Year of the Rooster cupcake

                                       year of the rooster cupcake

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After the Monkey and before the Dog, every twelve years comes the Rooster. 

Year of the Rooster .... 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017, and 2029.

I find the Chinese horoscope so confusing! It is the year of the rooster, the fire rooster or the female fire chicken. The chicken puzzles me, a chook is not a rooster. I decided to go with the Rooster like the ones you see as Chinese prints adorning restaurants and my Dad's nursing home was rather fond of them too. 

If your in Melbourne the Chinese New Year festival runs to the 12th of February at Crown Casino, lots of fun and celebratory goings on around town. 

Making a Rooster.... 

I made a simple shape from a 50% white modelling chocolate, 50% fondant. Toothpicks mark the leg holes.

I cut feather shapes from orange fondant for around the neck and marked a centre line. Marked the body with crescent shapes. 

Black fondant was rolled super thin (add some cmc if necessary) and cut into longer feather shapes. The shapes are then shredded along the edges. 

The pieces were attached to the body with a light touch of water. Here I am starting to attach the comb and playing with placement of tail feathers. 

Gold leaf was applied to cupcake with a brush small brush, lifting on small pieces and laying them on pre dampened surface. 

The finished dry rooster was shaded in petal lustre dusts, gold, red and blue. Attached to the cupcake with toothpick legs for easy removal. 

Happy Chinese, Lunar, Spring Festival time :) 

You might also like Chinese chicken wings 

Or back to year of the Dragon

Haunted Portrait cupcake

                                    haunted portrait cupcake

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I love zombies as much as the next person but when I have reached my flesh eating critter weekly limit, I like an old school movie with a haunted portrait or you're haunted by the portrait. 

Hichcocks 'Rebecca' 

Otto Premingers 'Laura'

Oh, oh, oh and I love, Oscar Wilde so 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' 

Momentarily lost my camera this week (ok a longish 27 hour panic), but "yay" I found it for the cupcake shot and "awww" didn't have it for the tutorial, ummm but I have a few dodgy badly lit phone photos... a quarter of a "yay" at least for that! Today's haunted portrait themed cupcake starts with the frame. 

I don't use moulds much but I do like these small frame moulds. The moulds were lightly dusted with cornflour, fondant (or modelling paste) is pressed in. I put mine in the freezer for a few minutes for fast release from mould. 

Once dry the frame was painted with copper and gold food paints, when that's dry a little black petal dust was used to bring out the details and add a vintage feel. 

Head shaped.

The hair is made from a base piece of fondant then spirals I made on a toothpick are attached with a dampened paint brush. 

I started by fitting base of dress into the frame, before adding bodice, arms and head. 

And this is about when the panic of not being able to find my camera really set in and I stopped taking pics.

The rest is joining the bits and bobs together and colouring with petal dusts and food marker. 

I could contemplate now whether I should make a new years resolution now about "better tutorials", but for now I might just go with.... 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!  

Something quick and easy for Halloween treats and mix up some Chocolate Peanut Butter Spiders

The Monkey's Paw cupcake

                                                         'The Monkey's Paw' cupcake

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"The first man had his three wishes, yes," was the reply. "I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw."                          W. W. Jacobs 'The Monkey's Paw'

The Monkey's Paw: Ahhh haaaa my step son Dan and I love this tale, a supernatural/horror story by W. W. Jacobs first published in England in 1902. 

In the short story, three wishes are granted to the owner of the monkey's paw, but the wishes come with an enormous price for interfering with fate

And proving yet again I've watched too many episodes of 'The Simpsons'...'Treehouse of Horror 2' season three, episode seven. 'The Monkeys Paw' :)

The Monkey's Paw itself is described in the short story as "it's just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy."

Ok, lets make a little mummified paw.

I went with 50% fondant / 50% white modelling chocolate... I used "orange" just so the demo photos are clearer, that or I was thinking of Bart's shirt.  You could use 100% dark modellling chocolate and do away with colours. 

Started with a ball

Squished the ball on one side and roughly sliced my monkey "fingers" into the rounded opposite side. 

Shaped my paw into what I thought I mummified monkeys paw would look like. I mainly used the toothpick to apply the details. 

The wrist was trimmed at this stage and I added a jagged cuff cut from rolled 50/50 mixture. 

