How cute are these turtle and sea life cupcakes? Follow our step-by-step recipe to make your own. We think the kids are going to love these cake decorations.
These decorations will need to be made at least 24 hours in advance or they will not hold in the buttercream. They can be left to dry in a card cake box or air dried under a cake cover. Drying sponges are great to shape decorations too.
These decorations will only work with modelling paste or you can also add gum tragacanth to fondant if you wish. It would be 1tsp per 250g of fondant.
Ingredients
- 1 batch of cupcakes
- 1 batch of buttercream
- 60g chocolate or brown fondant
- 15g orange modelling paste
- 20g red modelling paste
- 20g pink modelling paste
- 15g yellow modelling paste
- 65g white modelling paste
- 10g green modelling paste
- 2g black fondant
- 5g green fondant
- White and blue sprinkles
- Blue colouring (Sugarflair Sky Blue)
- ½ square of dark chocolate
- 2 strands of dried spaghetti
Step 1
To make 4 pieces of coral, roll the orange modelling paste out to 2mm thick and use whatever you have to cut holes in the paste. Use plain piping nozzles. Leave to then to dry on a sponge or greaseproof paper.
Step 2
For the sea weed, cut long thin strips with a sharp knife or ribbon cutter. Twist and leave to dry on a sponge or greaseproof paper.
Step 3
Look around the house to see what you have to make patterns and shapes. A garlic press is great for long thin strands of fondant to look like sea plants. If you would like the strands to be multi coloured, don’t clean it before you pop the next colour in.
Step 4
Add the 5g of green fondant to 40g of modelling paste and knead well to make a light green colour.
Step 5
For the heads, roll a small ball of light green paste (about 3cm) and using the ball tool add eye sockets.
Step 6
To add eye lids, roll small green balls of green paste and using the ball tool press firmly in the centre and with a brush of water stick these into the eyes sockets.
For the eye balls, roll tiny ball of white, brown and black and stick them to one another pressing them flat with the tip of your finger and with a brush of water stick them into the sockets. If the ball tool sticks to the paste, add a touch of veg fat or dip it into cornflour.
Step 7
To paint the skin melt a ½ square of dark choc in the microwave for 10 seconds and then painted dots on with a small paint brush (that’s been used for food only)
To make the smile, push the edge of one of the piping nozzles into the paste and use the small ball tool to give the smile shape.
Step 8
To make the shell, mix the chocolate fondant and 20g of modelling paste together. Don’t mix too much as it will give the shell a pattern. Roll 20g balls at tap the on the counter to make the underside flat.
To make the turtles legs, roll small sausage shapes and press flat with your finger moulding to a point at one end and curving round. Paint the chocolate dots on and with a brush of water along the fatter edge, stick the shell on top.
Step 9
Add a small ball of green paste for the neck and push 2 small strands of spaghetti into the neck for extra support and then push the head onto the spaghetti. Leave to set for 24 hrs before making your cupcakes.
Make and bake your basic cupcakes and leave to cool completely.
Step 10
Make the buttercream and colour 1/3 blue. Add the Wilton 1M tip to the piping bag and pop the bag into a tall glass or picnic cup. Spread the blue buttercream around the edge of the bag keeping the centre free for the white buttercream.
Add the white to the centre of the bag, twist the bag at the top of the icing pushing all the air up out of the bag as you do so.
Step 11
Pipe onto the counter until you have the blue edges and then pipe your desired swirl on the top of the cupcakes adding the blue and white sprinkles before the icing dries.
Step 12
Add the dried turtles and decorations to your finished cupcakes and serve.