A day of decorating!

I'm not sure about you, but my email inbox gets clogged up with discount offers everyday.  I don't mind so much, as I love searching for good deals.  It's a great way to try out new things which you may have been interested in before, but put it off due to the crazy prices.  I found a great deal for a cupcake decorating course with Whimsical Cakehouse on Scoopon a few months ago.  So I snapped up three coupons so that I could go along with my Mum & little sister.

The course was only $69 for 2hrs where you learn the basic techniques of decorating cupcakes.  We arrived to have a little workstation each with all tools in front of us to decorate 6 pre-made vanilla butter-cake cupcakes.  I was a little concerned that I wouldn't get my monies worth since I have been baking for a few years now, & teaching myself the decorating side of things (youtube.com is my friend in these circumstances) but I was very pleased with the knowledge gained from such a short course.

Here are a few pics I took as I went through each step...

Step One: Make a 'well'.
Greatest tip I could have learnt from this course was to cut out a well around the outside of your cupcakes.  This allows you to add more ganache while also being able to keep a fairly flat surface for later on when you go to decorate with fondant.

Step Two: Ganache.
No need to be super neat with this application so long as you don't get the ganache on the outside of the paper patty. If you want a flat surface later on, then keep the quantity added to a minimum, however if you want a little mound the pile it up :-)

Step Three: Hot Knifing.
Grab a mug of hot water & a palate knife.  This is more about getting the knife hot instead of the water, so make sure you tap off excess water before you start 'hot-knifing' your cupcakes.  I went for a flat smooth surface.  Not a surprise seen as my hubby tells me... I'm a little OCD.

Step Four: Fondant Layer.
Roll out some fondant icing.  If you love the taste of this stuff then go ahead & roll it as thick as you would like to eat it.  I am not a fan of the taste, so I like to roll it quite thin usually.  Cut out the circles using a circle cutter that is slightly bigger than the cupcake top.  Apply some sugar syrup (apricot jam mixed with boiling water & sieved) to your cupcake, then place the fondant on top & smooth down.

Step Five: Decorate to your hearts content!! Or in our case...within our time restraints of the course :-)

We used fondant & royal icing to decorate our cupcakes. Here's a pic of mine below!

Just divine!!!

A pic of the three decorators with our stunning cupcakes :-)

R to L: My mum Liz, my sister Karleah & Me!!

When we got home we couldn't wait to put them in a little tower 

& show them off to our family.

If you've attended a cupcake course & have any extra tips that you would like to share, I would love to read them.  Please post below.

xoxo T