Vintage Floral Cupcakes

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Hello Kitty Cupcake Tower

I have a friend who's obsessed with Hello Kitty. Adorable!

For her birthday, she asked for a Hello Kitty cake. Who am I to say no?

Amy is one of the sweetest people I know. She's loving, kind, honest and straightforward. I always knew she was into Hello Kitty, but I didn't realise how obsessed until I made her this cake. And what a fitting theme. I think Hello Kitty almost defines Amy. Pink, sweet, fun.

During the party, Amy's beautiful parents came and thanked me, saying that a cake tower like this was "Amy's dream". I could not have been more honored. No one deserves to have her dreams fulfilled more.

Love you!

Tinkerbell Cupcake Tower

Had some trouble getting Tinkerbell to sit ladylike...her legs kept wanting to go in opposite directions.

I thought I'd kick off the new blog with this cute as Tinkerbell cake tower. For those of you who don't know me, I go by Nooblet and run Nooblet Patissier, my general baking blog. Very recently, Noobet Patissier underwent an inter-web-mitosis sort of event and divided into two distinct blog: a baking one, and a caking one!

Nooblet Patissier will be predominantly focused of baking endeavours such as breads, pastries and other random dessert stuff. Nooblet cake will be a platform where I will showcase my cakes (which are available for order in the Sydney metro area). I will also be posting caking tutorials here from time to time for those of you who are interested in DIY sugar madness.

Life has been pretty hectic for me at the moment and I'm currently juggling all sorts of life-thingies, both ordinary and regular, and extenuating circumstances. So while my posts probably will not be the most regular at this point, I'll do my best to make sure they keep on coming, however sporadically that may be.

So now! On to the cake!!! I love making kids' cakes. They're so much fun! Wedding cakes most often default to the whites and the creams and the very pastel colours, which are certainly beautiful, but it's a wonderful break to make a loud, bright cake. Birthdays, especially children's birthdays, are so perfect for this!

This Tinkerbell themed cupcake tower was made for a 3rd birthday. It's a chocolate mud cutting cake and light, moist chocolate cupcakes.

Vanilla Cupcakes Dipped in Fondant Icing

All by herself with the boys...

The story of these cupcakes must begin with the story of another cake. A birthday cake. A friend of mine announced a birthday dinner the day before it was to happen. I didn't have a present for him! Neither did Nooboy. So, I thought I'd make a cake for him. I thought, why not make my first fondant cake? Sure I've never before worked with fondant. Sure I had no cakes stashed away and must bake new ones. Sure there was only one night's time to get it done. No worries. All under control. Pfft. Me and time management have long been enemies. Oh well. It came out just fine. That's right, Time Management, I owned your ass! 

Here is what that cake looked like:

I know it's a bad photo. But I was already 30 minutes late for dinner. To explain the roach, the birthday boy (who is very tall, very macho, and only slightly gay) is terrified of them, so we thought it'd be a fun addition.

After the birthday thingy had come and gone, I was left with a whole bunch of left-over marshmallow fondant, and a whole bunch of pink marshmallows (I can't seem to find white only packs). The only logical thing I could think to do with them was cupcakes. I turned the pink marshmallows into pink MMF, made a batch of cupcakes, painstakingly embossed my rolled MMF with stamps and covered them. And they all mysteriously disappeared before my Canon had a look at them.

I still had a large-ish stash of MMF left, and since I've been smitten with CakeJournal's poured fondant cupcakes for so long, I thought I'd give it a go (I was also a bit lazy to go through rolling, stamping and covering them all over again). I was a bit unsure of how it would go with MMF, but it worked a treat. I just microwaved the fondant with a little bit of boiling water, stirred until it was all mixed in, and gradually added more water until it looked to be the right consistency.

Aren't they cute?

An army of cupcakes waiting to be piped.

