Looking in my cupboards…
Making buttercream simply for cupcake bouquets
It is only 3 ingredients and if you have a stand mixer, you’re good to go.
Piping bags ready for action
Then there is the colouring...
When I first started colouring buttercream, it was like being 6 years old again, back in school, in the art lesson. It was always my favourite subject. The trouble starts when you have a brand new box of gel colours next to your fresh batch of buttercream, and you are not really sure how it all works.
It turns out that it's best to separate the buttercream into bowls, so you have some for the leaves and greenery, some for the pink roses and some for the flat icing, and you don’t need very much colouring at all, less than a drop sometimes! It is also best to wear gloves and put the lids back on the colouring tubes as soon as you have used them!
He thought there had been a break-in!
I was engrossed in all this for several hours that day. My husband arrived home while my head was deep inside a top cupboard looking for more bowls.
I noticed a silence, then I saw his face. He looked rather pale and said, “I thought we’d been burgled!”
I looked at the kitchen island. Mixing bowls on their sides, raspberry-rippled with buttercream, patches of icing sugar, spatulas lying hap-hazzardly across daubed plates and pots of gel colours longing for their lids. All I could see was the opening from “Bake Off Extra Slice”.
“I think we can have a chippy tea tonight” I said.
That is a lovely happy memory for me. But having a plan makes everything better when it comes to buttercream flowers. Next time I will share my planning hacks with you. I knew that day that I had to find a way to make this work without it getting in the way of our relationship. Because there was no way I was going to give this up!
Happy piping
Anne