Halloween Cake Lace Butterflies

                               metallic cake lace butterflies 

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Can butterflies be creepy? I thought so when I was saying to a friend I was planning on making butterflies for Halloween, they disagreed but hey, I was determined to get more use out my gorgeous but expensive Claire Bowman silicone butterfly mat.

Claire Bowman making cake lace butterflies

As seen in the video, butterflies made the Claire Bowman way usually have a *first layer of pre made metallic icing and after baking a second layer of white cake lace icing. The second layer is to prevent brittleness, but since I haven't had a problem with the butterflies being brittle I just used one layer of silver.

I baked the mat/butterflies for 5 minutes at 60 cel (140 F) . Leave to cool for a few minutes, check a butterfly by lifting a corner... they should peel off easily. If your butterfly still seems to soft, return to oven for a few more minutes.

Once baked, I placed my butterflies on the back of an egg carton covered with plastic wrap to add shape.

When fully set, a soft brush was used to dust on cake decorating black shimmer dust. The finished butterflies reminded me of vintage marcasite brooches. Attach the butterflies to cocktail and dessert glasses with a *tiny dab of cake glue and of course the butterflies make the perfect toppers for your Halloween cupcakes, chocolate truffles and cookies too.

 *for use on the glasses the single layer cake lace worked perfectly, staying firm and in shape all day. If you need to manipulate the butterflies further then I would recommended following Claire Bowman's instructions. 

*make sure you only use a dot of cake glue if the butterflies become wet they will dissolve. 

Happy Baking :)  

You might also be interested in an attack of the swamp zombie cupcake

or perhaps Poe is more to you liking with The Raven and Black Cat cupcakes

Christmas Rush Raspberry Tuiles

Two ingredients (rasberries and sugar) Rasberry Tuile Topped mini cupcake

Good griefl, I swear I had black and silver cases in "medium", but all I find was mini's. This left me with toppers that were far too large and since I'd already applied silver leaf to black choc candy coated balls I had to come up with a different topper. 

Two ingredient 'Raspberry Tuiles' have a long oven drying time, but other than that were simple and quick to make fitting in perfectly with "Christmas rush" mode that I'm well and truly in!! 

Now I did burn the first batch, second batch I reduced the cooking time by 20 minutes and they worked perfectly. I used a metal ruler and a sharp knife to cut strips; I then bent the strips and pinched ends whilst still warm.

The strips dry quickly to produce a crispy tuile that is intense in flavour, colour and is also vegan and gluten free. They are best made close to serving and perfect to top a range of desserts.

You just need raspberries and sugar for these... do give it a try and watch chef *David Carmichael the Executive Pastry Chef at The New York Palace demonstrate how the make the tuiles (recipe included).

*Note: chef Carmichael uses 4 pints (8 cups) of raspberries, I halved the recipe.

 if you use a silpat you will end up with a waffle pattern on the shiny side.

Happy Baking :) and Christmas preparations!!  

Thor Cupcake

fondant and modelling paste bust of Thor cupcake

Thor's Hammer ;

The Prose Edda gives a summary of Mjöllnir's special qualities in that, with Mjöllnir, Thor:

... would be able to strike as firmly as he wanted, whatever his aim, and the hammer would never fail, and if he threw it at something, it would never miss and never fly so far from his hand that it would not find its way back, and when he wanted, it would be so small that it could be carried inside his tunic.

wikipedia

Short post today with this special cupcake for my stepson Dan. I'm so behind the times, Daniel kept talking about that his "dream cake" would be Viking metal and Star Wars combined. I thought that meant the "Vikings" would be metallic, but no... "Viking metal" is music apparently! 

Guess this means I'll have to learn the whole Star Wars saga whilst listening to Viking metal before I make Dan a cake ;)

rough torso and adding nonpareils to hammer

part way through working on the head of the Viking supported by a box of currants

almost finished painting

fondant and modelling paste coloured grey with americolor super black, painted with sliver food paint and finished with silver lustre dust.

Today's cupcake was my first attempt at a "human" head, l learnt a lot and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you in a future post, but for now I'm back to Christmas baking.

Happy Baking :)