Cupcakes....

I think cupcakes are one of the most versatile cakes about - you can add any type of flavour and create something really pretty armed with gel dye, sprinkles, fondant and a few cutters. However, I'm a big believer that they have got to taste even better than they look (even though decorating them, for me is half the fun!). My personal favourite is a lemon cupcake filled with homemade lemon curd and topped with a lemon cream cheese frosting. Yum! Others that I tend to create include:

• Chunky double chocolate cake with dark and milk chocolate chunk & either chocolate or vanilla frosting
• Sticky ginger cake with stem ginger and ginger syrup frosting
• Banana and toffee cake with toffee frosting
• Chocolate orange cake with choc orange frosting
• Almond and fresh blackberry cake with almond frosting
• Vanilla and fresh strawberry cake with vanilla frosting
• Carrot cake with lemon frosting

Here are a few of my recent cupcake creations...

 



 

  
V x

An alternative brithday cake....

Although the classics such as vanilla and chocolate always go down so well as birthday cakes (especially if you're carving them to suit a particular design), I always think it's nice to experiment with new flavours.

With this in mind I set about looking for a new recipe for my sister's birthday. Knowing that she isn't a massive fan of buttercream or icing I made an almond and raspberry triple layer cake with a white chocolate sour cream frosting. It was all finished off with a flower paste rose and leaves (courtesy of the tutorial at The Pink Whisk) and a pink ribbon. Here are a few snaps of the finished article!

Almond and Raspberry Triple layer cake with white chocolate frosting

  

V x



Recent celebration cakes...

I wanted to share my latest celebration cakes. Quiet an array of different themes which has been challenging, but good fun!

First up, a Peppa Pig cake for a 2nd birthday. This was a chocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream.

Next, a Manchester United themed cake for a 40th birthday. A lemon syrup sponge filled with homemade lemon curd and buttercream.

A computer themed cake for a 10 year anniversary complete with fondant key board and mouse. This was chocolate cake filled with a chocolate ganache.

Next, a tool box cake compete with edible fondant tools.

Finally, a christening cake from a little while back. This was vanilla syrup filled with vanilla buttercream and  raspberry jam.

Christening cake

Looking forward to the next few cakes which include a Newcastle Brown Ale cake, Handy Manny cake and a 1st birthday cake.

Vx

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes...

As Halloween descends, I thought it was a perfect excuse to carve a pumpkin and use the leftovers to make some delicious baked treats. 

After trying many pumpkin pie recipes previously, I decided this year to bake something different and settled on a cupcake. So armed with my favourite carrot cake recipe as the basis - thinking that the pumpkin would work in much the same way that carrot does in baking - I modified the ingredients to suit the pumpkin. Here is the recipe.

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes

Makes 12-14

Cakes:

• 145g golden caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 120 m sunflower oil
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• grated zest 1 orange
• 200g pumpkin (grated) or butternut squash
• 175g sultanas or raisins

Syrup Glaze:

• 2 tbsp orange juice (roughly 1 small orange)
• 40g golden caster sugar 

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 450g icing sugar
• 110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 150g full fat cream cheese
• 1 tsp of orange essence
• Orange food colouring (if desired) - I used Wilton "Tangerine"

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 160c and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
• Whisk the sugar, eggs and oil together in a bowl using an electric whisk for 2-3 minutes until it thickens and looks a golden colour
• Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into the bowl. Stir together, then fold in the orange zest, pumpkin and sultanas.

The base mixture



• Spoon the mixture into the cases (roughly 2 level dessert spoons per case)





Filled cases ready to bake


• Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until springy when lightly pressed in the centre.
• While the cakes are baking make the syrup by heating all the ingredients in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves
• When the cakes are baked, take out of the oven and make small holes in them with a skewer, making sure that you don’t pierce the bottom of the case. Brush over the syrup and leave to cool on a wire rack.

