North South East West

When I heard that Threadcakes was on again this year, I immediately began planning which designs I was going to bake! I liked the idea of doing the North South East West design as a series of cupcakes, to fit together to create the overall design. I worked out I'd need about 25 cupcakes.

I started by baking some lemon flavoured cupcakes - I made two batches worth. I did not want the cupcakes super high so I didn't fill the wrappers all the way up, and ended up with 28 cupcakes. When they had cooled, I chose the 'best' 25 to use (based on if they were flat on top, uniformly round, etc). Next, I cut a small piece of each one out and added some homemade strawberry and raspberry jam for filling, before adding the tops back on.

I iced the cupcakes with a thin layer of buttercream - I used leftover buttercream from another project which is why some are black and some are white! I coloured my fondant a nice blue colour and cut out circles to put on the top.

Then it was time to start working on the design. I cut out some of the design pieces to use as stencils, and with my trusty edible food marker, started tracing out the design onto the cupcakes. I found the outside cupcakes easy compared to the inner ones with all the interlocking lines!

When I finished outlining with my edible marker, I mixed up some white royal icing and piped over the top. Once they were dry I was careful about moving them, so I didn't get the lines mixed up!

The cupcakes were delicious, very light and lemony, with the jam adding a nice filling. All in all these were a nice way to start the Threadcakes 2011 process!