Le Dolci Cupcakes

Housed in a downtown Toronto kitchen is a wonderland of sparkles, fondant and buttercream. It's called Le Dolci. I was invited by owner/instructor Lisa Sanguedolce (sweet blood in Italian - how perfect!) to take part in the Pride weekend edition of her cupcake decorating class, where we would make colourful cupcake creations.

Launched in the UK in 2009 we have just moved from our icing sugar dusted home in London, UK where we ran some fabulous cupcake decorating classes and met some wonderfully passionate cake aficionados. We hope to meet the same people here and look forward to meeting you and having you taste and decorate our fabulous cupcakes. All of our cupcakes are made with only the finest ingredients, we only use the basics in our recipes, no additives or preservatives we even explore the use of natural food coloring from foods in our classes.

Over the course of the two-hour class, we were shown how to work with fondant to top our cakes, including colouring, stencilling and making shapes. It took a bit of getting used to, as the food colouring can make the paste quite sticky, and figuring out the perfect thickness takes some practice. But Lisa was very helpful and patient with my rank amateurishness.

During the second half of the class, we got to work with piping bags and different shaped nozzles to decorate with brightly coloured buttercreams. This was tougher than I expected! Not only does it take some serious hand-eye coordination, but you need good wrist and hand strength too, to control the flow of icing. The wider nozzles were definitely easier to work with, but, as with the fondant, it just took a bit of practice.

I had a lot of fun with my fellow decorators during this class, and loved seeing where their creativities led them. Plus, at the end of the session, I got to take home a dozen personalized cupcakes! And yes, the cakes were delicious. Just the right size, not excessively sweet, and very light. If you're looking for a unique group activity to share with your friends, Lisa and her classes are just online booking away. Or if you prefer to just eat, you can also order beautiful cakes for your next event.

In the meantime, enjoy Lisa's recipes for her vanilla cupcakes and buttercream icing, below the pictures.

Le Dolci's Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 120 g Flour
• 140 g Caster Sugar
• 1.5 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 pinch Salt
• 40 g Unsalted Butter
• 120 ml Whole Milk
• 1 Egg
• ¼ tsp Vanilla Extract

Yeild: 12 cupcakes

Preheat oven to 170^°C or 325^°F.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in the stand mixer -use paddle attachment.

Beat on slow speed until you get a sandy consistency.

Pour in half the milk slowly and mix until all incorporated.

Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and the remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds.

Pour this mixture into the existing mixture and mix for a couple more minutes.

Scrape sides of bowl to ensure all mixture is included and not stuck at bottom of the bowl.

Mix until smooth, but do not over mix.

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two thirds full and bake in preheated oven.

You can tell that they are ready when they spring back to the touch or are golden brown on the top.

Use a toothpick to test inside to ensure that it comes out dry. If it is wet the cupcake still needs to cook.

Leave cupcakes to cool for 10min and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Once the bottom of the cupcakes are cold then you can transfer to storage.

Le Dolci's Simple Buttercream Icing

• 1 part butter to two parts icing sugar
• e.g. one cube of butter is 454 grams so you would use 908 grams of
  icing sugar to make this recipe, or feel free to use cups.

Method:

Use room temperature butter for best results and whip butter for 2 minutes
before you slowly add icing sugar.

Once all of the icing sugar is added, add a few drops of vanilla extract.

If you would like a thinner consistency, you can add up to 3 tbsp of water
(or milk) to make the icing a little smoother.