During the baking she insisted on sporting a Grecian look by only having one arm in her babygrow. Not sure if this is her signature baking outfit, we'll find out next time!

We drizzled white chocolate on top to fnish them off. Feedback on these cakes from the adults  were that they were a little dry - this could be because we ran out of oil so they were missing about 1/3 cup.  The kids however loved them with Eloise's cousin Emily eating 2 in one sitting!

I have started making handmade flowers and bows for 90 cupcakes for a friend's wedding in July. I am starting on the white flowers and so far have made some small 6 petal roses, some squiggly ribbon roses and some small filler flower shells. I have also made bulbs which will form the struture for some larger 10 petal statement roses.

The theme is vintage so we are going for pale pink and pale green colours to contast with the white. I have a month to make them all so i need to be very focused and fast to get them ready in time.
 
The main wedding cake is very special and can only be made the night before the wedding at the very earliest - keep an eye out for the blog post reveal!

Back from our second wedding of the year. This one was in Suffolk at a beautiful venue called Hengrave Hall.

The wedding colours were yellow and white and the room was beautifully decorated with daisy and gerbera flowers inside bird cages.

The cake was made by Aunt of the bride, Pauline (who also made my wedding cake) It  was a white 2 tier cake with small daisies around the tier and a comical topper but what really caught my attention was these beautiful daisy cupcakes.

The giant handmade daisy sugarpaste toppers looked stunning and i was so impressed with how bright and yellow the papercases stayed - no signs of oil seeping through or discolouration!

The cakes were presented on a perspex stand on top of a white grand piano! In the beautifully decorated room they looked stunning.

After a mid week Hen do last night for my friend Jen, I woke up this morning with a bit of a hangover. Eloise needed breakfast and the first thing i saw was the last Herman muffin. She scoffed the lot in minutes. I can report the cake tasted as fresh as moist as it did when baked so they last well.

My friend Gilleon made her Herman today and doesn't he look yummy! 

She went for a raisin, mixed peel and flaked almonds version and i can report that he is very tasty.

There are lots of Herman fan sites so you can find hundreds of recipes to make your Herman taste different every time.

I am already mulling over my next bake...

Chris is out tonight so the perfect time to cake Herman (feels a little odd after nurturing him all week)

This is what i am supposed to add today before i bake:

• half tsp (teaspoon) salt
  
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups plain flour
• 2/3 cup of cooking oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 cooking apples cut into chunks
• 1 cup raisins
• 2 heaped tsp cinnamon
• 2 heaped tsp baking powder

I decided to adapt the recipe as i am not a fan of cinnamon. I have ditched he apples too and instead i added fresh strawberries and chocolate chips. I used the tulip muffin cases as i suspected they would rise very high.

I was correct! They rose really high and looked amazing! I wasn't too sure about the taste when they were warm but once they cooled down they tasted lovely. Very yeasty at first but that settled once the tastebuds adjusted. They were very moist too and had a slightly doughy texture. My work colleagues gave them a resounding thumbs up!

Day 9 has arrived! Time to give Herman another feed then split him into 4 -  2 parts to give away to friends, 1 to bake tomorrow and 1 to keep and grow again.

Herman is now on settling in nicely and growing every day. We have given Herman a feed of 1 cup of each - milk, plain flour and sugar on he day we got him (Day 4). Eloise and i stir him every day and watch him bubble. Looking forward to bake day!