High Heel Shoe Cupcakes - high maintenance decorating

Once upon a time I was moderately fashionable, well as fashionable as you could get in Brisbane with regular shopping trips to Melbourne.

Oh the shoes that I had........

But now my shoes are made for walking, and running after toddlers and not having to worry about as I traipse through puddles with my 3 year old to get the other kids from school pick up.I never used to do puddles, but now I am reliving the joy of jumping in them.

I think I am a more balanced person overall now, but sadly my knowledge of what passes as fabulous footwear these days is limited to what I have seen recently on pintrest.

Originally I made up a batch of these to tie in with the fashion inspired dress cake and cookies for Naomi V Photography for the fun fashionista 10 year party styled by Putting on a Party.

a couple of people saw the photo's on facebook and asked if I could post a tutorial which is what I am doing.

These high heel shoes toppers are made of fondant using a JEMS cutter set I picked up. The place I bought mine from no longer carries them but I did spy some on Amazon so have a look here or google them, they are the mini ones that are 3" long..

Or in Australia here on Fishpond

 

Plastic Cutter Set, 8pc, Lady's Miniature Shoe 

 Although I am showing you using the cutter set as that is how I made the shoes if you want you could make your own by just drawing up some templates on cardboard, hand cutting with a knife and hand rolling the heel.

Normally I don't mind hand cutting myself, but these shoes are fiddly. I did not love making them, these shoes are high maintenance decoration. Although I only had to make 13 cupcakes, I did sets of shoes for each cupcake so that was 26 shoes, which by the way are pretty easy to break if you don't handle them right, so in reality a few more than 26.

For the fashion party I made cupcakes with a plain fondant top to sit the shoes on, which is pretty much just a cupcake covered with a tiny amount of butter cream and a round of fondant pressed on the top. The plain fondant covered cupcake is a nice looking base for the shoes. But I prefer the taste of butter cream topped cupcakes so I thought I might try out so see how they worked.

Yup, they worked ok although I think it's a struggle to get a pair of shoes to sit on the butter cream swirl and look as neat as the fondant. But in truth I could live with that, really who is going to eat 2 fondant shoes after a whole cupcake plus WAHOO it halves the number of shoes you need to make.

High Heel Shoe Cupcake Topper Tutorial

If you like you can use a little tylose powder kneaded into the fondant to make it a bit stronger (like gumpaste), or I guess buy gumpaste :) Tylose powder can also be used to make the edible glue. I used Bakels white fondant and Satin Ice black and red. All other colors were the Bakels tinted with gel food color.

Ingredients and equipment
Fondant
*optional tylose powder
Gel food color in your color of choice.
rolling pin
cornflour (corn starch)
Jems mini High Heel shoe cutter (3 inch)
toothpick or tool with pointed end
edible glue and brush
edible decorations for shoe

This is what you get in the JEMS cutter set

Color the fondant by adding drops of gel food color and kneading until well distributed. You may like to add a little tylose powder to the fondant to make it a bit stronger and easier to work with at this stage. I didn't but my shoes were pretty easy to break.

Make the heels. Roll a small ball of fondant and then shape into a cone.

Place the cone of fondant into one of the JEMS heel formers.

Press the other heel former carefully onto the first one so that the sides meet evenly. Excess fondant will squeeze out the sides, bottom and top, remove the excess with a knife and smooth the top of the heel where it will meet the sole.

If you can manage it a nice touch can be to add a touch of black to the base of the heel to look a little more realistic.

Carefully remove the heel formers taking care not to change the shape of the fondant heel. Place onto a piece of parchment paper with the large flat top of the heel facing downwards until required. If needed use a tool or your finger to smooth any join ridges that the heel former has heft on the heel.

Dust a workbench with cornflour (corn starch) and roll out fondant a couple of mm thick (1/16"). Holding the handle of the sole cutter, press the cutter into the fondant and cut out a sole.

OK decide if you want that impression to be on the top or the bottom - I didn't like the look of it on the top so it's the bottom of my sole although I have seen a number of pictures where it is the top. Your choice :)

Also if you would like a double sole so you can have for example a red base, just cut out 2 soles, brush some edible glue onto one and press them together.