The cakes ready for frosting

• To make the frosting beat the butter until soft. Then add the icing sugar a spoon full at a time. Finally add the orange essence (or juice), cream cheese and colouring (if using) and combine. Don't over mix as the cream cheese can loosen too much. This can be refrigerated until you need it.
• When the cakes are cooled fill a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle with the topping and pipe onto the cupcakes. Decorate with sprinkles or pumpkin faces!
• Et voila - enjoy with a nice cup of tea!



The finished cupcakes decorated with a few sprinkles



What is your favourite Halloween recipe?

V x

A pie for all seasons...

One rainy Saturday afternoon I treated myself to the new Pieminister book. I've visited the Pieminister shop in St. Nicholas market in Bristol many times and always loved their array of pies. 


Available from here

My first impressions of the book were very good. Lots of lovely pictures, varied sweet and savory recipes and lots hints and tips.

After a good perusal, I made the "Deerstalker Pie" last weekend for friends. This is a venison based pie with celeriac, puy lentils and sausage on a shortcrust base and topped with suet pastry. I decided to cook the venison filling overnight in the slow cooker which worked really well and made sure the meat and veggies melted in the mouth. Then on the Sunday, I made the two types of pastry and assembled the individual pies.

Deerstalker Pie Recipe

The recipe was very easy to follow, produced generous portions (I hate stingy recipes!) and they went down a storm. I served the pies with minted mushy peas, mustard mash, cider soaked spicy red cabbage, roasted carrots and gravy. Yum.

My version

A successful first venture into the world of Pieminister. I'm looking forward to trying more! And, the added bonus of this new addition to the bakery book collection..?

#1. Brownie points from the Cake Pimp (who is originally from Bristol) for making his favourite pies.
#2. Cider. A West Country cider recipe to be exact. Blummin' genius.

Cider Recipe. Genius

Is it wrong to want pie and cider for every meal?!

V x

Pieces of pretty...

I often think about my dream kitchen and the beautiful things I'd fill it with. Don't get me wrong, my current kitchen is lovely and more than suits my requirements. But my dream kitchen? A HUGE double oven, Belfast sink and a homely but uncluttered shabby chic. In the mean time, I lust after various bits and pieces to fund my "baking-and-all-things-kitchen" habit.

First up, Portmeirion Dawn Chorus Pastry Forks. Well you can't eat your pastry with just any fork, can you?



From here

I have also started a collection of Pip Studio, and so far have a range of mugs, teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl. The mix and match patterns and colours are beautiful and go so well with all my Nanna's china plates at a tea party. I adore these little bowls... 

From here

 For storage, this is a beaut. I heart Le Creuset.

From here

A stunning apron. It's almost too pretty to get dirty, put I'd love to bake pretty cakes wearing this.



From here

And finally, (for now!) these bowls.

  

From Jamie Oliver

 

From Jamie Oliver


I'm off to drool over more pretty trinkets...

V x

Banoffee and GBBO...

I'm addicted to TV cookery shows. I'll watch anything. Ranging from Masterchef, Celebrity Masterchef, Australian Masterchef (I love the competitive x-factor edge!), Saturday Kitchen, any celebrity chef programme etc etc etc. I've been told by the Cake Pimp that under no uncertain terms can I get the Sky Food Channels. He is trying to curb my habit. Meany.

I have a particularly soft spot for The Great British Bake Off which finished last week. I love seeing the successes, failures, challenges and the simply fabulous recipes. I love sitting from the comfort of my armchair/soap box stating "I wouldn't do it like that.... I could do that... that's so hard..... wow, look at that!" I also love Berry and Hollywood talking about soggy bases.

As the Beeb has been so kind as to pop the recipes from the show here and after the rave reviews that the winner Joanne received for her Banoffee Pie recipe in the final, I thought I'd give it a whirl. And they were yummy. Really yummy. You can see why she won!

The recipe was surprisingly straight forward. The only sticking point came making the toffee. I took my eye off the saucepan for a second and had a black mess. Oh well, practice makes perfect and the second batch worked much better! I made a slight change to the recipe through the addition of some slices of banana to the top of the toffee. I just thought they'd be better with an added element of flavour and texture. Apart from that, I stuck to the recipe completely.

