Rose and almond cupcakes

Today was a very busy day, baking-wise, for me. I spent yesterday evening sketching cake designs for a competition run by stylist magazine, to bake their front cover. "Paris" was a theme that I thought I could be creative with, so I based my cake around this. The initial plan was very different to the end result, turning into a cupcake instead of the mini cake I wanted. To match the Parisienne idea and the rose, I made an almond cake with rose water buttercream (apparently this flavour combo works, according to the flavour dictionary). 

I spent all afternoon making the cakes. I piped out about 8 eiffel towers, but to my despair the chocolate was piped to thin and the chocolate crumbled when I tried to take them off the baking parchment. The one pictured above was the only surviver, and unfortunately no way near my best. The rose went fairly well. Not of a professional standard, but good for me, seeing as I never have the opportunity to try cake decorating (I would love to do it more often, but living under the rules of my parents means I can't, because they won't get eaten). I used a different buttercream nozzle this time to the usual, which was risky but I liked the effect. As for the cakes themselves, the flavours were definitely present. I wanted to create some vines and leaves for the roses, but the fondant I used for them didn't look very good- the vines needed to be thinner. I am still quite pleased with the final cakes. They are probably one of my better cakes when it comes to looks, but I am only a beginner when compared to most, so I don't except star quality from myself. I doubt they will make the cover, but even so, I had fun making them!


Rose and almond cake recipe

Cake
4 1/2 oz self raising flour
4 1/2 oz sugar
4 1/2 oz butter/margarine
2 eggs
Few drops almond extract

Buttercream
6 oz butter
12 1/2 oz icing sugar
Few drops rose water
3 tbsp boiling water

Decoration

1 small ball ready to roll icing
Pink food colouring


1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5

2. Put all cake ingredients into a bowl and mix until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth with no lumps.

3. Spoon the cake batter into cupcake cases and divide the mixture equally between them. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until lightly golden and spring back when touched.

4. Put the remaining butter, icing sugar and rose water into a bowl and beat together. Add the boiling water bit by bit until you get a good consistency that is thick enough to pipe. Continue to beat the buttercream for as long as possible, because the more you beat it the lighter it is.

5. When the cakes are ready, pipe the buttercream onto the cakes in a neat swirl

6. Take the ready to roll icing and use the food colouring to colour the icing bright pink. Take several small pinches of icing and roll them into the balls. Place them in a plastic bag and flatten them, making one end of the shape slightly thinner, like a petal. Take the first petal and roll i into a tube shape. Wrap the other petals around the tube to create a rose shape. Once you are finished, cut the end of the rose off to seal the icing together. Place on top of the cupcake.