Brush some glue onto the top of a heel and press the heel onto the sole as shown in picture example. Place a foam shoe former under the sole to help shape the shoe.

Roll out more fondant and cut out the shoe upper using the JEMS cutter. Attach a small amount of edible glue to the outer sides of the shape and using a toothpick or fondant tool press the shape onto the front of the sole, attaching one side, allowing the middle to arch up and then attaching the other side to the sole, as shown in the picture.

This process is quite fiddly and you may need some practice, plus you may knock the back heel section over and need to pick it up a number of times. Trust me it will get easier with practice.

You can cut out another of the shoe upper shapes to make a heel, using glue along the long length of the shape at attach it to the sole just above the heel. I did this with some of the shoes, although I also ended up making my own template for a back which was not so high.

There is also a strap cutter which comes with the set which can be used to make an ankle strap.

Once you are happy with the shoe shape add decorations to the shoe by making small ribbons, flowers, ruffles or 'brooches'. You can even hand paint on designs using food gel watered down with a  little rose spirits.

Other decorative touches can include adding sanding sugar or spraying luster spray.

I used the chocolate cupcake recipe from my book Sweets on a stick to make the cupcake bases for the pictures. It is actually a one bowl kid friendly recipe for 24 mini cupcakes, but in a pinch it can work for 10 regular cupcakes.

 Sweets on a Stick is available through most online book stores it is a US release aimed at getting kids involved in the kitchen. Here are the links to Amazon and Fishpond.

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Cake Pop Classes in Brisbane

Hiya all. I have been asked sooo many times if I ever do any classes on how to make my sweet treats, and YAY finally there is one on the horizon.

As part of the Hands on Brisbane Craft Workshops I will be at the Bleeding Heart Cafe in Ann St Brisbane on the 14th of July 2012 to run a cake pop demonstration and baking Question and Answer session.

I'll be showing how to make cake pops and create some simple fondant decorations so you can make your own plate of pops to wow everyone at your next party or event.

Plus I'll also be demonstrating the monster cake pops from my book Sweets on a Stick.

I should have some copies of my book Sweets on a Stick available to buy......oh and sign if you really want.....but seriously my writing is so messy you could probably take it into a chemist and they'll think it's a prescription :) Um does that joke even work now that they print prescriptions out or am I showing my age?

If you already have a copy of Sweets on a Stick and want my scrawly scratchings on it you can just bring it on it without buying one on the day.




The session will start at 9:30am and it runs until 11:30am and the cost is a sweet $12.

You can pop over and book tickets online HERE, while you are on the site you can check out all the other fun craft sessions being offered.

and in the meantime if you just can't wait for my book here is the amazon and fishpond links.

Oh and by the way if you have purchased a copy of Sweets on a Stick and it came in Black and White, please contact the place of purchase. It seems there has been some type of mix up with a reprint order, they should definitely have color pictures.

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Raspberry Cream Meringues

A bit of a sad story to these meringues. I actually made them for an Enjo party I was hosting, but on the day I was unwell and had to cancel it.

I had planned on filling these with a lemon curd and vanilla cream, ahhh they would have been delicious.

Instead they sat unfilled in an airtight container for a week. By then I had moved on from the lemon and decided to rework the white chocolate raspberry filling from the original recipe in Sweets on a Stick by folding in a cup of whipped cream.

They turned out pretty yummy, so actually not so sad at all in the end.

The Meringue recipe is from Sweets on a Stick as is the Raspberry White Chocolate filling......just modify by folding in 1 cup of whipped cream to the cooled filling and pop into the fridge until chilled.



I do think I made them a bit big, I swirled the rosettes using a large 1M Wilton tip starting in the center and working my way out. Next time I'll be using a smaller size tip so the finished meringues are more petite bite sized.

Hopefully I'll have it worked in time for the rescheduled party.

