Ingredients
- 150g caster sugar
- 150g butter, at room temperature
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 3 medium eggs
- 130g self-raising flour
- 20g cornflour
- 2tbsp milk
- 100g butter, at room temperature
- 250g icing sugar
- ½tsp vanilla extract
- 2tsp milk Method
- 500g white ready-to-roll icing
- 2tsp gum tragacanth
- blue food coloring paste
- Scalloped cookie cutter (68mm)
- Wavy cookie cutter (65mm)
- Plain round cookie cutter (58mm)
- Alphabet cutter
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 160°C/320°F/Gas Mark 3. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. Beat the sugar and butter with the vanilla extract until light and fluffy (about 5 mins). Add 1 egg, 1/3 of the flour and cornflour and 1/3 of the milk. Beat until just combined then repeat twice more until all the eggs, flour and milk have been added.
- Divide the batter between the 12 cases and bake for 20-25 mins. Cool in the tins for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
- To make the buttercream, place the icing sugar, butter and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl. Mix with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes until soft, smooth and creamy, adding a little milk only if the mixture is too stiff. Trim the tops off the cakes if necessary to level and spread over the buttercream making it as flat as possible.
- To decorate, knead a little blue food colouring into 200g of the white ready-to-roll icing. Using 20g of blue icing and 20g of white, divided each piece into 2 and roll into long thin sausages. Lay the 4 sausages side-by-side, alternating blue and white. Using a rolling pin roll over the white and blue sausages so they stick together making a ribbon. Cut the ribbon into 12 pieces and fold each piece in half to make a 'v' shape (these will be the ribbons on the rosette). Snip the ends and use a cocktail stick to curl the ends slightly. If you have a stitch effect tool you can emboss the sides but it's not essential. Leave to dry on greaseproof paper.
- Roll the remaining white icing quite thinly (2mm) and cut 12 scalloped circles using the cutter and place on top of the iced cupcakes.
- With a brush of water, stick the ribbons to one edge of the scalloped circles
- Using the blue icing, roll to 2mm thick and cut out 12 wavy circles sticking them on top of the ribbon to hold it in place.
- Using the rest of the white icing cut 12 plain circles and stick them in the center of the blue wavy circles.
- Using the remainder of the blue icing roll to 2mm thick and cut out the letters for your chosen message.
- Brush them with a drop of water to stick in place. For a ‘full stop’ just roll a tiny ball of blue fondant and stick in place with a brush of water.