After the paws were dry, I used a black food pen to mark out features then dusted with a little nutkin brown petal dust and finished with dogwood brown petal dust.  If you used 100% dark modelling chocolate, a brush of cocoa and drinking chocolate will add interest without have to add colourings.  

Thread a toothpick into the palms of the paws and attach to your fondant or frosted cupcakes. 

Happy Baking :) 

You might also be interested in making a 'Catrina' for Day of the Dead.  

The Tell-Tale Heart Cupcake

                                      The Tell-Tale Heart Cupcake

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"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!" Edgar Allan Poe

I absolutely love 'The Tell-Tale Heart' the gothic story written in 1843 by Edgar Allan Poe!

My step son said today it reminds him of 'The Simpsons', yes it is a much referenced tale in pop culture.

Of course you will need fondant "floor boards" for your tell tale heart cupcakes. 

White fondant was tinted with ivory colour gel, rolled thinly and cut into strips.  Using a toothpick and modelling tool mark out "wood grain", "nail holes" and "joins". Allow to dry.  

With a small soft brush lightly apply brown shades of petal dust to highlight the grain. Your aiming to only highlight the grain with the darker colours so remove excess brown dust on a piece of paper towel before applying. Top with a dusting of cream or yellow petal dust. 

When making hearts; mine are small so I've just used 50/50 white modelling chocolate and fondant. If making larger hearts consider using a lolly, chocolate, RKT or cake pop mixture inside the heart.  

The mixture is coloured red with cake gel colour (I used no taste red for bulk of the heart and a little red red for veins). Make a heart shape, make sure you add the aorta and other arteries to the top and few veins for texture.  Allow to dry. Dust lightly with brown petal dust.  

Assemble your cakes, I used frosted cakes with cookie crumb topping. Attach your heart to your cake with a single toothpick, lean or attach boards with frosting.

Using cake decorating gel (coloured red if clear) and a small paint brush paint a thin coat of "blood goo" on to your hearts. The brown petal dust you used earlier will blend/smudge giving you a "meaty" look to your heart. 

Happy baking or gothic Halloween making :) 

In the mood for more Poe cupcake raven tutorial.  

Four and Twenty Blackbirds baked in a Pie cupcake

                        four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie cupcake

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Ahhhh ha ha, I was so tempted to make a cupcake from the original verse from 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' ...

Sing a Song of Sixpence,

A bag full of Rye,

Four and twenty Naughty Boys,

Baked in a Pye.

Tommy Thumbs Pretty Song Book: published in London around 1744  wikipedia

Instead I went with the modern to version to tie in with this cute retro pie bird from Tala that my friend Jacinta gave me.

Thanks Jacinta, I love my pie bird :) 

Live birds inside pies were actually served as an entremet during dinners in the 1500's. An "amusement" between courses, written about in Christoforo Ji Messiaburgo's cookbook on how to prepare a banquet, 'Banchetti composizioni di vivande e apparecchio generale'.

Today's cupcake uses simple shapes, I've made a smaller cupcake but you could use a variation of the same design in a larger cake.

I use the heavily fondanted (that's not a word, but you know what I mean) cupcakes as place setting markers, or central cake surrounded by the eating cupcakes.

For a nursery rhyme theme go with the other verses, perhaps golden foil wrapped chocolate coins for...

The king was in his counting house,

Counting out his money;

Mini honey cakes for...

The queen was in the parlour,

Eating bread and honey

Start making today's cupcake by covering your ganached or butter cream topped cupcake with a thin layer of fondant. Today I use americolor ivory for the "pastry" colour. 

Here I was still deciding what size bird head to go with, small if you want 24 birds in the pie or larger if you want the pie bird look.  

Make your beaks, heads, cherries, wings etc with coloured fondant. I used a black food marker for the centre of the eyes and white food colour on the tip of a tooth pick to create a highlight on the eyes. 

Roll more ivory coloured fondant out thinly and cut a circle big enough to cover the already fondant covered cupcake. Dampen the edges of most of the round (leave a little undampened so you can lift edge if you want a bird popping it's head out). Crimp the edges. 

