Gloverly Cupcakes

I love a bit of piping, so when I managed to convince my manager at work that I should make his wedding cake, I was really pleased to find out that the design they wanted was very rustic and two tiers would be completely covered in piped swirls. 

The cake was all vanilla syrup sponge and the recipe can be found here. It is a lovely rich vanilla cake that works really well as a wedding cake. Layers were sandwiched together with strawberry jam and it was cover in a thin layer of vanilla butter cream before being covered with white fondant.

The 3 tiers were then stacked using dowling and the joins were covered using fondant that had been pushed into a silicone mould to make a string of beads. I decided that it was best to assemble the cake before doing the piping, so that I wouldn’t damage it by moving and lifting the layers afterwards.

Then the fun with the piping began! Getting the right consistency for the royal icing is key, it needs to be runny enough for it to come out through the nozzle (smaller holes need slightly runnier icing) but firm enough to hold its shape. It can be quite hard to get a happy medium and even just adding half a teaspoon of water can make a huge difference. Once I had the right consistency I began piping starting with the bottom tier. The swirls were completely random and I found it best not to think too hard about it and just keep the swirls flowing. A couple of hours later I finally finished the swirls! The finishing touches of the hessian and raffia were then added to the middle tier to complete the rustic look. Congratulations Ben and Tash!