Here are some pictures of the end results.

The finished result... nom.

Next up on the bake off to test list are the Millefeuilles... I fancy the challenge of the rough puff pastry.

Report to follow!

V x

My first wedding cake....

A few months ago (whilst at Glastonbury festival, randomly!) good friends of mine asked me whether I would bake their wedding cake. My first reaction was WOW, what an honour. My second, holy cow, what if it all goes wrong! My third, definitely yes (my confidence boosted no end by the amount of cider sloshing around my body!)

As an amateur baker, I was quiet daunted by the prospect of producing a tier wedding cake. With nearly 200 guests, the cake needing to be pretty large, and as the wedding was being held in Winchester (and I'm in Manchester) would need to be easily transportable. Gulp. I had a vision of being asked to create something on the scale of the other major wedding of the year - after all, who wouldn't want what C Middy has, right? Thankfully, no. The bride requested a beautiful, simple and elegant cake, topped and based on fresh flowers. Simply gorgeous. I only hoped I could do it justice.

And so the challenge commenced, two months before the big day. Step 1. The fruitcake. A 30cm, 7cm deep, glorious cake. At these times, there is only one way to turn, and that is to Mary Berry. The matriarch of the baking world, I always use her trusty fruit cake recipe. I had to enlist the arm power of my other half (rugby players do come in useful sometimes) to do the final mix. Arm ache from baking, who'd have thought it?! Anyway, I digress. The cake took nearly 5 hours to bake, and much to my relief, came out of the oven a beautiful golden colour and smelling delish. Phew.

The cake was then tightly wrapped in brown paper, cling film and stored away. As any bakeaholic would do, every week I fed my fruit beauty with brandy. Ooh the smell. Heaven.

The other tiers of the cake were lemon syrup cake filled with home made lemon curd and buttercream (middle) and a vanilla cake (top). There was also a separate cutting cake of chocolate with dark chocolate ganache. The trouble with sponge cakes is timing. I decided that I would prefer to make them from fresh in the week leading up to the wedding. This ensured freshness. It also ensured I nearly had a breakdown - a full time job and a four tier cake leads to a very busy (but happy!) me. Once all the cakes were baked, filled, iced and dowelled it was time for the piping of royal icing dots and attachment of ribbon and pearls.

To cut a long story short, I managed to get the cake done by the Wednesday night, leaving time for some last minute changes and additions. It was all boxed up and transported to the venue in one piece (relief) and I assembled it on the morning of the wedding.

For my first wedding cake I was really pleased with the end result. The hard work was definitely worth it and I was chuffed to bits with the comments it received, both in terms of taste and decoration. Those type of comment are why I love baking so much.

Here are a few pictures of the finished result....


The cake just prior to transportation (apologies for the bomb site in the background)



All assembled and ready to go...

The beautiful flowers....

The happy couple cutting the cake...



I can't wait to have another go!

V x

Hello Kitty and other characters...

I love making cakes for children. It's something about the bright colours and playful shapes that never fail to make me smile. Recently I have been asked to bake a wide array of designs, from Triceratops cakes, to themed cupcakes and lots of character cakes. Here are a selection of a few of my favourites...




Hello Kitty cake - dark chocolate brownie cake with chocolate ganache filling

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - vanilla and fresh strawberry cakes with vanilla buttercream

Birthday cupcakes

Triceratops cake carved from vanilla syrup sponge

Next up on my to do list are Peppa Pig, a football themed cake and Special Agent OSO. Wish me luck!

V x

Green fingers...

I was recently asked to create a "garden themed" cake. Here are the results....

Garden themed cake

I very much enjoyed modelling all the edible decorations, including the vegetables for the veg patch. These included carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, leeks and a wigwam of green beans. The picket fence took some time to do, but finished the cake off really well. The cake was a boozy fruitcake.

V x

Hello!

This is my first venture into the world of blog land. I hope to use my blog to document my adventures into baking, sharing successes (and failures), my favourite recipes and other bits and pieces along the way.