Cupcake Sock Madness & Star Wars Cake

Ladies Pastel Sock Cupcake

Disney Sock Cupcake

Well this weekend I thought i'd get organised and make up my cupcake socks for easter and the next Maker's Market. I went to Everything's a £1 and invested in some bargain kiddies socks. I got a couple of 3packs of disney ones but they didn't have many nice colours or a wide range of childrens sizes so I just got the two packs.


Adult Sock Cupcake with Creme Egg

 I already had some pastel pinky purple colours left from the last craft sale but they were all ladies size 4-7 with love heart sweets, so I unravelled them and removed the sweets. Now I just needed to get some sweets to put on top of the cupcake before they were re-wrapped. Then I went to the supermarket and got a couple of packs of 6 and 8 plain white trainer socks. They were only a couple of pounds per pack and although I really wanted a collection of colours (ideally browns) so it looked like chocolate cupcakes, they were all mostly black. Never mind, at least with white it will be unisex, match all colour cupcake cases and with them being plain I can use them for all occasions.


Kids Sock Cupcake


I've just about covered all sizes; my selection now includes:
Mens 7-11
Ladies Pastel colours 4-7
Girls Disney 12-3&1/2
Girls Disney 9-12
Kids 12-3&1/2
Kids 9-12
Kids 6-8
That should just about cover it. They also had these little boxes of pipecleaner chicks, 16 in a box for £1 (obviously). So I grabbed a box of those too, because I thought they'd look cute on top of the cupcakes for Easter. They were also doing little packs of mini creme eggs so I picked up a bag of those too as I knew i'd run out of eggs. I wandered into Home Bargains to see if they still had little 9 piece cupcake stands on sale that i'd spotted the week before and resisted buying. I got one as part of a cupcake making kit but as I was now over-run with socks thought I best get a second one!

It was only £3.99 and I spotted packs of silicone cupcake cases! The colours were a bit gory but they were only 79p for a pack of 6 and everywhere else i'd been they were about £2 a box (and some boxes were only in a pack of 4). So I took every one off the shelf. They had a lovely baby blue which I thought would look a bit more "manly" amongst all the pinks & purples. They also had a bright orange and a spring green which I thought would look perfect for easter type colours and a red which again could work for valentines day and christmas and also is unisex. I just wish they'd had some yellow (to go with the easter theme). Just when I thought i'd finished I spotted little nets of pastel foil wrapped eggs and grabbed a couple of packs of those too! They were just small milk chocolate ones but would look perfect as cupcake toppers...and since they were pastel coloured but not patterned (unlike the mini creme eggs) I could re-use them in future if they didn't sell as they were "occasion neutral". I checked the sell by dates and i've got til 2013 to shift them!!! As for the chicks, if they dont go i'll have to re-wrap and replace with something christmas themed for the Christmas stall, and if the ones with the creme eggs dont sell, well i'll just have to eat them myself!!!! Well....if i'm replacing them anyway.

I went to a local craft stall to top up on clear cellophane. I resisted the urge to get easter patterned and went for clear plain convincing myself it would make the stuff inside easier to see and again occassion neutral so that I could use it all year round. I did buy some celebration brand patterned ribbon. I wish I hadn't thougth, I know its only £1.99 in hobbycraft but I got charged £2.20 in the local craft shop plus VAT on top of that (£2.64) so I'll be avoiding buying there again. I know its not much but when its only a 5m small roll that's quite a price hike....good job I only bought 1 roll.

And here is my box of finished goodies. I know i've got ages before Easter but i'd rather get it out of the way. I even remembered to label the cupcakes with the socksize on the bottom - as they're all really similar looking. I did put two pairs of the smaller sized socks in the cupcake cases as one pair looked a bit feeble and didn't fill the silicone case. I marked on the bottom which ones were 2pks as well as I know i'd come unstuck if people asked, and believe me you do get asked the strangest questions on a craft stall.

It was also my hubby's birthday and being the Star Wars nerd that he is...and knowing hopw much I love baking, he spotted a cake tin on ebay. Its actually older than me, I think technically it can be classed as vintage - which makes me feel old! I made him a vanilla sponge and covered the cake in yellow roll out icing. The detail from the cake tin wasn't so obvious when you put the icing on so I layered it up a bit, but the face went a bit wrong. Never mind, you can still tell who it is! I also bought some liquid edible gold food colouring which absolutely stinks of solvent when you paint it on. I didn't have a food grade paint brush so used a silicone pastry brush which I think was my downfall. I think I put it on too thick. As when we came to eat it on the same day as decorating....some pieces tasted a bit metallic. However we've since discovered after slowly polishing off the cake wedge by wedge that you cant taste the gold at all now. It must need time to dry or disperse through the icing rather than eating it straight away. Its a lovely cake but as I stuck the icing on with chocolate spread rather than buttercream it is a tiny bit dry - so next time i'll use jam or buttercream. I was nervous of using buttercream because 1) I wasn't sure I had enough icing sugar and 2) it can alter the shape of the cake if you put it on too thick, and this one had already lost a bit of definition by the time I put the icing on. So here it is.....