Gloverly Cupcakes

Last week I offered to do some baking for a cake trolley in the office to raise money for Sands (the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity). The day before I wasn’t feeling 100% so I probably should have said that I could no longer make them, especially since I hadn’t even decided what I was going to make. However, I’m not that sensible so I didn’t say anything and ended up making these A sensible person would have made nothing, or just made vanilla cupcakes with no decorations, but I wanted to do something Christmassy. So far this year I’ve made robin cake pops and Becky’s shared some snowmen cupcakes so I wanted to do something different – Father Christmas… Elves… Stockings? Eventually I decided on penguins – last Christmas I made a penguin bowling cake and I remember the penguins being fairly quick and simple to make. Here’s how to make the penguins:

1. Colour 260g of fondant icing black – or buy pre-coloured if you don’t want to get black hands!
2. Roll out 24 egg-shaped bodies out of the black icing – I weighed out 10g for each
3. Pinch off a small amount of the remaining black icing and shape so it’s a long thin oval ‘wing’. Stick onto the side of the body with a small amount of water. Carry on until all 24 penguins have a pair of wings.
4. You should still have a bit of black icing left – roll it out very thinly and using a small piping nozzle cut out 48 small black dots for the eyes (plus a few spares since you’ll probably end up losing some!). Put them to one side. This is quite fiddly so you could just paint the black of the eyes on instead if you prefer.
5. Roll out some white fondant until it is quite thin. Using a Wilton No. 6 nozzle cut out 48 small circles for the eyes and using the other end of the nozzle cut out 24 larger circles for the bellies.
6. Brush the large white circles with a small amount of water and then roll a body onto each one so that it sticks onto the middle of the belly.
7. Brush the small circles with a bit of water and stick two onto each body, making sure there is a gap above the white belly. Stick the black onto the eyes using a drop of water.
8. Colour a small amount of fondant with orange food colouring. Pinch of small amounts and shape into mini cones – stick one onto each penguin as a beak. With the remaining orange fondant, shape 48 small balls – pair them up and then stick each penguin on top of a pair, squashing the orange balls slightly.
9. To make the hats, shape 24 small discs and 24 small balls out of white fondant icing. Colour some fondant icing red and make 24 small cones. Using a small amount of water, stick a red cone on top of one of the white discs and then top with a white ball. Stick a hat onto each penguin using a bit of water.

 I was too tired by the time I’d finished baking and icing the cakes, and making all the penguins that I just went straight to bed and didn’t take any photos. However, when I got into the office on Friday morning I realised that I had some props on my desk – they looked perfect rocking around the Christmas tree! They went down really well. So now, assuming I get over my cough in time, I just need to decide what I can make this week that will top them.