Cut, snip and generally poke holes through the top layer of fondant where you want your beaks, birds etc to be. Colour fondant using petal dusts and a small soft artists brush. I used Caroline's petal dusts, in brown, egg yellow and cream.  

Fun part now... start inserting all your little pieces. Use a dampened paintbrush, water pen or cake glue to attach your pieces. Allow to dry and you've got your self a cute little cupcake that could be part of a major theme for your baby shower or the like event. 

Happy Baking :) 

Trivia: Four and Twenty pies are the iconic Australian meat pie synonymous with attending a football match. 

Prefer a more realistic black bird... learn to a make a Raven. 

Butterflies more your thing, learn to make a beaded sugar butterfly 

Come on get Happy Partridge Family cupcakes

                                              come on get happy partridge family cupcakes

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Ear worm: An earworm, sometimes known as a brainworm, is a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person's mind after it is no longer playing  wikipedia 

Isn't it the worst thing (ok not the worst thing, but come with me here) when a song or jingle gets stuck in your head. 

I saw a bright yellow fluffy Easter chick in a half shell at the supermarket, that made me think of The Partridge Family opening credits, which led me to singing in my head 'C'mon get Happy' for the rest of the day. I didn't know all the lyrics so it was "Hello world dah duh dah GET HAPPY" :D  

Having a 70's theme party? Or perhaps you mum still has her David Cassidy posters and you want to make her some partridges...   

fondant coloured with blue, yellow and red

Trivia; the artwork on the partridge family bus was inspired by the work of Piet Mondrian a dutch artist 1872-1944 

Start with brightly colouring your fondant, I've used Americolor gel pastes today: electric blue, yellow, pink, purple, red red for the fondant and bright white for the toothpicks I used for the legs. A black food marker was used for the eyes. 

My partridges shaped from white fondant are "chubby" because I thought it was cuter. 

I started with this shape and pulled the top over to one side. Insert half a white food colour painted toothpick for each leg on the small partridges. 

toothpicks painted with white food colour... make sure people know there is toothpicks in these cakes

Roll out your pre coloured fondant, cut into tear drop shapes (for the large bird I used a round cutter and trimmed to shape). Dampen the back of your partridges and apply coloured fondant shapes. Draw eyes on with a black food marker. Insert the birds into prepared cakes. Roll a small piece of white fondant into a snake shape, cut small pieces off to make birds feet. Apply feet by slightly dampening ends and pressing on base of legs, use a spare tooth pick to secure the feet in place.  

All done except for song 'C'mon get Happy'  

and Happy Baking :)  

Chocolate Hot Cross buns anyone? Recipe here

Planting an Easter garden you will need quick chocoalte soil 

Only a Time Lord knows what season it is cupcake

'Only a Time Lord knows what season it is' Doctor Who cupcake

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You haven't even got time to put away your Christmas hat and it's time for Easter, well that's according to Australias major retailers. Hot Cross Buns and Easter Eggs have been on sale since January 5th. Easter Sunday is April 5th, Easter now runs a quarter of the year???

Waiting in the queue at the supermarket... on the right of me a clearance rack of candy canes, on the left of me freshly baked hot cross buns, not forgetting the racks of foil wrapped chocolate easter eggs and the gaudy (or romantic... but it's the supermarket queue and romance isn't in the air) Valentines day cards.  

But I did love Peter Capaldi in his first season as the Doctor in BBC's Doctor Who. So today we have a Time Lord figure. He started when I was practicing figure modelling and ended up being a center display cupcake for a Doctor Who cookie platter. 

"Practice" it's boring I know, but it's how you get better. 

I started with a print out of Peter Capaldi photos as the Doctor.

Here is an earlier model of Peter Capaldi when I was toying with the idea of full caricature. The day was warm and he was still very soft and his hair is not attached as I was checking height.  I chickened out on the over blown features and went for a partial caricature... even then he had an eye removed and replaced after it looked, umm well I think the technical term would be "squiffy":) 

You have to be fast!!! When working with fondant you have to be fast, drying time is in minutes for modelling. I used a 3 parts fondant to one part modelling chocolate to give me another 5 to 10 minutes to finish face. 

Green: the green fondant here shows you the basic "eggish" shape most heads start with. I get ready with all the other pieces, such a nose, ears, eyebrows etc. You will have a series of wedges, beans, ovals and snake shapes. Then you start putting together and sculpting your head. I apply pieces with a small damp brush then use modelling tools and fingers to shape. You can give yourself a few more minutes by keeping pieces covered in glad wrap.

