It gets very difficult in these commercialised times to find a Valentine’s gift that is both affordable and carries a meaning to those that you love. So I’d like to share with you the secret of making this beautiful bouquet of cupcake roses…………
Now you can personalise this as you desire by adding fresh foliage, fresh rosebuds, or any decorative adornments that you want to make it special if you don’t have the time (or skills) to make sugarpaste versions, however let’s start with the basics and get the baking done.
You will need this equipment (for everything):
•a cupcake baking tin
•paper bun cases (the larger kind not small fairy cake cases)
•tissue paper
•cocktail sticks
•a gift bag with a large open top to it
•florists foam
•and your decorative foliage or flowers
•piping bag
•Wilton nozzle 2D or equivalent
For the baking (for 6 buns):
85g self-raising flour (sifted)
85g caster sugar
85g fat or butter (at room temperature)
2 eggs (at room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Full fat milk
For the buttercream:
125g unsalted butter
500g icing sugar
Full fat milk
How….
Pre-heat your oven to 155 degrees.
Now as you’re only making six buns I’d suggest you mix this by hand – if your mixer is anything like mine for this volume the blade will not work with these small quantities. So in a bowl beat together the fat and sugar until it is light and fluffy. This is much easier if the fat is at room temperature. It will take a while but do persevere…
Add your eggs, lightly beaten, 1 at a time – break each into a glass first – you don’t want to be fishing bits of shell out of your mixture. Then add the vanilla extract.
If your mixture, at any stage looks like it is going to curdle, add a spoonful of your sifted flour – but don’t fret, it will all come together in the end. Gently add the rest of the flour and ensure you mix right down to the bottom of the bowl. Add a tablespoon of milk to create a soft batter consistency.
Lay out your bun cases in your bun tray. Then, using an ice-cream scoop of mixture, levelled off with a knife, fill each bun case. It may seem a bit pedantic being so accurate with your mixture but doing this makes sure that they are all the same size and all cook evenly and at the same time.
Pop them in the oven in the centre for 25 -28 minutes (or that’s how long it takes in my oven). Don’t be tempted to open the oven door (even to check them) before you can smell them. At the end they should be slightly (& only slightly) risen, not ‘domed’.
Leave them to cool
Whilst they are cooling make your buttercream, & this time use your mixer. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl & whiz until the mixture looks a little like breadcrumbs. Add 2 tablespoons of milk… if the mix still feels a little dry, add a tad more milk but keep it small! Leave the mixture to mix fairly rapidly for at least 5 minutes (I aim for 10) – the longer you leave it the paler and lighter the buttercream will become.
When your buns are cool, you are going to ‘top’ each one. Take a small amount of buttercream on a small angled palate knife if you have one, or the back of a spoon of you don’t. Spread this over the top of the bun so that you flatten off the buttercream to make a smooth top. This is creating your ‘blank canvas’ on which you will pipe your roses. Let this settle for around 30 minutes or so. So… you are now going to pipe your roses, & if you’ve not done this before have a small practice on some baking parchment. For each rose, start at the centre of the bun and pipe in an expanding spiral slightly over-lapping the edges to create the rose effect. When you have piped all you buns leave them for the icing to get a slightly crisp shell to it – so several hours or even the next day.
Whilst this is happening though, prepare your valentines bag.
Decide on a colour theme, and the foliage or fresh flowers you might use. Remember these have to have a firm enough stem to sit in florist foam….
Your roses need to be able to protrude just slightly over the bag edge, so fill the base with florist foam and then cover this with ruffled tissue paper – keep some spare for filler later. Now I tend to set my roses in two sets of three in my bouquets, but you can do whatever fits the shape of your bag the best. For each bun, inset 2 cocktail sticks into the base of the bun (taking care that they don’t piece the surface) and then push the other ends into the florist green through the tissue paper. . Repeat this process to fill most of the bag.
Then start to add your foliage, fresh or silk flowers or sugarpaste decorations to fill the gaps. Fill any small gaps with tissue paper.
Finally wrap your bouquet in a swathe of cellophane (I buy this for 60p a meter at my local florist) – a couple meters is more than enough. Sit your bag on the cellophane, and bring the front and back up to meet above the bouquet. Now I always use an elastic band at this stage to gradually bring up and hold the edges in place, then tie it with bright red curling ribbon and then cut out the elastic band.
Et voila…..
Something personal, beautiful and food for the soul….
BEVERLEY-ADAMS-REYNOLDS