Baking with Renshaw: Decorating Cupcakes and a Fabulous GIVEAWAY

The fabulous people over at Renshaw Baking sent me the most amazing package full of their baking goodies to test out a few weeks ago. I was brimming with ideas and couldn't wait to get started. 

First of all I hit Pinterest to get some inspiration for how to decorate successfully with fondant icing. My plan was to make two batches of cupcakes, and decorate them with elaborate icing decorations - for two very special birthdays - my friend Alison turning 62, and my husband's nan who was turning 94!! 

Follow Lucy Bishop's board Cupcake decoration ideas on Pinterest.

First things first I baked the cakes - chocolate sponge with dark chocolate centre cupcakes, and plain vanilla cupcakes. I iced the chocolate cakes with homemade chocolate cream cheese frosting, and made a plain vanilla frosting with my homemade vanilla extract for the vanilla cupcakes.

I went for a pink and green theme - as these are Liam's Nan's favourite colours - I also knew I wanted to incorporate cats and crafts somewhere - as they are both important things to the birthday ladies. I coloured the vanilla frosting a very light green, and then set to work making my decorations using the fabulous ready to roll icing packs that Renshaw had sent me. 

Co-ordinating my icing with apron, as you do! 

Stamping out little flowers from my Renshaw icing...

Icing flowers everywhere! 

I used a silicone leaf mat to print leaf shapes onto icing, and then carefully cut them out. Painstaking job! 

I curled some of the leaves before they dried to make them look a little more realistic. 

Next I marbled together two shades of pink icing - and then used a small star cutter to cut out these cute little stars! 

Next I combined two shades of brown and yellow fondant to create this tortoiseshell effect - I then pushed the fondant into a silicone button mat (which I bought ages ago to make chocolate "buttons") - this was very fiddly but totally worth it as I was so pleased with how the buttons turned out.

Next I made a super special single cupcake for my friend Alison, who is cat-mad...I used inspiration from my Pinterest board to create a cat face using fondant. This was pretty tricky, and so I'm glad I had only decided to make one of these, otherwise I'd have been chained to the kitchen for hours longer! I was really pleased with how this little fella turned out... 

I was super-chuffed with my finished cakes, especially as it was my first time using fondant to decorate cupcakes. I don't usually go in for highly decorated bakes, and instead to try to concentrate on the quality of the bake and flavours, but on this occasion it was really nice to get über-creative and have a play.

My finished flower cakes

Chocolate cupcakes decorated with Renshaw icing flowers. 

Buttons and stars cake! 

Marble stars cake

The Renshaw products were so fun to work with, all the colours are really even and so vibrant. The ready to roll fondant is lovely and soft and malleable, which makes it a pleasure to mould. I especially loved the effect I got when marbling colours together. I'm looking forward to coming up with fun ways to use the rest of my Renshaw stash! 

If you'd like to get your hands on your own Renshaw stash of goodies, then I have one to giveaway to a lucky reader - to enter just use the Gleam App below. 

Good Luck Everyone! 

And Happy Baking! 

Mrs B 

xxx

WIN a Renshaw Baking Hamper