Good morning you...you being my blog, you also being my fellow friends in the blogging community & my lovely readers! :) I feel like such a bad blogger since I haven't blogged since SUNDAY , that feels such a longggg time for me but have no fear...I am here! :D
I feel soooo non stop recently, especially since I've now got a car I seriously feel like I have grown so much as a person. It's brilliant! It's obviously such a shock for me since I started my blog because I had what felt like very little going for me. But just look at me go now...I'm still helping my parents at their shop as & when they need me (right now it's not very often, slightly quiet) , I have a Saturday job that I absolutely LOVE & I now have not only a full licence but a car too. If you drive, you know just how much freedom you feel. It really is incredible! I highly recommend driving! So much freeedddooooommmm!!!
Okay, so I've wrote two paragraphs so far & neither of them are actually anything to do with the post so maybe I should start on the actual post & what it is about....
CUPCAKES!!!!
(brace yourself, this post might will be packed with cupcake goodness!)
Surely atleast one or two of you have got to be just as excited about this as I am?
I'll start with how the cupcake class came about... Last year I turned twenty one & the family on my street who are practically family bought me a place for a cupcake decorating class! How flipping exciting is that?! In all honesty I wasn't overly excited about the thought of it at the time because anxiety wasn't great. So between anxiety & my mum becoming ill last year that is why it has pretty much taken us over a year to have the class. My mum bought me cupcakes for my birthday from the lady who does the classes, check out those beauties!
So finally a year or so down the line we booked another class & attended it...wooohooo! It was so much fun I seriously could of stayed there all day. Me, my mum & Lou (the mum of the family who got me the gift) all attended & got taught all different techniques how to make the decorations for the top of the cakes, including the buttercream.
We all got blobs of fondant icing which we got to put in a bag & take home the bits we didn't use. Cos let's be honest, nobody else would want them after we'd messed about with them, would they! I can tell you this much, it was just like playdough for adults but it was actually edible...how many of you ate playdough when you was little? Come on, I know one or two of you did! :P
So we got to use the fondant to shape different decorations. She had so many unbelievable cutters, it was so much fun! Below is just a selection of some of our decorations we had made. The lady (Becky) who ran the class made the beautiful little owl, so adorable & fairly simple to recreate too. I wont add my owl in because it wasn't overly great! :)
Once we'd had a play with all the cutters & created different decorations we had a little tea break...I don't drink tea, tea so I just had a glass of water & we got some yummy warm flapjacks....ooohhhh, I could of eaten the whole plate & probably would of brought them all back up afterwards. :/
Up next it was time to add the buttercream to our cupcakes. Becky had already baked the buns for us so not only was that an added bonus but her baking is magnificent. What is your secret Becky?! I'd love to know it!
Becky taught us 3 different piping techniques, all very different but all equally incredible! I got a few action shots of Lou creating a rose effect...
We all got to practice each technique once before we decorated our cakes. It was so much easier piping the cake than piping the paper. Cream was staying as it was, basic & beautiful! Between us we got to choose two colours we wanted for our other buttercream. We chose to have pink & green. Using the pink for the rose looking topping & the green as a grass effect.
After we had added the buttercream on to all of our cupcakes we then got to decorate them as we wanted. I'm going to just add in a few more pictures of the finished pieces for you to feast your eyes on.
Top to bottom- my floral cupcake, my celebration cupcake for passing my driving test, my four completed cupcakes, my mums completed cupcakes & Lou's completed cupcakes.
♥
On the off chance Becky is reading this thank you very much for creating the opportunity for me to learn to decorate cakes so beautifully, I've had nothing but compliments about them & rightly so! I recommend you to local people without a second thought because not only are your cakes incredible & baking skills out of this world but you are a lovely genuine person too! Keep up the amazing work Becky & I shall see you soon!
If you are stuck for ideas for a loved one who loves to bake I would genuinely recommend a cupcake class. I'm sure there is someone local to you who does lessons too. My lesson was a 2 hour long one & I absolutely loved every minute of it & without a doubt I'd go again!
I hope you enjoyed this post & apologises if any of you are now reallyyyy fancying a cupcake but I mean are the cakes not just goodness to your eyes?
Thanks again to Becky, Lou & mum & thanks to you for reading this. Have you done something similar to this? Let me know, I'd love to hear about your experience & see some photos (of course, who doesn't love a good photo)!
- Anna ♥