Gloverly Cupcakes

Last weekend I was in London for one of my best friend Sian’s 30th birthday celebrations. You can’t have a birthday celebration without cake, and given I was staying with Becky on the Friday night I offered to make her something. She didn’t have any specific requests so I decided to theme it with the place we were going for the evening which was an “apres ski”-style bar.Initially I thought I’d make a large cake with as a mountain with a skier coming down but then I decided cupcakes were more practical. Cupcakes are much easier for a large group of people – I always find it hard with a large cake to make sure that everyone gets a slice! Given it was Sian’s 30th birthday, I had to incorporate 30s into the cakes somehow. Eventually I decided on some “crashed skier” vanilla cupcakes and sticking with the skiing theme, hot chocolate cupcakes topped with 30s.

I made all the decorations out of fondant icing. However, after breaking several of the ski poles I decided to use cocktail stick, with a small circle of icing pushed onto them. I like all the decorations I make to be edible so I was reluctant to use the cocktail sticks. If I made them again I would probably use sugar florist paste to make the pole in advance so that they had time to harden.

Unfortunately the venue didn’t do a particularly good job of arranging the cakes nicely on a plate so they came out looking like a massive ski crash – however, I think (hope!) most people understood what they were meant to be!