What I did on my summer holidays (part1)...

Cupcake decorating...

In the spirit of the kids returning to school this week I am going to do my next couple of posts about what we got up to on our summer holidays.

We did lots went to the beach, went to the pool, had bbq, play dates, lazed around and spent time with family. My sister who currently lives in New Zealand with her husband and two kids come over for a month. I was lucky enough to get to spend time with my niece and nephew on their own. Decorating cupcakes was my 12 year old niece idea(I have included any pic of her because she asked me not to and I'm respecting her choice).

We made plain cakes (recipe below) and used fondant icing to create fun shapes. This was super easy, we bought a pack of Orchard White Icing from Coles.

To add colours I knead food dye into small portions of icing. My niece found this fiddly and rather paint on the colour when she finished the shape. I found after kneading in the colour it was best to wrap it up in cling wrap and put in the fringe for 10min or until it was firm.

We then shaped whatever we wanted. My 6 year got involved and we all had a great time making shapes to put on the cakes.

The kids made the blue icing themselves and arrange things the way they wanted. I really think that its important that we stand back at let kids drive the show sometimes especially when there are no real risks. I wouldn't have chosen bright blue icing but they love it and we all had a great time together and in the end isn't that whats important?

Plain Cake

125gr melted butter (not hot)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 rounded tablespoon cornflour

Put all ingredients in a bowl. Beat with electric beater for about 5 min on medium speed. Pour into patty pans or if making one large cake into a cake tin. Bake in a moderate oven 180c until golden brown. Too easy :)