Now, I know I said I'd bake a cake for the sugar roses and share photographs with you but I was a little distracted (forgivably, I think) by these:
Can you handle your excitement at my teapot shortbread biscuits? Maybe it's just me, but there's something so very satisfying about the pastel shades of royal icing on shortbready goodness.
I made teapots and scalloped circles, miniature heart biscuits and giant hearts. I made some cupcake-shaped biscuits as well but The Mister didn't photograph them.
I lined the hearts with white piping icing and filled with with a soft lilac icing (you can see in the image above) but they're oh-so-nice without any filling, too.
And just so you know that I didn't forget you all completely, I whipped up a batch of strawberry swirl sweetheart cupcakes and iced them with light strawberry buttercream. This one is topped with one of the miniature sugar roses I made this weekend.
You can see the strawberry swirl cake here (a bit) with the layers of vanilla and strawberry sponge showing through the white cases. I used a catering-sized piping nozzle to make nice layered buttercream swirls (yum) and topped with edible roses and glitter.
I made a selection of pink and white hearts from sugar paste as well, and sprinkled those with pearl dragees (why aren't they just called pearl balls?). I like this one best - simple, pretty and yum. As you can see, I had a bit of buttercream left over so I popped it into one of my icing squeezy bottles and popped on a star-shaped nozzle to pipe little flowers on top of the scalloped circles.
The roses turned out very well, I think, and they're quite easy to make once you get the hang of them. I love these colours, the two-toned sponge cakes, the almost-transparent edible glitter... I think we found a wedding winner! The only thing now is to figure out how to display the cookies and cupcakes at the actual wedding. Cake stand? Pretty antique plates?
Here's my rather fool-proof sugar biscuit recipe from this website:
Shortbread sugar biscuits
Can you handle your excitement at my teapot shortbread biscuits? Maybe it's just me, but there's something so very satisfying about the pastel shades of royal icing on shortbready goodness.
I made teapots and scalloped circles, miniature heart biscuits and giant hearts. I made some cupcake-shaped biscuits as well but The Mister didn't photograph them.
I lined the hearts with white piping icing and filled with with a soft lilac icing (you can see in the image above) but they're oh-so-nice without any filling, too.
And just so you know that I didn't forget you all completely, I whipped up a batch of strawberry swirl sweetheart cupcakes and iced them with light strawberry buttercream. This one is topped with one of the miniature sugar roses I made this weekend.
You can see the strawberry swirl cake here (a bit) with the layers of vanilla and strawberry sponge showing through the white cases. I used a catering-sized piping nozzle to make nice layered buttercream swirls (yum) and topped with edible roses and glitter.
I made a selection of pink and white hearts from sugar paste as well, and sprinkled those with pearl dragees (why aren't they just called pearl balls?). I like this one best - simple, pretty and yum. As you can see, I had a bit of buttercream left over so I popped it into one of my icing squeezy bottles and popped on a star-shaped nozzle to pipe little flowers on top of the scalloped circles.
The roses turned out very well, I think, and they're quite easy to make once you get the hang of them. I love these colours, the two-toned sponge cakes, the almost-transparent edible glitter... I think we found a wedding winner! The only thing now is to figure out how to display the cookies and cupcakes at the actual wedding. Cake stand? Pretty antique plates?
Here's my rather fool-proof sugar biscuit recipe from this website:
Shortbread sugar biscuits
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Makes: 40
Ingredients
250g butter, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup cornflour
Method
1. Using an electric hand mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla
until pale and creamy. Add egg. Beat until well combined.
2. Sift flour and cornflour over butter mixture. Mix well.
Divide in half. Press each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in baking paper.
Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking
paper. Roll each disc out between 2 sheets of baking paper to 3mm-thick.
4. Cut biscuit shapes out of the dough. Place onto trays. Roll leftover dough together and repeat. Refrigerate
biscuits until firm. Bake for 15 minutes or until light golden. Stand on trays
for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Notes
You can dip the cutters in flour in between shapes to prevent the dough from sticking to the shapes. This dough also freezes (and defrosts!) well.
