Christina's Sparkles

Valentine's pictogram cupcakes

2010-02-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

Now, this is probably one for Cake Wrecks but this idea was fueled by the fantastic authors of Hello Cupcake! The blog that goes with the book last week happened to feature some ideas for Valentine's pictograms - "I love you" and "Cutie pie".

I used the "I love you" idea to create my own and then I decided to make it more personal. So, just to explain the rest of the pictogram, my boyfriend is called Andy but I tend to call him Pandy because it rhymes and is the name of the kid's TV character. So, I create a Pan (check out my fried egg!) and a D.

Now, I needed to complete the set with something that ideally illiterates with "Pandy" and rhymes with "you". Starts with a P, rhymes with "you". Now what could that be...

Oh yeah, POO!

I love you, Pandy poo.

Lavendar cupcakes

2010-02-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

These cupcakes were made using the recipe in the the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. I found the idea of using lavender in a cake a little strange but then I'm not keen on many flavoured sponges. I don't like orange, lemon, earl grey or anything weird like that. Chocolate, caramel, peanut butter though?? Yum, yum, yum - give me more!

My boyfriend's mum however, said they looked delicious! So, I thought I'd give them a go for her birthday and as a thank you present for helping Andy to move in with me.

It was a little bit of a task to find the lavender in the first place. My local health food shop technically does carry it but they didn't have any on the shelves for two weeks and I almost had to give up on the idea.

Finally I found a stockist: my local potpourri shop. The owner assured me that the lavender had not gone through any fragrance enhancing oils or processes - it was just plain lavender.

I was still quite concerned that it would be too strong a flavour but once I got back to the recipe book I realised you don't actually put the lavender in the batter mix but you infuse the milk in the recipe with lavender by putting it in the fridge for a few hours then straining the milk before it goes into the mix and the same for frosting.

Well, the certainly look beautiful. To me they didn't taste great, a little like Grandma's cupboard but hopefully, Andy's mum liked them! She hasn't called to say so though, and I heard her asking Andy on the phone what flavour they were supposed to be. I suppose it's the thought that counts!

Lost cupcakes

2010-02-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

Lost is one of my favourite programmes and just after the new season started I saw the Lost cupcakes post on my Cupcakes Take the Cake RSS feed. What inspiration! My favourite is the cake with a polar bear. Rarrr!

I had a great idea to use the white chocolate polar bears from Ben & Jerry's Baked Alaska flavour. So, rather than pick the bears out of a tub and suck the ice cream off, I headed to the Ben & Jerry's stand in Leeds' Vue cinema. They sell the white chocolate polar bears as toppings when you buy a scoop of ice cream and I persuaded the B & J girl to put some in a sweet box for me for the same price. She really wasn't sure and went to ask her manager first!

I made my favourite vanilla recipe with cream cheese frosting then created "the numbers" with black writing icing. I was so nervous to write the numbers out! I'm sure they will bring me the worst luck. I can't even write them out on the keyboard.

To get the thick black text of the LOST letters I used a black icing tube. These tubes seem to be in every supermarket at the moment in attempt to cash in on the "baking boom".

Then I created the island cupcakes using one stripe each of green, white and blue coloured frosting. The blue was a nice sea colour so I left that with no extra sprinkles and I covered the white with crumbled up Digestive biscuits to create a sandy beach. I then used green chocolate coated sunflower seeds and green writing icing to create a "jungle" effect on the green stripe. Finally, I added the white chocolate polar bears to the jungle to finish the cakes off.

Triple chocolate heart shaped muffins

2010-02-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

Using my favourite chocolate cake recipe with white and milk chocolate chips I made these muffins in some heart shaped silicon muffin cases that I got for Christmas. These were perhaps a little more well cooked than I normally would like but I am really please with the shape.

Silicon cases are a pretty good idea: far less wasteful than paper cases; they come in lots of different shapes (hearts, stars, flowers & more); and you don't need a cupcake baking tray to use them. I have found that some are harder to take the cake out of than others but just make sure that that cakes are completely cool before trying to remove them and the thicker the silicon case, the easier they are to remove.

Chocolate and hazlenut cupcakes

2010-02-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

My second new recipe of last week was these DELICIOUS chocolate and hazelnut cupcakes with nutella frosting from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. They taste just like Nutella and match my cake stand perfectly.

I made these for my mum - she always comes over and eats ALL my cupcakes which I normally would eat gradually over a week! She's a chocoholic (a genetic trait) but still couldn't manage to eat all of these because they are so rich and filling.

Although the recipe is from a British bakery they do recommend you use American-style cupcake cases which are more like Muffin-size cases and all their cupcake recipes are based on this size. I still used normal cupcake size cases so my cakes where probably a little larger than most cupcakes and I had quite a bit of mixture left over - probably enough to make another 6 or so cakes.

I do like the recipes in this book - they all use milk in the mixture which makes them so moist. Once I've worked out the right amount I may start adding milk to my favourite vanilla and chocolate cake recipes.

Circus cupcakes with Marshmallow frosting

2010-02-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Last week was a week of new recipes for me (more new recipes later). Firstly I did these vanilla cakes with Marshmallow frosting based on the "Almost-homemade vanilla buttercream" recipe from Hello Cupcake - I'm not sure why it is called buttercream when it is more about the marshmallow than the butter, but nevermind! P.S. This book is soooo inspiring.

I was attracted to this recipe because it uses Marshmallow Fluff, which isn't readily available here in the UK, but my local Powerplay have started to stock American sweets including Marshmallow Fluff in Raspberry, Blueberry and Original flavour. So, if I can master this recipe then I can hopefully, try a Raspberry version, yum, yum, yum!

