The Coloured Bubble Cakery: The Giant Cupcake!!

As promised, I've put together a bit more of an in depth blog post all about the Giant Cupcake!!

This was mainly due to my excitement at the prospect of carving the shape out of multicoloured sponges so this is where I will start...

It's really easy to bake coloured sponges, it takes a little extra time but is definitely well worth it when you see the finished effect. I use the same food colours that I use for all my decorating, they come as a paste and are perfect for mixing with icing, cake mix and even to paint with (watered down with vodka to avoid dissolving the sugar in the fondant!).

This is how the sponges looked once they were cool and ready for use...

I think you'll agree that they're really horrible colours, but fear not, me & my carving knife can fix this...

Now, for a giant cupcake cake you could always use one of these baking moulds... but where's the fun in that??!

Nope, I much prefer my trusty bread knife!

I decided to make this cake in two tiers to make covering it simpler. I've no idea if this is the way other cake decorators do it, but this is my way.

So after jamming the sponges together I kick off by carving the bottom 3 colours to look like the cupcake case...

then I did the same with the top 3 colours to look like the frosted topping...

Just for my own personal curiosity I put them together to see the full effect of the spectrum of colours...

Coooool!!!

Ok, curiosity satisfied... Now it's time for the butter cream. Yum!

Butter cream is so easy to make and there are a huge amount of recipes online to help you on your way. I can recommend 175g of icing sugar to 85g unsalted butter. I like to heat the butter slightly to help it mix with the sugar, add a couple of drops of vanilla essence and you're off!

I normally add a dash of milk too as it's mixing, 1 full cap from the bottle normally does it...

Then get it on...!

I used a piping tube to apply it as the cake was fresh & crumbly then I smoothed it over with a small palette knife.

I didn't butter cream the top of the bottom tier as I used dowels and a smaller thin cake board to place the top tier on, but I forgot to take a photo of that bit so you'll just have to take my word for it! :)

Next I wrapped the bottom tier in blue fondant, again leaving the top clear. The best way to do this, I find at least, is to roll a length of fondant long enough to go around the cake, then slice off one edge to make it straight, roll it up gently and then unfurl as you apply it to the cake with the straight edge against the cake board... trim the top excess off with scissors or a sharp scalpel (watch your fingers!).

Then, with a large palette knife I carefully lifted the butter creamed top tier onto the bottom tier (on top of the dowels and thin cake board). I made sure it was positioned correctly before rolling out and applying the pink fondant onto the top...

Using my fingers and palms I traced the the fondant into the grooves of the carved top to make sure it was all properly in place, an instant improvement in my eyes.

This was the first time I was able to properly see the job I'd done at carving the frosted top and I let out a massive sigh of relief as I stepped back to take a look!

Next, with a sharp scalpel (watch your fingers!) I trimmed the excess off the bottom, tucking the pink into the blue at the join, leaving little globules for icing drips... ta-da!