Cookies and cream cupcakes

My boyfriend has come to stay for a couple of weeks and I know that he loves Oreo cookies so I figured it was about time I made some cupcakes with Oreos in / on them.

I made these with my chocolate recipe, ya know, because I've been working the vanilla for quite a while now!

For the frosting I made some cream cheese frosting and mixed it with mashed up oreo cookies as I was whisking.

To top them off I sliced some oreos and placed one half on each cupcakes. Yum yum yum!

Here's another view so you can really see the oreos...

Red dotty spotty cupcakes

These pretty little cakes were inspired by the gorgeous cases that I bought at the weekend: Retro spot cake cases - so hot, vintage inspired and Cath Kidston-esque.

So the first time I used the cases had to be for the first Nottingham Roller Girls practice which I'm going to tomorrow. I'm not so great at the skating right now but hopefully in the next six months I'll be able to take part in a roller derby match. I'm really looking forward to it all, including the bruises!

Back to the cakes... vanilla cakes, cream cheese frosting and lots of red and spotty sprinkles including chocolate beans (large and mini size), Martha Stewart red jimmies and red sugar circles.

Sesame Street cupcakes

Happy 40th birthday Sesame Street!

It was also my friend Laura's birthday this week and she loves Elmo so I figured that was definitely call for some Sesame Street cupcakes.

I stuck with vanilla cakes to keep things simple and made my favourite cream cheese frosting. I split the frosting and then set to work making two cupcakes for each character:

• Elmo: I used lots of red food colouring for Elmo and his eyes were made from a slice of (vegetarian) marshmallow with black writing icing for his pupils. An orange M&M made made the nose and I chopped a third of an oreo cookie (after you separate the two biscuits) for the mouth.
• Cookie Monster: I used bright blue frosting as the base, marshmallow slices for the eyes and black writing icing for the pupils (facing in opposite directions), no need for a nose or mouth, just a third of a Maryland cookie.
• Grover: I used the same blue frosting as I did for the Cookie Monster and again used marshmallow slices for the eyes and writing icing for the pupils. The nose was a pink Smartie / Chocolate Bean and a third of an Oreo cookie for the mouth. Grover is a little different in that he has a pink bottom lip so I used a little of the red frosting left over from Elmo to pipe along the edge of the Oreo mouth.
• Bert: Using yellow coloured frosting I tried not to coat the whole cupcake in frosting but create more of a oblong shape, less of a circle to achieve Bert's long face. Again, marshamallow slices for the eyes and I used black writing icing not only for the pupils but also for Bert's mono-brow, spiky hair and smile. Bert was finished off with an orange M&M for his nose.
• Ernie: Using mostly yellow frosting from Bert and a little red from Elmo I created orange frosting for Ernie's round face. Marshmallow slices for eyes, writing icing for pupils and hair, a red M&M made the nose and a third of an Oreo for the mouth.
• Oscar the grouch: Using the remainder of the yellow frosting from Bert and a dab of blue from the Cookie Monster I created a bright green for Oscar. Marshmallow slices for eyes, writing icing for the pupils and Oscar's squiggly mono-brow (make sure you make him look angry) and Oreo cookies for the mouth finished him off neatly!
• Big Bird: Although I didn't make any Big Bird cakes this is what I planned: yellow frosting for the cake, marshmallow slices for the eyes and black writing icing for his pupils. The beak could be made from one of those yellow banana sweets chopped in half - the first half for the upper beak, and the second for the lower. You could even pipe a little orange frosting for his tongue.
  

This blog post was brought to you by the letter C (for Cupcakes and Christina) and the number 12.

Tea pot cosy

I know I've been doing a little more baking than crocheting around here lately but I'm back on track!

