St George’s Day cupcakes recipe

Celebrate St George’s Day (23rd April) with these impressive cupcake toppers. A classic red rose and an easy-to-make edible banner make a simple and elegant finish to your cakes. Learn how to make handmade, edible roses with our cupcake queen, Victoria Threader's simple step-by-step guide. A soft vanilla sponge and a light vanilla buttercream means these cakes are full of flavour so they not only look good, they taste good too – Happy St George’s Day!

Ingredients

For the cakes:

• 150g self-raising flour
• 150g softened butter
• 150g golden caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 3tbsp milk, room temperature

For the buttercream:

• 100g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 200g icing sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½tbsps milk

For the toppers:

• 200g white ready-to-roll fondant
• 250g flower/modelling paste (from Sainsbury’s)
• Red food colouring
• Green food colouring
• Gold lustre
• White alcohol

You will also need:

• Deep muffin pan with 12 cupcake cases
• Medium rose leaf cutter
• Sharp knife
• Food bag, cut open to create a folder
• Alphabet clear stamps
• Fine paint brush
• 68mm circle cookie cutter

Method

1. For the cakes:
   1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 and line your baking tray
   2. Add all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat until smooth. Don’t overbeat or the cakes will be greasy.
   3. Fill the cases and bake for 25 minutes
   4. Remove from the oven and cool in the tins for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack
   For the buttercream:
   1. Add all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat until smooth, about 8 minutes with an electric hand whisk.
   For the toppers:
   1. When the cakes have cooled, spread the buttercream on the tops of the cupcakes.
   2. Roll the fondant and cut 12x 68mm circles. Place one circle on each cupcake and smooth the edge with the tips of your fingers
   3. To make the rose: Colour 150g of modelling paste, red. Roll into a long sausage about 2cm thick. Cut 10 thin discs with a sharpe knife for each rose and pop them between the food bag with the bottom edge of the disc down. Close the food bag so it’s over the top of the discs. Press each disc with the heel of your hand and then smooth the top edges of the disc with your thumb to get a thinner edge. Once all the petals have been smoothed take one of the discs by pulling them up off the food bag from bottom to top, so you get the curve as you pull. Petal no.1 needs to be rolled from one side to the other, nice a tight to create the rose centre. With other petals, and with a brush of water, stick the petals over the joins as you build your rose, curling the top edges over and pinching slightly in the middle or the top of the petal. When you have finished, trim the excess off the bottom so your rose will sit flat on the cupcakes. Continue until you have 12 roses. Remember to keep the petals covered with the food bag until you are ready to use them.
   4. For the leaves: Colour 40g of paste green and roll quite thinly to cut 24x rose leaves with the cutter.
   5. For the banner: Roll 60g of modelling paste into thin strips and emboss ‘St George’s Day with the alphabet clear stamps. Trim them to size, cutting a triangle out from each end to finish it off. Once all 12 banners have been made, paint the letters with a fine brush by mixing the gold lustre with white alcohol to make a thick paint. Let the banners dry slightly (about half an hour) before popping onto the tops of the cupcakes.
   6. With a bush of water, stick 2 rose leaves, a rose and the banner to the tops of the cupcakes.

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