For Christmas lunch this year we went to Ben's parents. I had asked Julie (Ben's mum) if she wanted me to bring anything, and she had showed me a photo of some cupcakes that she had ripped out of a magazine for the occasion. So armed with the photo for inspiration I set to work..... on Christmas Morning!!! The lack of time I had for these cupcakes was due to a slight "misunderstanding" on my husbands part. I still work nightshifts at the hospital, and finished my last shift before Christmas on Christmas Eve morning. The plan was to sleep for about 4 hours, until 1 pm, and then get to work doing the cupcakes for our lunch and the cake for the Christmas party, leaving me plenty of time to finish them both. The husband was left with strict instructions to wake my up, and I went to sleep. When I, however, woke up at 4.30 pm (my husband thought he'd do me a favour, letting me sleep in), leaving me only a few hours to bake and decorate I must admit I was rather stressed. The chocolate mud cake for the Christmas party went into the oven first, and the cupcakes were baked at about 11 pm on Christmas eve.
To decorate I decided to go with uncoloured, white buttercream, to give the impression of snow. I piped the edges using the same buttercream, and it really made a difference to the wintery look I was going for. Holly leaves and berries were made from a supermarket-bought fondant, but with only 10 min on hand to colour and cut out the shapes, I didn't have enough time to get the shades I wanted, so I had to settle with pastel green, and an almost pink berry. I would have preferred a bit more time decorating, but for a 30 min job, I'm pretty happy with them. They went down well at the lunch too.
This year I decided to stay away from the traditional fruit cake, and rather make a nice chocolate mud. My rationale for breaking with tradition, the majority of the relatives attending the Christmas party would be in their 20s or younger, meaning a chocolate flavour is more likely to be eaten and enjoyed by a greater number of people. The cake was first covered in the same buttercream used for the cupcakes, before applying a top layer of fondant. I used a bell-shaped cookie cutter to remove a small area on the top of the cake, exposing the buttercream underneath. This area was then filler with silver coloured sugar balls, and I used two holly leaves and a berry to top it off. For the writing I used a mix of buttercream and piping gel, and coloured it the same shade as the berry.
The cake was very well received, and I must say one of the biggest compliments was when Ben's cousin (without knowing I had made the cake) came over and asked if we thought someone had made the cake or if it was bought in a cake store.
So once again I hope you have a fantastic 2010. Keep your eyes on the blog, I've got a lot of exciting projects coming up, and I can't wait to share them all with you.
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