Decorating Tutorial and Recipe: Game of Thrones Cupcakes

Ok so this post took me slightly longer than I was expecting to write, and it’s a really long post so for once I shall make use of the jump break feature! Seriously I've written essays shorter than this post! There are also quite a few pictures.

I’ve wanted to do some Game of Thrones (GoT) themed baking for ages and in a stroke of good fortune one of my favourite Youtube channels is hosting a GoT themed contest right now. This gave me the perfect excuse! So here I present 2 designs of cupcake; one is incredibly easy while the other is a bit more advanced. I’ve also included my lemon cakes recipe.

I suppose the best place to start this would be with the cupcake recipe.

Sansa’s Lemon Cupcakes
Given that this is a GoT themed post I figured the cupcakes simply had to be lemon flavoured. Many fan sites and the official cookbook include a recipe for lemon cake, but I always imagined Sansa’s favourite cake to be more like a cupcake, especially since there are many references to them being served with tea. So here is my interpretation of Westros Lemon Cake, just a warning this cake has a very strong lemon flavour, so if that isn’t your cup of tea I’d suggest reducing the amount of lemon juice in the mix.

Makes 12
Ingredients
115g/4oz self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
115g/4oz softened butter or margarine
115g/4oz caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
zest and juice of one lemon (about 2tbsp of lemon juice)

Method
First, preheat the oven to Gas 5/190 C then sift the flour and baking powder together in a large bowl. Then add the margarine, sugar, eggs and lemon zest, and with an electric whisk beat everything together. When all the ingredients and combined add the lemon juice and continue to beat until the mixture is smooth.

Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake cases and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

These cakes taste great as they are, but as I said the lemon flavour is quite strong to help combat this I suggest using a really sweet icing to finish off the cakes, something like cream cheese frosting or sugarpaste. The sweet icing helps to balance the sharp lemon flavour.

And now let’s move onto the decorating tutorials, both of these tutorials are themed to the house sigils as we all know what house you belong to is an important part of how well you can play the game ;)

GoT Decoration: House Sigil Cupcake Toppers
These cupcake toppers are extremely easy to make and are perfect for when you want themed cupcakes but don’t have the time to do anything too fancy. Making cupcake toppers could also be a good way of amusing children for a little while. And the beauty of these are that they can be adapted to any fandom by simply changing the pictures (I’m currently working on some nifty Lord of the Rings ones).

You Will Need
A set of pictures to use for the toppers
Cocktail sticks, one for each topper
Scissors
Adhesive of some kind, I used sellotape

Step OneCut out the images you want to use, for this tutorial I used pictures of the House Sigils that I found using Google images. If you don’t want to go trawling Google for suitable images of the house sigils the fan site, Inn at the Crossroads has some lovely toppers available to download and print off:
http://www.innatthecrossroads.com/2011/04/28/heraldic-banner-cake-toppers/

Step Two 

Using whatever adhesive you prefer simply stick the cocktail sticks to the back of the pictures. If you don’t want the sticks to be visible on the back, just glue another copy of the picture onto the back. Be aware that if you want double-sided flag toppers, the back image needs to be a mirror image of the original. If it isn’t the picture on the back will be upside down (I discovered this while making the Lord of the Rings ones!)

And you’re done! Now just stick them into some cakes :) I know these are insanely easy to make but it’s certainly cheaper than buying cupcake toppers! Now let’s move onto something a little more complicated.

GoT Decorating: House Sigil Cakes
These are a bit more complicated and time consuming than the banner cakes above, but they really are worth the effort! Remember I’m still a beginner at working with sugarpaste so if I can do it so can you! If they don’t look amazing the first time around, just remember that practice makes perfect.

Each of these cakes uses the same basic techniques so I’ll give some general instructions which can be applied to any of the houses first and then some more specific ones for each house I made. I made cakes based on the following houses: Tyrell, Tully, Stark and Arryn

General Instructions
You will need
Cupcakes
Frosting
Sugarpaste in appropriate colours
Luster dust in appropriate colours (optional)
Icing sugar (to dust your work surface with)
A rolling pin
Circular biscuit cutter in the size you want the background to be
Cutting implement, I used a scalpel but a sharp knife works equally well.
Paper templates/reference pictures
Paintbrush and a little water

Step One
Cover the top of your cake in a thin layer of frosting; this doesn’t have to be neat as the frosting is just there to glue the sugarpaste down. Then roll out some sugarpaste in the background colour of your design (e.g. green for House Tyrell), using the biscuit cutter cut out a circle and place it on top of the cake.

