Pre-heat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Place the Baking Cases into a bun tin. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Gradually beat in the eggs, if the mixture starts to curdle, add a little flour.
Fold in the remaining flour and the Cocoa Powder with a metal spoon.
Place spoonfuls of the mixture into the baking cases and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch. Remove from oven, leave to cool on a cooling rack.
To decorate, smooth the Chocolate Buttercream over the top of each fairy cake, you can use a palette knife of the back of a spoon to do this.
Take the coloured fondant to make the bugs:
To make the snails; knead the blue fondant until soft and pliable. Roll into a long thin sausage shape about 15-20cm, roll the fondant sausage around its self to create the snails shell. Repeat this to make a 5 or 6 snail shells. Take a small amount of the yellow fondant and knead until soft and pliable and roll into a thicker sausage shape than the shells. Place the yellow fondant around the shells to create the snails head and tail, repeat this so you have a body for all the shells. Finally place 2 very ball balls of black fondant on each snails head to create the eyes and leave to set.
To Make the caterpillar; knead the green fondant until soft and pliable, take a marble size of fondant and roll into a ball, repeat until you have 12 green balls of green fondant. Repeat the above step with the yellow fondant to create 18 yellow marble size balls of fondant. Take the red fondant and create 6 balls of fondant slightly larger than the yellow and green ones as these will be the caterpillar’s heads. Now you need to stick the fondant balls together to make 6 caterpillars, start with the red ball as the head. Finally place 2 very ball balls of black fondant on each snails head to create the eyes and leave to set.
To Make the ladybirds: roll 5 fondant balls roughly 2 cm in diameter, then flatten each one slightly, use a knife to carefully make an indent in the centre of the circle to create the wings. Roll 5 marble size balls out of black fondant and stick to the red fondant balls to create the ladybirds head. Add some small balls of black fondant onto the red fondant to create dots onto the ladybird.
Place the fondant bugs on top of your iced fairy cakes. For an even more creative finish crush some chocolate biscuits and sprinkle over the buttercream to represent soil.
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