Goldilocks and The Three Bears cupcakes

1. Preheat your oven to 160°C/320°F/Gas mark 3. Place 12 cases in your muffin tin.
2. Beat the sugar and butter with the vanilla essence until light and fluffy.
3. Add 1 egg, 1 third of the flour and a splash of milk and beat until just combined and repeat until all the ingredients are mixed.
4. Divide the batter between the 12 cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.
5. Remove and cool in the tins for 10 minutes before moving to a wire cooling rack

To make the buttercream:

1. Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat until smooth and shiny.

To make the bear and baby bear toppers:

1. On greaseproof paper, a silicon baking mat or a glass chopping board, make the toppers while the cakes are cooling. Colour 350g of fondant brown and set aside 30g. Roll to 3mm thick and cut 6 x 78mm circles for the big bears and 3 x 68mm circles for the baby bears. Texturise with the curved nail scissors by snipping into the fondant and lift as you snip to make the fur.
   
2. Chins: mix the 30g of brown fondant with 50g of white to make the light brown for the chins. Roll and cut 6 x 48mm circles for the big bears and 3 x 38mm circles for the baby bears sticking with a brush of water to the chin.
3. Noses: colour 20g of the white fondant black and cut 9 hearts for the noses. Flatten the bottom of the hearts and stick onto the light brown circles. With a toothpick mark a line down from the centre of the nose.
4. Mouth: Using the edge of a 38mm cutter, press into the fondant to make the smile. Mark the tips of the smiles with the end of your soft brush. For the baby bears push the end of the brush into the centre of his mouth and pull down slightly, to give him a ‘shocked ‘expression.
5. Eyes: Using the small circle cutters, cut 18 x 14mm white circles for the eyes. For the baby bear eyes, colour 10g of fondant blue and cut 6 x 10mm circles and stick onto the white eye circles. With the leftover brown fondant cut 12 x 10mm circles and stick them to the white eye circles.
   
6. Colour 20g of fondant black and cut 18 x 6mm circles and stick to the centre of the eyes to make pupils. Stick the eyes on to the heads and use the remainder of the black fondant to make eyebrows/liner etc.
7. Ears: Cut 18 x 14mm circles from the leftover brown fondant to make ears. Press the balling tool (or something round) into the centre of the circles to give you an outline of the ear. Snip the ears with the scissors to make them look furry and stick them in place with a brush of water.
8. Cheeks: Dust the cheeks with a soft brush and a little rose petal dust if using and leave them to set on the dome kits or round objects to give them shape.
   

To make the Goldilocks toppers:

1. Colour 60g of fondant using a teeny dot of tangerine food colour to make a skin tone. Roll and cut 3 x 78mm circles.
   
2. Nose: Add a nose by rolling a tiny ball of skin tone paste and sticking with a brush of water to the centre of the face.
   
3. Mouth: Add the smile by pushing the edge of the 38mm cutter into the fondant under the nose.
   
4. Eyes: Mark eyes by using the smile tool (or the edge of a smaller cutter) to look like Goldilocks is sleeping.
   
5. Hair: Colour 40g yellow and roll into long sausage shapes, placing one at a time with a brush of water to stick. Victoria curled the ends by wrapping the ends around the end of a skewer of toothpick. Finish with a bow in her hair. Victoria used a mould but you could make one by hand or buy ready made ones.
   

1. Ice the cooled cakes by spreading or piping the icing and placing the bear and Goldilocks toppers on top.

Get inspired by our Cif Happily Ever After campaign and start baking fairy-tale style