FIESTA CUPCAKE TOPPERS !! OLE !!

Aren't these fun? Mini chili peppers out of modeling chocolate and mini tacos . All sweet of course, and made from fondant. They will turn your cupcakes into a FIESTA !

I'm going to show you how to make these, step by step. Impress your friends and family and even yourself. Go on, you can do it! I'll share my secrets, and you get the credit. Does that sound good?  Let's get started.

First you will need some fresh baked cupcakes with a generous swirl of buttercream icing. Not too high, or your toppers may fall off.

I decided to try modeling chocolate for the first time. I know, what took me so long?! Let me just say, I love how nice it is to work with. You'll be seeing more of it on my cupcakes and for three dimensional designs on cake.

Starting with the chili pepper toppers, you will need:

*Wilton candy melts in the color red


Wilton Red Candy Melts, 12-Ounce

*Green pre-colored fondant. You can buy pre-made colored fondant in boxes at places that sell Wilton products. Or , like me, make your own.

Wilton Primary Colors Fondant, Multi Pack

*1/3 cup light Karo corn syrup

I made only half of the recipe, using one half bag of melts, and 1/6 cup of light corn syrup. And it made enough for the chili peppers you see here, plus a good size chunk for lots more. 

Microwave the candy melts according to the package directions. Slowly stir in the 1/3 cup of light corn syrup. Keep stirring until stiff and dough-like. Knead briefly into a ball and cover with plastic wrap and place in a zip top baggie to rest overnight. It will become very firm in consistency.

 Don't be concerned about the firm texture, but break or cut off a piece and work it in your hands. The heat will soften it to a wonderful consistency for modeling all kinds of things! Keep the rest covered so it doesn't dry out. Mine seemed a little greasy, so I dusted a very small amount of corn starch onto it and worked it in. Problem solved.

Next you will need to roll out your green fondant into small flower shapes with any sort of a cutter. Mine were about one inch across. Let these partially dry on a curved surface so they are not flat. 

The shapes pictured above weren't flat enough for me, so I pressed the petals with my finger to lengthen them a little. Then they resembled the leaf on the chili pepper near the stem.

Wilton Gum Paste and Fondant Student Kit

 Remember, the goal is the overall effect. Perfection is not necessary. 

Next, make a small ball as shown in the photo above. Roll it in your hands to elongate the shape, like a teardrop. Gently bend the end in classic chili pepper fashion. Press the green stem cap on the end, and set them in a good place to dry.  When you place them on the cupcake, you may pipe a small green stem in the center of the green cap. I didn't, because I was short on time, and no one even noticed. 

Next, let's make some adorable mini tacos, out of fondant.  I'm SO sorry, I cannot for the life of me get this photo the other way. It's showing up correctly in my pictures, but not on this blog. I will try to figure out why. In the meantime, if you would please proceed with turning your head sideways.

You will need some yellow fondant. I added some gold, non-metallic icing color to this to make a softer hue like taco shells. I like how it came out. Roll your fondant about 1/8 thick, and cut with a small circle cutter.

Wilton 2308-0914 Nesting Circles Cookie Cutters, Set of 4

 If you don't have one, but have large icing decorating tips, you can use the end of one, in a pinch. This one is about 1/5 inches across.  After cutting the circles, I pressed each one into some yellow sanding sugar, to give a cornmeal effect. I know, pretty clever. 

To make any colored sanding sugar, just use regular table sugar, and add liquid food coloring,one drop at a time. Mash it around with a fork until all is distributed. That's it. You're welcome. 

Next, you want to dry these into a taco shape. I gently pressed the center of each with a wooden skewer to fold it and make a nice crease. Then I simply folded some wide strips of card stock to dry them on. 

While the taco shells are drying, prepare your lettuce. Your green tinted coconut lettuce, that is. Use any kind of shredded coconut, and into a small bowl, also add green food coloring one drop at a time, tossing around with a fork until it reaches the desired hue. Another easy way is to put it in a glass jar, cover and shake enthusiastically, twisting your wrist as you go. Hey, you may get nicely toned wrists out of it. 

Wilton 417-1187 6-Pack Form-N-Save Flower Storage trays

Once the fondant taco shells are dry enough to hold their shape, then you add the 'meat' first. Use chocolate or brown tinted icing and pipe it in, end to end with a pastry bag and medium sized round tip.
Wilton 100-Pack Disposable Decorating Bags 12inch

 Or place the icing in a small zipper top baggie, squeeze out all the air, seal and cut off a SMALL part of the tip. Instant pastry bag. 

The green tinted coconut lettuce goes in next. For the red accent, which could be sauce, salsa etc, I hand picked out red sprinkles from multi-colored sprinkles. You may use any red mini sprinkle or tiny candy. Remember, use whatever gives you the overall effect that you want.  And, that's it.  Here are some close up pictures of the finished cupcakes.