Step Two
Option 1: Roll out the next colour needed for the design (e.g. gold for House Tyrell), place a template on top of the icing and cut it out. Then with a paintbrush apply a little bit of water to the icing you have cut out and then carefully place it onto the cupcake.

Option 2: Take some of the next colour needed for the design (e.g. gold for House Tyrell) and using your reference image as a guide, make a model of the piece you need to make (e.g. the crescent of house Arryn). When you are happy use a paintbrush to apply a little water to the back and place it onto the cupcake.

I used a combination of these methods when making the cakes.

Step 3
Changing icing colour where necessary continue to add the details to the sigils, and like before use a small amount of water to stick the parts together.

Specific Instructions: House Tyrell
You will needGreen sugarpaste
Yellow sugarpaste
Gold luster dust (optional)

Growing Strong

The sigil of House Tyrell is the golden rose, and looking at the artwork in my opinion the design is very similar to a Tudor Rose. So feel free to use a picture of the Tudor Rose as a reference if you want.

Start by topping the cake with a circle of green sugarpaste, then using yellow sugar paste either cut out or model the base of the rose. Then carefully add the details: the petals, lines and circle in the centre (see image above). Finish by dusting the yellow sugarpaste with some gold luster dust; just make sure any water on the icing is dry first!

Specific Instructions: House Stark
You will need
White sugarpaste
Grey sugarpaste
Black piping icing (one of those prefilled icing tubes works perfectly)
Green luster dust (optional)

Winter is Coming

The sigil of House Stark is obviously the direwolf and it’s a lot easier to make than it looks. The use of luster dust is optional, as Google has shown me 2 versions of their sigil. One with green on and one with a plain white background, so go with whatever design you prefer.

Starting with a circle of white sugarpaste, then using a paintbrush carefully brush on the luster dust onto the bottom half of the circle (optional). Then roll out the grey sugarpaste and cut out the direwolf shape (this is easier with a template). Transfer the direwolf onto the white circle, then using the black piping icing; trace the outline of the wolf. Then continuing with the black icing add in extra details like an eye, ear and the fur.

Specific Instructions: House Tully
You will need
Red sugarpaste
Blue sugarpaste
White sugarpaste
Grey sugarpaste

Family, Duty, Honour

House Tully has a rather angry looking trout as their sigil, which like the direwolf is a lot easier to make than it looks.

To start cut out a circle of red sugarpaste, then make a half circle of blue sugarpaste and place it on the bottom half of the red circle. Then roll out two sausages of white sugarpaste, shape them into a wave shape and place them onto the red/blue circle. In an ideal world the top wave should hide as much of the red/blue join as possible. Finally cut out or model the fish shape, and using the point of a cocktail stick carefully scratch on some of the details, for example an eye and the speckle pattern on its back.

Specific Instructions: House Arryn
You will need
Blue sugarpaste
White sugarpaste

As High as Honour

Finally we come to House Arryn, whose sigil features a bird and a crescent (moon?).  I think this is the easiest sigil cake to make and my favourite of all the ones I made.

Begin with a circle of blue sugarpaste, then either cut out a ring of white sugarpaste or make a long sausage of white and shape it into a ring shape. Place on top of the blue circle and then continuing with the white sugarpaste, cut out a crescent and small bird shape. Remember to cut some small slits into the bird’s wings to suggest feathers, carefully place both inside of the white ring.

And there we have it a selection of Game of Thrones cupcakes, I had an awful lot of fun making these and I hope you give them a try to. Me and my mum have loads more ideas for more Game of Thrones themed cakes so keep an eye out for more tutorials! I want to make something for each of the houses, well maybe not Lord Bolton I’m not a fan of his and of course the Night’s Watch isn’t really a house in the traditional sense but I have something pretty epic planned for them!