Linslade School Summer Fayre
I spent most evenings of last week baking and decorating cupcakes in preparation for the Linslade Lower School summer fayre, which was held last Saturday afternoon. Thank goodness it was sunny – otherwise I don’t think the turn out would have been as good, and the cakes wouldn’t have sold out! I found that the little cupcake boxes were very popular, so definitely worth investing in more for future events.
I did a variety of vanilla, chocolate and rose cupcakes, with vanilla and rose buttercream icing. Suprisingly, not a lot of people seemed as keen on the rose cupcakes, but I guess it’s not a flavour that is used very often. I am thinking of sticking to the more normal flavours next time – perhaps adding lemon or red velvet? In any case, I’m happy that all the cupcakes were sold which meant I didn’t have to end up eating them all.
I started the week by making all the fondant decorations – butterflies, bumblebees, flowers and footballs. I used a white fondant base and just coloured them to pastel-ish shades with some colouring paste. I found that working with fondant, you tend to have to work fast as the fondant can dry out quite fast. The only problem I had with the fondant decorations came after I put them on the cupcakes. As it turns out, you can’t keep fondant stored in an airtight container…because it goes very soggy and sticky.. luckily, this can be fixed by just leaving it in open air and it will harden again quite quickly.
One of my favourite decorations was the bumblebee – I can’t say that I made any of them myself though! Many thanks to Jak.. because he managed to make the stripes and the wings. Originally, I was going to stick the bees on pieces of spaghetti, to make them look like they were flying on top of the cupcake..but decided that spaghetti is still quite sharp and little kids might have hurt themselves!
I had a variety of designs, but the majority of the cupcakes were decorated to look like a little garden-type scene, with ‘grass’ and flowers and butterflies. I thought they were just a little different to the standard cupcake swirl.. and maybe they would stand out a little more than the typical cupcake.
I done a couple of football designs, the same as the ones I done for Pauline’s birthday cupcakes as cupcakes are quite girly, and there needed to be more boyish ones… although I am stuck for further ideas for boys, so any would be appreciated!
Since doing the piped flowers course, I decided that I would try and recreate the rose design … not as easy as it was in the class. I didn’t have the right technique and had to practice a couple of times before I eventually got it right.
All in all, a very successful fayre! I have another fayre at Southcott Lower School on July 2nd, 11am – 1pm – so if any of you are free, then please come along!