And of course, a FUN way to display them is on a sombrero !! Here are just a few to give you the idea:

US Toy Child's Mexican Sombrero If you have questions , please feel free to send me a message on my Facebook page, 'Playing With Food'  as seen below. Also feel free to check out my new website, which I am currently updating, playingwithfood.tv  . And, please join me on Pinterest! All of the links are below. Thanks for visiting and please share. 

I hope this has inspired you to make a Fiesta of your own. Enjoy!



Liz
PLAYING WITH FOOD on Facebook

the PLAYING WITH FOOD TV show!

www.DIYweddingcakeunder50.com

www.pinterest.com/lizcorbett

CHECK OUT MY CAKES

BONKOS for BUNCOS !! Cake with booze!

These ladies were BONKOS for Buncos night and crazy for this cake. How does Strawberry Daiquiri flavored cake with Rum infused buttercream icing sound?

It's a simple 9x13 inch cake. The dice (is plural, die?) are approximately 3 inches square of yellow cake and covered in pink rolled fondant. Dots are chocolate fondant tinted with black gel color and cut out into circles. A dusting of good-luck-pink edible glitter finishes it off.

The letters are made with one of my newest addition to the playing-with-sugar-tools; teeny little cookie cutters by Wilton,  in the shape of letters and numbers. Fun !Cut in pink , and black icing piped on top. 

Wilton Fondant Alphabet Number Cookie Cutter Cut Outs, Set of 37

Making your life a little sweeter,

Liz
The Party Hostess Diva on Facebook
Elizabeth Corbett on Pinterest

my latest project:

Vintage Tapestry Purse.it's a CAKE !

How do you get this cake from a photo of a vintage tapestry purse?

Well, I had to figure it out. I'll show you the basics of how I got there. 

Plan out your design and all the components on paper first. Make a list of the parts you'll need. For example, fondant purse handles that stand up, fondant around base and top for leather structure look and gold tone fondant for purse opening and clasp. 

The purse handles were made ahead of time so they would be dried and stand up on their own, just like the real purse. I made a comparison, by looking at the photo, of how tall the handles were in relation to the height of the purse. Also I made note of how far in from the edge, the handles are attached.

Satin Ice Rolled Fondant - Brown - Chocolate - 2 lb

I looked around my kitchen and pantry to find something round, the right size to dry my handles on. A large cardboard oatmeal container served perfectly. The handles (chocolate fondant and then black gel icing color kneaded in) were draped over the container with wax paper underneath to prevent sticking.

                                                                  

To carve out a purse shape , always start with mostly frozen layers of cake stacked on top of each other into the approximate width and height of your finished cake. This is where eyeballing comes in handy, if you're good at it. A ruler is great too if you don't trust yourself. You can always carve off more, so go easy when you start cutting. A large serated bread knife works great. 

Work quickly because as the cake defrosts, it will get softer, you want to get your final shape and dirty icing layer on while its very cold.

Wilton 2104-7778 Master Tip Set

As you can barely see in the photo above, I have inserted two tall Bubble Tea Straws (found on eBay and cake supply websites) to give support because of the narrow width and the height. Icing between the layers for "glue" and taste, of course.

Shown at left is the cake with a thick layer of icing because it will be covered in a small star decorator tip design, not fondant. The fondant pieces for leather and hardware have also been added. I simply measured the circumference around the bottom and made two long fondant pieces which were scored at the edges to look like stitching. (a rolling wheel fondant tool) A wooden ruler made the perfect item to trace for width.

The gold tone fondant at top was brushed with Wilton gold dust shimmer, found at any store that sells cake supplies. I recommend it highly, it really   adds a fabulous realistic touch to your fondant. It also comes in silver and pearl.

Wilton Fondant 20 Inch Rolling Pin

Next comes the outlines for the tapestry design. I was going for overall effect here, not exact copy. The black lines serve as the coloring page to fill in between and around. I predetermined which side would be the front, so made an extra effort on the design on that side, since it will be the first impression and show in photos. 

My colors had been pre-tinted. I ended up putting a touch of black into them to tone them down and give a more vintage look rather than bright. Experiment with a little at a time, you can always add more color. Once the outlines had been made, the filling in went very quickly. It was really fun to see it come together and I got more exited with the results as I went along. 

As a side note, if you are making a purse cake, that does not have a tapestry or floral design, you can follow these instructions up to the outlining part. The basics are the same for most all purse cakes.

When filling in the tapestry look, I recommend doing one color at a time rather than each flower, that way you can see that each color is even distributed in your overall design.

Filling in the background to cover the chocolate butter cream goes quickly. I used very dark black icing. (I was laughing to myself imaging birthday guests with black stained tongues) 

The purse handles were supported with a toothpick in each end that went into the top of the cake. I also pressed the handles together slightly as an additional precaution. For the shiny effect, I simply brushed the black "leather" parts with watered down black gel coloring.

Wilton Disposable 12 Inch Decorating Bags, Pack Of 24

I hope you enjoyed this simple tutorial and you are inspired to perhaps try it out or something similar. Leave a comment if you have. I'd love to hear from you! For the butter cream recipe, go to my blog about the Perfect Cupcake. 