They were then piped royal icing and topped with a couple of cachous here and there. And just as Louise from CakeJournal promised, the cakes all had perfect little domes. The vanilla cupcake recipe is from Joy of Baking and is very easy to mix up. I prefer to pipe the batter into the cupcake cases. I find I get a more even result like this, and can control exactly how much batter goes into into each one.

Vanilla Cupcakes and Royal Icing Flowers

Yes, my new piping tips have arrived. I am thrilled. Not having a cake to decorate on the day that they came, I decided to whip up come royal icing and make sugar drop flowers. The next day, not knowing what to do with a rather large pile of sugar flowers, I baked cupcakes.

I really like cupcakes. Perhaps now more than ever before. I know that they've been gaining popularity for some time now, and so I'm probably a little late in saying this. But I really like cupcakes.

They're the perfect size for a sweet treat that isn't crippling with guilt. The recipes are easy to double or halve as I see fit. They're wonderful for giving away to friends and family. They're very cute. And they're yummy.

The first twelve of mine went into the oven that was accidentally overheated to 220°C, and were promptly forgotten about, so they came out slightly darker than intended with strange, scary, lopsided domes. But my dogs enjoyed them immensely. 

Royal Icing

2 large egg whites
3 cups of icing sugar
1tsp lemon juice (optional)

Beat the eggwhites until frothy (with the lemon juice if using). Gradually add the icing sugar while beating, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl, until the icing is at the consistency you want it. It should barely be able hold a peak if you're using it to ice cookies, or a little stiffer if you're piping decorations. Cover the royal icing when not using as it can dry out very quickly.

For piping flowers, scoop out as you need and colour it as you like. Fill a piping bag fitted with a drop flower tip. Pipe onto baking paper with the pastry tip literally touching the paper. Hold the piping bag at a 90° angle to the surface you're piping on and twist as you squeeze. Lift only when the flower is complete. If you like, you can then go over all your flowers and pipe a center onto all of them.

Vanilla Cupcakes
Makes about 45 mini cupcakes.

100g butter
185g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla bean paste (or the seeds scraped from one vanilla bean)
2 large eggs
200g self raising flour
1/2cup milk

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each. Add the flour and milk in alternate batches and fold in with a spoon.

Spoon mixture into mini cupcake tin lined with paper cupcake cases. Fill them only about half full, as the cake will rise during baking. Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes or until cooked (test with skewer) and slightly golden on top.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream


90g egg whites (about 3)
160-180g white sugar, depending on how sweet you want it
250g butter, or thereabouts, softened

Boil a small amount of water in a smallish saucepan and turn down to a simmer. Place the egg whites with the sugar in a large bowl and put it on top of the simmering water. Whisk the egg whites and sugar over the heat until the sugar is melted, and the mixture feels smooth when you rub it between your fingers.

Take off the heat, and beat with an electric mixer until soft peaks form and the mixture is cooled. At this stage begin to add the butter, a little at a time, until all of it has been added. Your buttercream may appear to curdle, but keep beating and it will come together.

I piped my cupcakes with a closed star tip and a leaf tip. Feel free to pipe whatever you want onto yours.

Chocolate Cup Cakes!

I really love cupcakes. I don't really care about the taste (not much different from normal sized cakes), but they're just so cute! And they're easy to decorate too. You can make them all fancy with buttercream roses, dip them in fondant, add cute little flags, or, if you're not really bothered, they can look incredibly charming with just a dollop of plain old buttercream on top. Also, if you don't want to eat them all (heaven knows why), they're easy to push onto friends and family, especially when kids are involved.

Recently, baking has become my go-to method of procrastination (uni work...pfft), and since I had a big bowl of Swiss meringue buttercream left over from a chocolate cake a couple days ago, I decided to make cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes :D.

The recipe for the buttercream can be found within the chocolate cake link above. The recipe for the cake itself come from Donna Hay's chocolate book. I love Donna Hay, and this is a great chocolate book. I am, however reluctant to post the recipes here on the blog (copyright and such and such). I apologize, but am sure you understand.