A cupcake bouquet

By Konnie Kara on 13 Dec 2010 1 comment

The newest celeb chef on the block to hit the wedding scene is former journalist, food writer and presenter, Beverley Glock - founder of Splat Cooking Ltd. I’m blogging about her because  Splat has just opened cookery workshops, including special ones for bridal showers and hen parties - something I know is destined to be a massive hit with brides!

Beverley has a ‘no faffing' attitude to food and loves to inspire not-so-confident hens and bridal shower party members on how to bake and cook without getting bogged down by fussy, difficult to follow recipes or taking up too much time and expense. The idea is that cooking and baking are fun and also even more fun when done with a group of your best girlies. I think the cookery school and Beverley’s ideas for brides are really wonderful concepts – especially since the cookery schools cater to all levels of ability. The biggest push is for brides who’d like to either order some totally bespoke and arty cookie favours which Beverley can make for you on order.

You can totally custom make the kit too by choosing which cookie shapes you would like such as bells, hearts, dresses, shoes, tiered wedding cakes and flowers. The cookies and cupcakes are also available through the workshops - which I’d highly recommend as an alternative hen party idea. 

If you opt for an at-home cookie or cupcake making party, Splat will come to your venue and run the party for you, bringing all the ingredients and utensils. Brides can learn to make their own cupcake or cookie wedding cake favours by ordering a wedding favours kit online too. The kit normally includes 20 cookies but special orders and larger orders can be arranged. 

The kit includes a written guide with step-by-step instructions, icing, baking ingredients, either ready made cookies or cookie cutters, sprinkles and cases in case you are making cupcakes instead. Beverley’s cookie cutters from Splat are a hit with other celebrity chefs too, namely Nigella Lawson who used them in her book ‘Feast’and Peggy Porschen who used them in her book ‘Pretty Party Cakes’.

For the registry wedding, I had given Beverley an order to make beautiful butterfly cookies which I will give to guests as favours and use as place settings too. I have chosen the cookies to be iced in my bright purple, pink and orange theme with glitter and gold and wrapped in pristine cello wrap. My delivery came this morning and oh my GOD, they are beautiful! The cookies look like art and I love her ability to come up with such gorgeous designs simply by me speaking to her. I’ve picked up ribbon from Hobbycraft and will just finish the favour packaging by tying the orange ribbon to the cookies tonight.

Recently, Beverley made the wedding press for creating the UK’s first ever 'cupcake bouquet' which was, as you guessed, an eye catching and original bouquet made entirely out of cupcakes instead of flowers. It was featured on TV’s The Wedding House series and was a pretty cool alternative idea to a traditional bouquet. Cupcakes from the bouquet were then picked out and given as gifts to her bridesmaids as a ‘two for one’ style idea. I thought it was genius! And so did another bride who thought the cupcake idea would make an unusual table centre piece and had them designed by Beverley. 

I am so impressed with Beverley’s designs for my registry that I’ve ordered in some plain shoe biscuits for my pre wedding henna ceremony and am running a competition amongst my aunts, friends and cousins on who comes up with the kind of shoe Carrie Bradshaw would wear, and not the kind Nora Batty would! I’ve ordered 20 cookies in shoe shapes and all that is required is that my girls decorate the shoes in the most fabulous way possible and then give the icing a hour to dry. The sample Beverley sent me tasted absolutely scrumptious - although I did feel a tad guilty chomping it down because it looked so pretty.  

I got some invaluable advice from Beverley on everything you need to know about her wonderful company and why the cookie kits could add a lot of fun to your hen party:

How did you get into cookery?

Beverley Glock: I rebelled against my Mum who hates cooking and doesn’t see the point. I loved Food and Nutrition at school and wanted to do it as an A Level but my Mum talked me out of with the classic comment of: ‘you’re never going to be a chef!’ The thing was, I loved food and never quite got rid of my fascination. I used to throw huge dinner parties for friends when I moved to London in my 20s and was famous for my Chinese Banquets when I’d make Crispy Duck from scratch and hang the duck in the cold store in the house I shared (much to the disgust of my housemates) for three days before the party. I’m a completely self taught cook and develop my own recipes through experimenting with food and ingredients.

When did you decide to get Splat involved in weddings and why?

Beverley Glock: I had a couple of ladies on one of the Posh Icing workshops who wanted to make wedding favours for one of the weddings she was doing and I thought it would be  cheaper and more fun for brides and hens to do it themselves. That gave me the idea of putting together a bespoke workshop where I could coordinate the cookies and icing with the bride’s wedding colours and theme and it would work as a hen party or bridal party workshop. 

What are the main questions every bride needs to ask you as you start the designing process for wedding cookie favours?

Beverley Glock: I need to get really good idea of her wedding, the theme, colour scheme (specific shades not just the colour, it’s no good saying ‘pink’ as this could be cerise, fuschia, baby pink, salmon, flamingo or a huge variation on those shades), table settings, budget,  what size, andif it’s wedding favours how does she want them wrapped, what her timescale is, flavours and if there is anyone in the group or guest list with allergies that I need to cater for.

How well are your cooking classes for hens doing? What usually happens on them?