My boyfriend's mum told me about the St John's Ambulance campaign that is taking place at the moment, the BIG Tea Cosy. Basically, to raise money for the charity they are looking for people throughout November to host tea parties in their area. They also have some downloads for you to make and sell knitted tea cosies and cupcakes at your party. I took some patterns from online to crochet mine because I can't knit and I made the cosy above which is more like a tea pot cardigan and also the kitty cat cosy below, miaow!

If you fancy making some tea cosies your self I'd recommend taking a look at the list of free patterns on Crochet Pattern Central.

Pink and Green cupcakes

So I made these with my standard vanilla cake recipe but I realised that I had forgotten to pick up any soft cheese to make the cream cheese frosting.

Instead of heading all the way to the supermarket I just popped across the road to the international supermarket that is opposite my apartment. There I bought some European cream cheese, I'm not sure of the brand but it was not expensive.

Once I opened it up I found it was crumbly, not cream-y like the Philadelphia brand that I normally use which was a little weird. When I whisked it with the unsalted butter and icing sugar however, it came up so fluffy! It did take a while to whisk out the crumbliness but it ended it up to be the perfect texture. It was great to pipe out, it held its shape and wasn't runny at all.

The only slight downside that I found was that the frosting was a little more bitter tasting than I like - I like it really sweet!

So, I would recommend trying out as many different cream / soft cheeses as you can!

I then decorated with a mix of green and pink sprinkles including using some sprinkles that my Mum had picked up for me whilst she was in Berlin a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not sure why I haven't tried this colour combo before - green and pink is my fave! The only thing that would make them better is if they had my initials, or even my full name on the cupcakes - oh, wait a minute...

Crococake

This was my boyfriend's birthday surprise for his 26th last weekend. I got the idea from the Hello Cupcake book but I tweaked it a little.

The recipe suggests that you use canned frosting but I know my boyfriend prefers my homemade cream cheese frosting which isn't thick enough for piping into scales but it is more tasty. I coloured it with some natural green colouring from Asda and spread it across 24 vanilla cupcakes.

The example in the book uses some chocolate flavoured biscuits for the scales but I opted for After Eight mints which chopped really nicely with a sharp knife. The hard candy bananas for claws were tough to find so I opted for yellow jelly beans. The lady in the sweet shop even picked out all the yellow ones that were as curved as possible for me! Apart from that I copied the example almost exactly.

Creepy crawly cupcakes

Well... for halloween this year I thought I'd try out the creepy crawlies from the Hello Cupcake book. What a palava!

The recipe recommends that you use "melting wafers" which stay at the right consistency for piping but I'm pretty sure aren't available in the UK, at least I couldn't find them anywhere.

First I tried piping chocolate which was too runny and dripped everywhere and then quickly solidified and burst the zip lock bag. Not easy to keep at the right temperature and not ideal.

Second I tried the new chocolate flavoured writing icing that I found in Sainbury's (genius!) but that doesn't harden in the fridge. So, I kept that as my second choice for making insects, just in case I couldn't get the right thing.

Thirdly I tried some Scotbloc Chocolate flavoured cake covering which was the best thing I could find. It melted well and stayed at the right consistency for long enough to do plenty of creepy crawlies. Whenever it started to go a little to thick for piping I just dipped the bag into a little hot water and I was away once more!

Each time I drew out a little creepy crawly on to some grease proof paper I popped a chocolate bean on the top to make the body. Once I had a sheet full of insects I popped them in the fridge for 5 minutes to solidify and then placed one on each cupcake.

Happy halloween!!

Vanilla cakes with chocolate coated sunflower seeds

I’ve been on holiday to Nice recently and have fallen out of my blogging routine completely! However, I haven’t fallen out of my baking routine.

These beauties were made using my favourite vanilla cupcake and cream cheese frosting recipes. I then decorated them with these fruity looking chocolate coated sunflower seeds.

I managed to source the sprinkles from Harvey Nichols in Leeds (as well as some marshmallow fluff!) and, although they might sound a little strange, they are extremely delicious and as you can see, I had a lot of fun decorating with them.