Back to church!

Click here to see this photo and information better!

Yesterday, our church hosted 'Back To Church Sunday' - a day for people who had maybe gone to church before, but due to life's busy interruptions may not have gone for a little while... Or maybe a decade or so. When my husband mentioned it was our 10-year-anniversary early next year, I came to truly appreciate how quickly time can disappear!

So, to welcome people back to church...

... I made cupcakes!

My attempt to a) trace the cross used for the 'Back to Church Sunday' flyer, and b) combine and melt two different colours of chocolate; looked a bit like this...

Because nothing says "Welcome back" like chocolate!

After many, many minutes of meticulous piping, a wave of inspiration (though my husband says "insanity") washed over me and I decided to try and capture the idea of re-creation/new life by making fondant butterflies, that I folded and placed on cooling wire, then I drizzled some remaining melted chocolate over once I had traced enough crosses!

I'm finding it easier to make chocolate decorations to go on top of cupcakes... Using baking paper, a snap-lock bag with a small hole in a corner, and a sheet of paper with an image of what you want to trace is all you need. The stencil helps keep the chocolate images consistent... Hopefully no one comes up with the idea of a "chocolate printer", as then I'll be out of a job because of delicious technology.

My husband playing with our new digital camera,
obsessed with being 'artistic'.

I spent a fair amount of time making the icing for these cupcakes. Dropping tiny amounts of alternate colourings (pink & blue) into the mixture, aiming for the exact purple of the flyer cross... I think I came pretty close! But... Again, I had underestimated how much icing I would need, so my second (slightly rushed) batch of icing was more of a "yeah, that's close enough" kind of purple.

I probably spent far too much time organising the 'display' of the cupcakes onto their platters, with the fondant butterflies placed around the edges of each, in between the cupcakes... But I guess that's all part of the fun of creating! :)

I enjoy baking, and I enjoy church.

And I especially enjoy when I get to combine the two!