Beverley Glock: They’re going really well. We did a hen party two weeks ago with the bridal group making cupcakes and sugar paste roses and butterflies. I did wonder whether they wanted to go for a more raunchy theme but they were a very sedate bunch of ladies. This was the actual hen party rather than a wedding favours event so we were a little surprised they opted for a more traditional style because as you know we can do bra and knicker cookies, shoes and handbags too. Before the class we’ll qualify out the budget and how long the bride would like the event to run. If it’s a shorter event, say two hours, we’ll pre-bake the cakes or cookies and get the icing ready and bring it along so they can start decorating straight away. When we have more time, we can start from scratch with the guests making the cookies or cupcakes and the icing. This is a much better option as this way they’re more likely to make goodies again afterwards as they understand the recipes and how to achieve certain finishes.

How did you come up with the idea of online cookie kits?

Beverley Glock: We have customers travelling from Scotland, Ireland and Europe to attend our workshops but when I started getting enquiries for groups over six it became harder and more difficult to get everyone down to the cookery school. So the kits came out of a demand. We decided to make kits that we can send out all around the world so that anyone, anywhere in the world could have one of our bespoke wedding favours kits and decorate when and where they wish. Also the kits are ideal to link up with a spa weekend, cottage weekend, pre wedding party - like yours! - or other hen party events when you’ve got a few hours to chill in the afternoon.

How did you come up with the concept of Splat Cooking?

Beverley Glock: My eldest daughter wanted a cooking party for her fifth birthday and I couldn’t get anyone to come and run this type of party outside London so I did it myself.  Friday evenings were always pizza nights when she and her younger sister plus various friends descended on my house after school to make pizzas from scratch so it was a natural migation to have her friends over for a party and make pizza, fairy cakes and something chocolatey. The first party went down so well I decided to launch it as a business. The workshops, adults workshops and the online business grew from there. The name encompasses the concept of cooking with children and it’s appreciated by adults too as we hopefully sound down to earth and welcoming rather than being a cookery school set up like a chef’s kitchen. We teach real people to cook real food in their own homes as - realistically - very few people have a stainless steel kitchen with full catering oven range.

How do you go about creating wedding favours, bouquets or cookery classes for hens?

Beverley Glock: Ideas come from all sorts of avenues, I recently worked on Channel 4’s The Wedding House on the Alice and Wonderland theme so this was a good way of justifying taking the children to see the film and brush up on the book again, definitely one of the perks. It was my eight year old son’s idea to make a mini cake in the shape of the Mad Hatter’s hat to top one of the cupcake displays in the programme and it worked brilliantly. The cupcake bouquets can be traditional roses but I love to go wild and colourful introducing whacky flower shapes in sugar paste and vibrant colours for brides who want a less traditional feel.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Beverley Glock: Inspiration comes through talking to the bride in great detail about her wedding.  When we spoke you painted a wonderful picture of an eastern, Arabian feel with the colours of purple and orange. I studied pictures of an Arabian harem with lavish cushions and opulent colours and textiles, lush silks and satins in deep, vibrant colours and hopefully these translated well into your biscuits!

What flavours do your cookies and cupcakes come in?

Beverley Glock: We’re pretty flexible and try to use natural flavourings and colourings as much as possible. Biscuits in shortbread, gingerbread, lemon and chocolate are very popular and cupcakes flavoured with lemon, orange, chocolate and vanilla are a hit too.

My icing is coloured and flavoured with various fruit coulis made from scratch by my team, so we use fresh raspberries for pink icing, blackcurrants for deep pink-purple icing, freshly squeezed orange juice for yellow icing. Sponge cake flavouring can be enhanced using sugar syrup that can be made with alcohol if necessary, so I can add Gran Marnier sugar syrup to chocolate cakes, our chocolate orange buttercream is divine, as is the lemon sponge drenched in limoncello with a lovely fresh zesty lemon icing.

What’s been your most lavish creation? 

Beverley Glock: The cupcake bouquet held by the bride in Channel 4’s Wedding House series. She had an  Alice in Wonderland wedding theme in the first episode and the bouquet was constructed from cupcakes iced to look like white roses with an icing plaque in red with the words ‘marry me’. I also made three feet high alter pieces to look like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. There were hundreds of cupcakes attached to huge carved florists oases sitting in giant red and white spotty teacup and teapots with green bamboo and sugarpaste models of the Cheshire Cat, mini Top Hats, mini plaques with ‘Eat Me’, ‘Drink Me’ and ‘Marry Me’, mini roses, hearts and playing cards - everything was totally edible.  This took four full days to create. My lovely colleague Debbie put together the bouquet the day before the wedding - and no superglue or cement was involved!

What are your current trends for wedding favours?

Beverley Glock: Cupcake bouquets definitely and royal iced cookies are still on trend. You can use the cookies to hang on the backs of chairs or as place tags. It would be great to persuade more brides to be a little more adventurous and opt for cupcake displays that look like floral arrangements instead of the classic flowers too.

What novelty designs to brides go for?

Apart from the Alice in Wonderland Wedding brides are being fairly conventional at the  moment and linking in the colours of the bridesmaids with the favours. I’d love to do something totally over the top with whacky colours and designs but, quite sensibly, brides want something that will stand the test of time and not look outdated or silly in 20 years.

To book a cooking party, order bespoke design cupcakes and cookie wedding favours and centerpieces and bouquets, call Splat Cooking on 0870 766 8290 or visit Splatcooking.net.