At the Make Lounge on the weekend, Natalie and I learned how to make cupcakes look pretty. During the workshop we learned how to ice cupcakes using a piping bag, how to make decorations out of marzipan and how to add delicate touches with a small piping bag.

The most important lesson I learned though was that glitter makes everything look better. One of the first colours of icing I made was lilac. Well, that's what I wanted to make. When I added the purple colouring to the icing, I expected it to go lilac and it actually went a horrible purple grey colour. It looked horrible in the bowl and horrible on the cupcake. Luckily, after I added some pink marzipan hearts and a liberal dose of glitter to the "purple" cupcakes they once again looked edible. Actually, I think they even looked a little bit pretty.

After the poor results with purple, I switched to pink and yellow. You can't go wrong with either of these colours. I think my favourite cupcake was one where the icing had a pink & yellow swirly effect. The effect can be made by putting two colours of icing into the one piping bag. It was pretty.

I found the workshop really useful. I'm a self-taught cook, so often I don't know all the little tips and tricks. Like folding the piping bag over your hand to make it easier to get the icing in. I've had some messy experiences with piping bags in the past. Now I know how to do it properly. Often I come home and tell these things to Andrew. He had a baking mentor so he usually just says "duh!".

I took the cupcakes along to a dinner party with the Holicka family. Gaby (age 7) made a beeline for one of the pink cupcakes. It had pink icing, pink hearts and glitter on it. It was the definition of girliness. I was a bit worried that all the cupcakes would be too girly for Dylan (age 4) but he picked the pink & yellow swirly one. I called it the fire cupcake.

The cupcakes were a big hit with the kids and also with this big kid. I'm really impressed with how easy it was to make them look so good. I just need to practice my piping and I'll soon be churning out beautiful cupcakes like a professional.

Some cupcake baking tips:

• Bring all ingredients to room temperature before using. Adding cold eggs or cold milk to a mixture will cause it to curdle.
  
  
• If the mixture looks as if it may curdle when incorporating the eggs, add a spoonful of flour.
  
  
• When adding the flour, stir only until it is all mixed in - over mixing at this stage will result in a heavy, rubbery sponge.
  
  
• Bake at a lower temperature than most recipes call for.
  
  
• Turn cupcake tray around in oven halfway through for even baking.
  
  
• Foil cupcake cases will retain cake freshness longer than the paper variety
  
  

More photos on Flickr.