Cupcakes by Gillian

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Vegetable cake pops

Posted on by gilliancupcakes45

Don’t worry!! Thats not cake pops made out of vegetables!! Its cake pops made to look like vegetables!

In my second blog post, I’ve put together some video segments to show you how I make my cake pops – and I show you how to turn them into vegetables! They count as one of our 5 a day, right?

Back at the start of 2020, I made Peter Rabbit themed cake pops to match a cake – and this included some carrot and cabbage themed cake pops – and I presented them in a vegetable patch of crushed Oreo earth! It was great fun to make!

I use the already baked cake method to make my cake pops – I blitz the cake in my food processor and gradually add small amounts of buttercream until I get the right consistency of cake pop mix. This should be firm enough to hold its shape when you make a ball.

You will see that I use some cake pop moulds to make some of the shapes for my vegetable cake pops. These are fabulous little moulds made by a US Company (My Little Cakepop Moulds) https://www.mylittlecakepopmolds.com, but they can be purchased from Chrissies Cakes & Supplies in the UK https://www.chrissiecakesandsupplies.co.uk.

What you will need to make vegetable themed cake pops:

  • Cake pop mix – about 300g will make about 10 cake pops (I use about 30g per cake pop)
  • cake pop sticks – I use 6″ long, 4.5mm diameter paper sticks
  • candy melts in green, orange, white and purple; some coconut oil to thin the candy melts
  • sugarpaste/modelling paste in green and brown
  • flower pad and ball tool to thin the edges of your cabbage and cauliflower leaves
  • some cocktail sticks
  • 1 small piping bag

Vegetable Cake Pops Part 1

Making your cake pop shapes

You can make your cake pop dough in advance, and freeze it til you need it. I tend to use cake off-cuts to make cake pops, but you can use any cake. I’ve used some moulds/cake pop baller to make my cake pops but if you don’t have these, you can shape by hand – I would suggest weighing each one to make sure you get them all roughly the same size – about 30g in each. Once you have shaped your cake pops its essential to pop them in the fridge for at least 20-30 minutes before you try inserting the sticks – otherwise you will squash your shapes.

Vegetable Cake Pops Part 2

Melting candy melts and inserting sticks

Depending on which brand of candy melts you are using, you may have to use something to thin them out, as some brands tend to be very thick once melted. You can use coconut oil or trex – add a little at a time until you get a fluid consistency. You can melt in the microwave (on medium power for 20-30 seconds at a time, stirring in between – or you can use a melting pot – I am using a PME melting pot.

Vegetable Cake Pops Part 3

Dipping your cake pops

Make sure your candy melts are a good runny consistency before you start to dip. If your candy melts are too thick, add some coconut oil to thin to a runny consistency. When dipping your cake pops, shake off the excess gently, to ensure your cake pops stay on the sticks! Once you have dipped all of your cake pops once, and they have set, do a second dip for each one. Pop any small air bubbles with a toothpick. You are now ready to decorate them!

Vegetable Cake Pops Part 4

Decorating your cake pops

You can decorate your cake pops using a variety of different techniques. I am using a mix of candy melts and modelling paste for my vegetable cake pops. I am using Saracino modelling paste, as it holds its shape well for making the stems etc. You could also use sugarpaste, but might want to add a little tylose powder, or make your sugarpaste decorations in advance and leave them to firm up before attaching them to the cake pops.

Happy vegetable cake pop making!

xx

Nurse thank you/appreciation cookies

Nurse thank you/appreciation cookies

Posted on by gilliancupcakes45

Hey! Welcome to my first blog post………

I’ve been doing quite a few tutorials for the online Cake Minds magazine recently, so I thought it would be fun to share them with you here, in case you haven’t had a chance to read them in the magazine.

I’ve been making cookies for a while now, and have tried lots of recipes – I wanted a crisp cookie, that tasted really buttery and of vanilla, but didn’t spread in the oven! Having a no spread cookie is crucial when making cookies! I’ve included my recipe below.

Vanilla cookies

No spread vanilla cookie recipe ideal for shaped cookies
Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 450 g plain flour
  • 230 g block butter at room temperature
  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the egg and vanilla. Add the flour in 2 batches with your mixer on low, scraping down the bowl between batches. The dough should come together to form a ball of cookie dough. This will make around 14-15 large cookies.
  • Cut 4 large pieces of baking paper. Split the dough into 2 large balls on top of 2 of the pieces of baking paper. Place the other pieces of baking paper on top. Use a rolling pin (I use a Joseph Joseph one with spacers to get an even thickness of dough), to roll out your dough between the 2 pieces of baking paper. Please your dough on a tray and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
  • Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C.
  • Remove the dough from the fridge and cut out your cookies. Place your cut cookies onto baking paper on a baking tray and put back into the fridge for 30 mins.
  • Remove from the fridge and immediately place in your pre-heated oven for 12-15 mins.

I’ve decorated cookies with royal icing and fondant icing – I am still perfecting my techniques for using royal icing to decorate my cookies – I find getting the right consistency quite tricky. I’ve been using fondant/sugar paste for making cupcake toppers for years (its where I first started my cake decorating journey), so I am much more at home with using fondant/sugarpaste rather than royal icing. So for our nurse cookies we will be decorating with sugar paste.

There are a whole host of cookie cutters, stamps and embossers out there – but you don’t need to spend a fortune on cookie cutters – sometimes you can adapt ones you already have and turn them into a shape that will work for your theme.

I used the following cutters to make my nurse appreciation cookies: heart, nurses face and syringe are all by Sweetsugarbelle (https://www.sweetsugarbelle.com). The rectangle cutter is by Cookies by Courtney (https://cookiesbycourtney.co.uk) and the t-shirt cutter is by Ann Clark (https://www.annclarkcookiecutters.com). I also used an embossing stamp by Cookiekut (https://cookiekut.com) to make the ‘Thank you NHS’ ones.

Nurses faces – step by step

Using the nurse face cookie cutter, cut a flesh coloured base. Use this to build onto for the hat, hair etc as shown. I used a square cutter to make the mask and cut it into three, and then using a stitching tool along the edge, and then overlapped the three pieces. I used a stiff consistency royal icing to pipe the ties for the mask and outline the hat. I then used edible ink pens to draw on the eyes and Red Cross on the hat. Finally I used edible pink food dust to give her rosy cheeks!

Nurses uniform – step by step

Cut out some blue sugar paste using the t-shirt cutter. Use a small square cutter to make the pockets and use the stitching tool again to add detail to the pockets. I then used stiff consistency black and white royal icing to pipe the stethoscope. I used a No 2 tip with the royal icing.

Syringe cookies – step by step

Cut a white base from sugar paste using the syringe shaped cutter. Then cut the detail out in red sugarpaste as shown. Add the scale detailing using stiff black royal icing and a No 2 piping tip.

You can make the sugar paste designs for your cookies in advance and leave them to harden. You can then bake the cookies when you need them and attach the sugar paste decoration with a little royal icing spread over the cookie. I then individually bag all of my cookies and heat seal them.

Have fun and happy baking! xx