Secret Fairy Garden Cupcakes

Add a touch of magic to your cupcakes with these beautiful fairy designs, perfect for any tea party!

These Secret Fairy Garden Cupcakes by Dani Brazier from Blue Door Bakery are adorable and the perfect treat for a magical birthday party.

Secret Fairy Garden Cupcakes

You will need: 

For the cupcakes:

• 6 cupcakes

To decorate:

• flower/modelling paste
• Sugarflair gel colours: Christmas red, gooseberry, party green, melon, lavender and baby pink
• edible glue
• edible glitter
• wafer paper
• rejuvenator spirit

Equipment:

• ball tools
• disposable piping bags
• 126 nozzle
• grass nozzle
• size 2 paintbrush, for glueing
• size 00 paintbrush, for painting
• craft knife
• palette knife
• small cutters: heart, star and blossom
• wood grain embossing mat

Method:

1. Using flower or modelling paste, colour a small amount using red gel colour. Begin by rolling a pea-sized amount of paste into a ball, then use your fingers to taper this into a cone shape. Insert a ball tool into the flat end to indent it. This ensures it will sit on the toadstool base well. Repeat this process three more times, making one a lot larger than the others.
2. Take some white paste and roll it into a ball, then into a cone shape again, making sure the base of this is flat so it stands upright.
3. Make another three. Add a little edible glue and stick on the red toadstool tops.
4. Roll some really tiny balls of white paste with a rolling pin until they are completely flat. Varying them in size looks great so don't worry about getting them all identical. Then add a little glue and stick these randomly on the red toadstool tops.
5. Roll a teardrop shape of brown paste, then gently roll this with a rolling pin until flat.
6. Slice the bottom off. Using a palette knife, gently mark lots of lines in this door for a wood effect. Next, stick this piece on the front of the largest toadstool for the fairy house door.
7.  Add a tiny little ball of brown for the door handle. Mix the gooseberry and green gel colours with a drop of rejuvenator spirit to water down the paint a little. I used a size 00 brush to paint some vines going up the toadstool and some grass going around the base. I also used dark brown gel to paint an outline on one of the white spots and add a cross in the middle to look like a window.
8. Cut out some tiny blossoms and glue on the vine. Cut out a few extra flowers to use later on.
9. Roll out some brown paste and cut out a small rectangle approx. 2.5x1cm (1inx½in) and cut the end into a point. Cut out 2 thin strips of paste and glue these together to form the wooden pole –  sticking them together makes it a little stronger. To emboss with a wood effect mat, press into the mat and roll over with your rolling pin. Stick this sign onto the top of the pole. Using the end of a paintbrush, indent 2 small holes in the sign.
10. Using dark brown gel colour and a size 00 paintbrush, paint a little brown in the two holes and also add the writing to your sign. Remember to go slowly with the writing and use the tip of the brush only so the letters aren’t too thick.
11. Roll out some white paste and cut out a small star approximately 1cm (½in) in size. Cover in a little glue and sprinkle with glitter. Roll out a very thin sausage shape approximately 2.5cm (1in) long. Again, add glue and roll in glitter. Leave to dry.
12. Using some wafer paper, cut out two fairy wings shapes (I researched a few template ideas online, then drew my own). With a craft knife, cut out a few sections of the wings.
13. Brush a small amount of glue on the wings and sprinkle with glitter. Be careful once the glue has been added as this makes the wafer paper fragile.
14. Pick it up and gently bend and shape the wings to curl at the corners a little. Leave to dry.
15. Add a tablespoon of buttercream onto your cupcake. Using a palette knife, flatten and scoop off the excess buttercream leaving a flat top to your cake. Repeat this process on all 6 cupcakes. I did 2 in plain buttercream and 4 in green. I coloured the buttercream green using a mix of gooseberry and party green gel colours.
16. Roll out brown paste and emboss using the wood effect mat. Cut out a circle the same size as the cupcake. Slice a small amount off the bottom, then place on top of the buttercream while it's still wet so it will stick it on.
17.  Roll 3 small pea-size balls. Roll 2 of these into long sausage shapes. Slice it in half and bend these back to form hinge shapes. Add a little edible glue and stick on the hinges and the door handle.
18. Using a small heart cutter, cut out a heart from the brown paste. I chose to do it once it had been placed on the cupcake, though you can do this before if you prefer. Cut out a heart from pink paste and add this in the heart window.
19.  I used a grass nozzle, a disposable piping bag and green buttercream coloured with a mix of gooseberry and party green. Begin by squeezing some buttercream out, then gently pull up as you slowly stop squeezing. The higher you pull up, the longer and wilder looking your grass will be. Cover 4 of your cupcakes with grass. While the grass is freshly piped, add on your decorations. I did one large toadstool, the fairy sign, 3 mini toadstools and the fairy wand. Add on some tiny blossoms in and around the grass. To complete the fairy door, pipe some grass along the bottom of the door and add flowers.
20. Colour some buttercream using baby pink gel colour, then use it to fill a disposable piping bag fitted with a 126 nozzle. To begin, always hold the thick part of the nozzle shape at the centre of the cupcake. The thinner end should be pointing outwards. Gently squeeze, moving your piping bag out towards the edge then back in again, while turning the cupcake slightly. This will form a petal-shaped frill. Repeat until the whole cupcake is covered then add a second layer of these frills on top. To finish off, add on your beautiful wafer paper wings.