Lots of plans are afoot in my household right now. After 7 years we are finally throwing away all the horrid bedroom furniture, carpets and curtains from the master and updating it with nice new free standing solid oak furniture. I am so excited! It is the only room we have never touched, we always left it as it would be such a project, but the time has finally come. This also means that I can get on with my final projects for the master which will completely personalise the room. In the meantime I wanted to share with you these Steam Punk inspired cupcakes I made for my husband's birthday.
My husband has expressed an interest in the Steam Punk design a number of times so I felt it would make a great theme for his birthday. When I went looking for cake inspiration there were a lot of wedding cakes with incredible detail. I know that the cakes I would be making would need to travel quite a few miles and therefore they couldn't be too elaborate. Still, the cakes I saw gave me enough ideas. Cogs feature heavily in all designs as well as quite a few metal octopuses.
I found this silicone mould on EBay. There were so many to choose from, you could really go to town with this theme! I decided to use bright white Wilton Candy Melts so that I could paint the cogs any metallic colour I wanted. I also purchased a small lock and key mould which I used for a couple of the cupcakes. I didn't leave them to set for long enough (I got impatient!) so they weren't as neat as I would have liked which you will see on the pictures!
I have a range of Lustre dusts, glitters and edible paint at home. I decided the dark gold paint was perfect as well as the gold lustre dust. I did try using the glitters, but the effect was not what I had in mind.
I spread a thin layer of melted Candy Melts into each cavity and popped it into the fridge to set.
The cogs peeled very easily out of the mould but as you can see they had extra bits around the edges. I carefully broke these off.
All neat and ready for painting.
I used a small paintbrush and painted the first coat. I left this to dry and then patted a second coat over the cogs. I found this gave better coverage.
I also made a second set of cogs with chocolate. I used the gold lustre dust on these to give a warn gold/rust look. As the cogs were chilled, the dust did adhere in corners which gave an uneven effect,
Once they were done I got to work on the octopus. I used chocolate fondant and rolled a large egg like shape for the body. I then rolled out 4 sausage shapes and attached these to the front and sides of the body. I wanted it to look bolted together rather than natural like a real octopus. The glitter was not supposed to get on the tentacle!
I had seen other Steam Punk octopuses with bolted on parts. I decided to roll another sausage, which I cut in two. I then flattened these and attached to the top of the body.
I rolled two small balls to make the eyes.
After that came the small details which would make the octopus look more metallic. I used the other end of the paintbrush to made indents in the tentacles and bolts on the body. I rolled some black fondant out for the middle of the eyes and covered this in black edible glitter.
I then gave the octopus a light dusting of the gold lustre dust.
My octopus topper all done!
I had purchased bronze cupcake wraps in a sale a couple of years ago which I think worked very well with this theme.
The cakes themselves were iced very simply with a swirl of frosting as the main attraction was the cogs and octopus!
I then arranged the toppers on the cupcakes and they were done!
My husband was very happy with his cupcakes and I was pleased with the results.
Have you ever made cakes in this theme? Do you think they are a good design for a male birthday?
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