Last year, just before a family holiday to Disneyland Paris, I baked some Beauty and the Beast inspired cupcakes, my sister (a teacher) had asked me to bake 20+ cupcakes inspired by her favourite film to give to her students on their last day of term.
I wanted to make yellow and blue cakes to represent Belle's yellow dress and the Beast's blue suit, if I'm being completely honest I didn't quite manage to achieve the shade of blue I'd hoped for, sometimes it can be tricky to make blue butter cream as the yellow butter and blue food colouring tend to create a peculiar shade of green (I think I need better food colouring or paste) despite this mishap, I am still quite pleased with the results. I think the effect of using two colours in the icing to represent the characters still works well even if it's not as powerful or vibrant as I'd have liked. I used an edible rose and pearls to top each cake to capture the essence of the popular Disney film even more, as well as using a mixture of brown and blue cupcake cases.
Sponge ingredients:
220g – Butter
220g – Caster Sugar
4 – Eggs
2 tsp – Vanilla Extract
220g - Self-Raising Flour
3 tbsp – Milk
Butter Cream ingredients:
280g – Butter
560g – Icing Sugar
Blue Food Colouring
Yellow Food Colouring
Edible Pearls
Sugar Roses
Firstly, mix together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, then add the eggs one by one. Continue to mix until all four eggs and the vanilla extract are fully incorporated. Sift and fold in the flour, adding a splash of milk to loosen the mixture before filling each cupcake case ¾ full.
Place the cakes in the oven for approximately 10-15 minutes. Whilst you are waiting for your cakes to rise you can prepare the butter cream icing. To do this you will need to beat the butter until a smooth consistency is achieved, then add the icing sugar bit by bit to ensure there this no overflow or powdery mess to clean up. If the mixture becomes too thick, add a splash of milk, alternatively if the mixture is too runny, add more icing sugar until you achieve the desired consistency.
Place the cakes in the oven for approximately 10-15 minutes. Whilst you are waiting for your cakes to rise you can prepare the butter cream icing. To do this you will need to beat the butter until a smooth consistency is achieved, then add the icing sugar bit by bit to ensure there this no overflow or powdery mess to clean up. If the mixture becomes too thick, add a splash of milk, alternatively if the mixture is too runny, add more icing sugar until you achieve the desired consistency.
Now that your cakes are baked, allow them to fully cool before icing. Add equal amounts of both the blue and yellow icing into the same piping bag. Start from the outside of the cupcake and pipe inwards in a circular motion, getting higher as you move towards the centre. All that's left to do now is to add an edible rose to the top of each cupcake and a generous helping of edible pearls.
(Just in case anyone was wondering; I bought the edible roses from Sainsbury's at the time but I'm sure they're also easy enough to find and purchase online.)
I hope you enjoyed reading about my Beauty and the Beast Cupcakes, be sure to leave a comment down below if you decided to give them a go or if you've been inspired to bake something else Disney themed!
(Just in case anyone was wondering; I bought the edible roses from Sainsbury's at the time but I'm sure they're also easy enough to find and purchase online.)
I hope you enjoyed reading about my Beauty and the Beast Cupcakes, be sure to leave a comment down below if you decided to give them a go or if you've been inspired to bake something else Disney themed!