So here to the left, is the photo I worked from.(I know, not too much information, right?) and again, the final product, to the right. 

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Liz Corbett is an experienced cake baker decorator and hostess.  She has been planning and hosting parties and designing, decorating and delivering cakes for over 20 years. Her hope is that everyone will be inspired to more creativity and to gain the confidence to host events big and small with success. 

Hot Tub Fun !! playing with gumpaste people...

What do you do with a 9 inch square cake, a photo of 4 friends in a hot tub and gumpaste and piping gel? Unleash the creativity! Fondant, of course is a wonderful medium to play with. Shown here is a square, two tiered cake, covered in icing then chocolate fondant that has been scored and marked to look like wooden planks. The inside was partially scooped out and filled with blue buttercream icing. On top of that, clear piping gel (fantastic stuff!) tinted blue for the water effect.

Wilton Gum Paste and Fondant Student Kit

  

Featured in the hot tub are figures made of gumpaste, with fondant bathingsuits and icing hair. Fun little touches are bottles of beer. See the spilled one on the right? candles, and a towel, all made of fondant. This was my first attempt at making people out of gumpaste. I would like to experiment further to fine tune the details and continue to work with the recipe.

Not much for "how to" with this post, but just wanted to share the photo. You could easily adapt this idea to a round swimming pool and fill with just little heads bobbing around and tubes and rafts. What would YOU like to see on a cake with this great water effect?

Wilton Piping Gel, 10-Ounce

This photo and other cake and food ideas are also shown on my facebook pg.(see below)

Making your life a little sweeter,

Liz
The Party Hostess Diva on Facebook
Elizabeth Corbett on Pinterest

http://youtu.be/pC2nePyCcl4

Edible Play-dough ! Beautiful flowers and trim!

I took a Gumpaste and Fondant class a few months ago and I'm still appreciating what I have learned. And will continue to enjoy the new skills for a long time. There are SO many beautiful creative things to be done with such a magical medium . It's sugar play-dough, basically. 

I highly recommend a nice set of the flower cutters (like cookie cutters), and the fondant/gum paste tools. If you make the flowers assembly line style, you can create a much higher volume of   flowers in a shorter amount of time. They need to dry anyway, so make ahead. I was VERY pleased to make the roses as I've always had difficulty doing them old-school on the flower nail. A little bit of arthritis and jitters from too much coffee have often prevented me from attempting too many. Not so with the gum paste! I cranked these out in a matter of minutes! It's all about working quickly and letting them dry in the proper shape. What a great concept to have leaves and flowers ready made for the next project! 

Wilton Gum Paste and Fondant Student Kit

I love the eyelet detail at the bottom. SO simple and a fun alternative to the usual shell or rope border.  A roller tool that cuts even strips and a cutter that makes the eyelet lace detail. I feel like a kid with my new toys !

Check out a Wilton class in your area. Many Michael's Craft stores offer them. Well worth the time and money. 

Wilton 1907-1107 Set of 10 Gum-Paste Modeling Tools with Storage Case

Next up... modeling people and tiny items! fun !!

making your life a little sweeter,

Liz
The Party Hostess Diva on Facebook
Elizabeth Corbett on Pinterest

http://youtu.be/pC2nePyCcl4

High Heeled Diva Cupcakes! Zebra Purse!

What better way to celebrate a monumental birthday for a classy lady, than to create high heeled shoes in red and black/zebra! Believe it or not, they are CUPCAKES, from the book, "Cupcakes, cookies and Pie, oh, my!" Click here to get your own copy at Amazon (aff)  at a great price! ( Cupcakes, Cookies and Pie, Oh, My! ) by Karen Tack  and Alan Richardson. I was surprised at house easy they were to construct and the results were SO cute and delicious!

The zebra purse cake was constructed in a very small amount of time, but completed nonetheless with the help of a fantastic new product by Wilton called Sugar Sheets. (the zebra design) Click here to get your own at Amazon (aff)  (Wilton Sugar Sheet, Zebra Print ) I've made zebra fondant by hand, but this you just press on to a moist cake...HELLO, how simple and TIME saving is that!

Gold decorator powder moistened with a drop of vodka (yes you read that right) turns into shimmery gold paint for the hardward on the cake, in this cake it's a designer "Norma" bag.(Happy Birthday, Norma!)

Had there been more time, I would have fixed a few details, but if you can't tell, then neither will I . :)

I highly recommend the cupcake book. Something for every occasion. Cupcakes are the new rage..and why not? No need to cut and serve and you're not making a commitment to decorating a huge cake. Just do as many as you like. Warning...you'll want to make a whole bunch!

I hope this has inspired you to consider at least the shoes for any Diva's in your life..all you need is to pick the shoe color, cupcake liners, colored sugars and details and off you go!

For an up close shot of the shoes, go to my Facebook page: Party Hostess Diva.

Making your life a little sweeter,

Liz
The Party Hostess Diva on Facebook
Elizabeth Corbett on Pinterest

http://youtu.be/pC2nePyCcl4



Happy Decorating!