If you don't use modelling chocolate mixed with fondant you might find yourself with the dreaded "elephant skin" as the fondant icing dries. 

I use Bakels white fondant almost exclusively, colour with gel paste. CMC powder was mixed in the black and red fondant to firm.  

Have fun, happy baking and do give modelling a figure a try :) 

Proving I'm a bit of a sucker for a huge topper ... make  Eric the Valentine Emu

or try a 'Love Caramel Cupcake' 

50 Shades of Grey cupcake

50 Shades of Grey cupcake

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Another Monday at the nursing home, By the Light of the Silvery Moon tinkles in the main rooms piano sing-a-long session, yet a short distance away rap in the way of Kanye West Bound 2 is blaring from one of the residents rooms. It's a 50 shades of Grey cupcake idea in the making! 

I've been gone for almost a year, during that time my Dad has gone into a nursing home with dementia and my health has deteriorated, leading to time split between doctors, hospitals and the nursing home. It's baking and cooking that have kept me going throughout and I'm so excited to be back!! I've learnt lots of new techniques to share with you, and of course I'll have to do a Halloween cupcake or two in the next week.

Definitely aiming for ummm "slightly" more detailed tutorials than this... but it's first day back and I'm out the swing, or is that the loop? Oh you know what I mean. The elderly lady is a "marked head" figure, roll a ball of fondant and mark out eyes, nose, mouth with a toothpick, piping tip or cake tool. This type of head is quick and useful, it can be a man, woman, baby even a dog.  

I'm so looking forward to getting back into all things bakerrrrrryish.  

Happy Baking :) 

You might also be interested in Hippy Dippy using a clay gun to make hair, wool, grass etc. 

Happy Halloween

               the continuing adventure of the Gingerbread man

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The Gingerbread man is still on the run from his first blog appearance Christmas 2009.
Caught up with him in Egypt in 2010.

Lost him in 2011 but found him under attack by Zombies in 2012.

This year I thought I'd cut him a break and let him cut himself a costume to do some Trick and Treating. 

Happy Halloween :) 

You might like to do some "gingerboy eating" with this chocolate truffle ginger cupcake recipe

A Trip to the Moon Halloween Cupcake

A Trip to the Moon (French: Voyage dans la Lune)

A Trip to the Moon (French: Voyage dans la Lune), is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranking at #84, and in 2002 it became the first work designated as a UNESCO World Heritage film.  Wikipedia

Sweating modelling chocolate today, but first a bit on 'A Trip to the Moon'. It was fantastic a hand coloured print of the short silent film was found in the 1990's and fully restored in the 2000's, however for me it did lose a little of it's "innocence" once I saw the blood coming from the moons eye. My parents are to blame of course. Mum told me it was "dripping cheese" coming from the moon... and I believed it ;) 

black and white still of the iconic moon

colour still of the moon 

And you can watch it now on You Tube (it's black and white... think of cheese).

Ok on to "sweating modelling chocolate". Modelling chocolate is brilliant when you are making figures or highly detailed pieces that you need to spend more time on than fondant alone would allow. The problem is "temperature", it's fairly cool in Melbourne at the moment but already my modelling chocolate is starting to sweat/fat seperating. 

Now you can put your modelling chocolate in the fridge to firm up again, but as the temperature rises, and rises, over summer it's a losing battle. But you can still have the benefit of a bit of extra time to sculpt by mixing it with your fondant or modelling paste. 

sweating modelling chocolate (sorry for the phone photos... bit of colour glitch)

I thought "hmmm, might be ok?"

But no, scrapped that and mixed fondant, a little CMC powder, modelling chocolate just till the sweating disappeared. 

In the height of summer I use 50/50 fondant and white modelling chocolate... you can adjust the amounts to the weather conditions where you are. 

Here you can see I still made a lot changes to moon after this point, the modelling chocolate content allowed me to work longer without the surface crusting. The mixture is soft and malleable. 

I use this recipe, though any modelling chocolate recipe would suffice. 

Have fun sculpting and happy baking :) 

You might also like Swamp Zombie!!