Shirt and Tie Cupcakes for Parliament Week

As Parliament is sitting this week, it seemed appropriate to dress up a little!

Our pollies are quite fashion conscious and the choice of tie can be crucial. So I did these 'stuffed shirt' cupcakes to take in to work today.


















First I ganached the cupcakes. You start off with a cooled cupcake, and brush it with a little apricot jam diluted with water.

Then you spread it evenly with ganache (a mixture of cream and chocolate, made by pouring boiling cream onto small pieces of chocolate and stirring until it dissolves and becomes a thick, glossy mixture). The ganache needs to 'set' overnight after it is made to make sure it is the right consistency.

Finally, you dip a small metal spatula in boiling water and smooth the top so that no creases, dips or bumps remain. This gives you a completely flat surface to work with.

 For the shirts, I mixed up some pastel coloured RTR fondant using gel colouring (no one wears really bright business shirts).

Each shirt required one large circle, one wide strip, one little square and one tiny strip the same length as the square. This picture shows the quantities for two shirts.

You also need a contrasting fondant colour for the tie, and from this contrasting colour you need to hand cut a tie about 1cm wide at its widest point, and about 6cm long. You also need two small triangles, one .5 cm wide and one 1cm wide. These are not shown in the pic.





Use the big circle to cover the top of the cupcake. Adhere it with a few drops of water and burnish the top with a piece of flexible plastic, or a small cake smoother, to make the surface absolutely smooth and even.

Fold the wider strip in half lengthways and shape it into a horseshoe, or open-ended circle. This will be the collar of the shirt.









Using a little water on its base, stick the collar onto the top of the shirt.

Then stick the square piece of fondant onto the right side of the cupcake with a tiny drop of water, and stick the little strip across its top with an even smaller amount of water. This will be the shirt pocket.

Using a large needle or a small pointed working tool, prick tiny holes around the edges of the square to imitate stitching on the pocket.

Make the tie from a contrasting colour. You will need to hand-cut the ties, using a tapering oval shape as the base. Make them a little longer than the space between the bottom of the collar and the edge of the cupcake, and when positioning them, bend or fold them up a little so that they are more three dimensional.

For the knot in the tie, cut a tiny triangle out of rolled fondant in the same colour as the tie. Stick this over the top of the tie.

Try to tuck the little corners into the edges of the collar for extra realism :-)

Then cut another triangle, slightly bigger, to make a handkerchief for the shirt pocket. Stick this in place.

Stripey ties are really effective!

For stripes, roll out one colour as your base, to about 4mm thick (slightly thicker than you want it to end up). Lay this aside and cover it with plastic to stop it drying out.

Then take a second colour and roll it out slightly thinner. Cut long thin strips (2mm) from this, using a ruler and a sharp knife. 

Lay the strips across the base colour, making sure they are parallel. Then position your rolling pin and roll firmly in the direction of the strips.

You can then use your new 'stripey' colour to create fashionable ties for your stuffed shirts!



 Happy parliament week!