Recipe modified from Sweets on a Stick by Linda Vandermeer:

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Pink Ombre Ruffled Dress Cookie tutorial

These here are the pink ombre ruffle dress cookies I made up to match the cake I made for a fashion inspired birthday party.

Now Naomi V or her party stylist Putting on a Party didn't even ask for cookies, but y'all know I kinda have a thing for cookies, and ruffles, oh yeah and also ombre at them moment ........ so I wanted to create a ruffly cookie and this seemed like a perfect excuse.

Plus it was a bit of a test run, I wanted to see how the diagonal ombre would work before I started on the cake.

Yup this is the matching cake, click HERE for tutorial on this ruffled pink ombre dress cake

I actually really enjoyed making these cookies, although it took me around half a day to make just over a dozen. They are kinda time consuming but I don't mind I find the hand rolling relaxing and I like the uneven finish. But if you had lots to do you could crank up a pasta machine to whip out the ruffle strips much faster.

and none of my dress cookies were quite right for the look I wanted, so I made up my own template. Making a template pretty much just consists of drawing a dress on a piece of sturdy-ish card stock and cutting it out.

A template will work great if your only doing a few, but if you had like 200 wedding dress cookies to make I think it would be worth the investment to track down a cutter that matched or even have your own cutter made.

Pink Ombre Ruffled Dress Cookie Tutorial

Dress cookie cutter or template
Cookie dough - I used the recipe from Sweets on a Stick
White fondant (make your own marshmallow fondant or buy ready rolled)*
cornflour (corn starch)
Dusky Pink/ Burgandy Food gel color
small rolling pin
Frilling tool
non stick petal pad/foam (see here for example) optional for thinner ruffles
sharpe knife
water and clean brush (used for sweet food purposes only)

* Fondant dries out very fast. You must work quickly and keep in an airtight container when not in use. Knead well before use.

Knead the fondant well and using the food color make 4 different shades ranging from pale pink through to a deep dusky pink.

Cut out dress shaped cookies with cutter (or use template) place on a parchment paper lined baking tray and bake in the oven following recipe instructions until the cookies are golden. Remove from oven, leave on tray for 5 minutes, transfer to wire racks and allow to cool.


Lightly dust a clean bench top with cornflour (corn starch) and roll out the white until quite thin. I like to work with small pieces at a time to reduce the fondant drying out. Using the dress cookie cutter (or template) cut out a white fondant shape the same size as the dress cookies.

Brush the cookie with a small amount of water and adhere the white fondant to the cookie using the small rolling pin to gently press the fondant to the cookie making the surface as smooth as possible. Repeat with all cookies.

To Make the fondant ruffles dust the workbench with cornflour (cornstarch), take a piece of fondant about 1 1/2 tsp and shape it into a rectangle, using the small rolling pink roll in out into a long strip. As you roll you may need to press the sides in carefully with the sides/heels of you hands to stop it from getting too wide. (or if you find that is not working you can always use a sharp knife to trim it back to size) Keep rolling until the strip is quite thin. I like to pick the strip up after each roll to ensure it is not sticking to the bench and when necessary dust underneath again.



Pick the strip of fondant up and place it onto the non stick foam. Using the middle section of the frilling tool roll back and forth (like using a rolling pin) to make the strip even thinner, you will probably get it to double in length.

Then use the edge of the frilling tool rolling back and forth to frill one edge of the strip a little more.

Attach a short length of the fondant ruffle to the bottom corner of the cookie using a small amount of water brushed onto the fondant to adhere it. 

Continue to add more strips of ruffled fondant until you have reached to point where you want to switch to the next graduated colour.

After around 4 strips of the dark dusty pink you will be ready to switch to the next slightly lighter colour.

You can see in the picture above how I made some slight indents in the white fondant so I knew when to switch over to the next colour of fondant ruffles. I only did this on the first cookie and then I used that cookie as a guide for the remainder.

With this particular design I decided to stop at the waist. Continue adding the fondant ruffle strips until the whole skirt area is covered.

Cookie recipe used in this recipe was from Sweets on a Stick by Linda Vandermeer:

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)