Now, the recipe is a bit weird for me firstly because it is measured in "cups", wtf?! We don't measure things in cups in the UK, I've never heard of that as a measurement. But after some googling I worked out that 3 1/2 cups is about 805g and that is the second weird thing... 800 grams of frosting??! Wow, I'm frosting 12 cupcakes, not 1200!

So I made an eighth of the original recipe using half the jar of Marshmallow Fluff. I had used the first half in a batch of frosting that did NOT come out well, the frosting sank into the cakes and was an overall disaster. But this batch was great, after whipping the Fluff for quite a while it was nice and thick and was so white - perfect for adding colour if you choose to.

The theme was inspired by a circus party that was posted on Party Perfect so I used some spotty cases that I've had in my stash for a while and all of my sprinkles with a primary colour theme: chocolate beans, martha stewart jimmies in red and yellow, hundreds & thousands and sugar dots that my mum got for me on her trip to Germany.

Pink and orange cupcakes

2010-01-23T03:21:00.001-08:00

Over the past few months my family and friends have been buying sprinkles for me wherever they see them. I got sprinkles as presents for Christmas and every time I see my mum she's found some more in the £1 shop, or somewhere like that.

I've also been buying sprinkles wherever I can. In fact, I jump at the chance to go to a different supermarket just so I can check out their sprinkle collection. I know have a huge cupboard dedicated to sprinkles and baking goods which is ridiculous in my small kitchen!

Pink and orange is one of those colour combinations that you don't often see together but I personally love. On my sprinkle journeys I've picked up a few sets which I can then match together, even if they didn't come together - this includes orange, pink, white and yellow stars from Asda, pink hundreds and thousands from Sainsburys and orange and pink jimmies that I got as a present. They were my inspiration for last Sunday's cupcakes.

I also did a little experiment with the frosting based on something I saw in Sainsbury's magazine a few months back: I split the frosting into two parts and coloured one with pink food colouring. Then I added both parts into one piping bag so it would come out half pink and half white.

I made vanilla cakes in orange and pink cases with the two-colour cream cheese frosting and decorated with the pink and orange sprinkles.

Rainbow cupcakes

2010-01-23T02:44:00.000-08:00

If a rainbow could be made into a person, that person would be a lot like my friend Jane. Everything you could say to describe a rainbow describes Jane - bright, happy, magical, rare.

I made these rainbow cakes in celebration of Jane's birthday. I didn't see Jane for her birthday but I made these at home in tribute of when we were at uni together and would bake cakes. In fact, Jane taught me a recipe for cupcakes that has now developed into the recipe that I use every week.

So firstly, I made my favourite vanilla cake recipe but before cooking I split the batter. I would recommend that you split it equally into six bowls and then mix your colours.

I didn't split them equally and I regretted it. I tried to have a little more red so I could then add blue to make purple, etc. But as you can see from my pics I ended up with hardly any purple batter and therefore tiny cakes. Whereas I had loads of red and green batter and ended up with an unevenly sized batch.

To mix the colours all you need is red, yellow and blue food colouring and then combine them to make the colours in between. Red + yellow = orange. Yellow + blue = green. Blue + red = purple. If you can find orange, green and purple food colouring however, you are likely to get better colour that is less muddy. I already had green so I just mixed red and yellow to make orange and red and blue to make purple.

I added the food colouring directly to the batter instead of mixing it first. That meant I could see exactly what effect the colouring had on the batter. As the batter has a yellow tint anyway I needed to use more food colouring on the blue and purple to lose the yellow-ish colour.

I used coloured cases to match to add to the effect and after they were baked I frosted them with cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with rainbow coloured hundreds and thousands.

Malteaser cupcakes

2010-01-23T02:29:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was browsing flickr for some inspiration and I found these gorgeous Malteaser cakes by Monniecakes. Not just one but three Malteasers on one cake? Yum!

So, I made these with my favourite chocolate cake recipe and piped cream cheese frosting on the top. Then I topped the cakes with three Malteasers each. Sooo tasty.

For a little variation on this you could put Malteasers actually in the cake, either a whole one per cake, or crumbled up in the mixture. That would be delicious - a little like those Easter eggs with Malteaser bits in the chocolate.

Above you can see them on the new cake stand that I got for Christmas from my beautiful boyfriend.

Cream cheese frosting recipe

2010-01-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Most recipes only use cream cheese frosting for rich cakes like carrot or red velvet but I like this frosting on any cake, even your basic vanilla. This will be enough to frost 12 cupcakes or 6 large muffins.

Ingredients

100g Soft cheese (also known as cream cheese, I prefer Philadelphia)
25g Unsalted butter (at room temperature)
125g Icing sugar

Instructions

Add all the ingredients into a bowl with high sides (suitable for whisking).
Mix the soft cheese, unsalted butter and icing sugar with a spoon until you have a porridge-like texture (I find this step necessary so you don't get covered in a cloud of icing sugar in the next step).
Use an electric whisk to blend the frosting. Don't stop until all lumps of butter and cheese are whisked away (literally!) and it becomes light and fluffy - whisk for longer to make it thicker.
Spread over your cupcakes with a spatula or fill a zip lock bag, snip the corner and pipe.

The longer you whisk the frosting the thicker it will become and therefore the easier to pipe but it will be ready to spread over your cupcakes as soon as all lumps are gone.

These are the reasons I love cream cheese frosting:

This recipe will transform any cupcake, even if you have cooked them a little too long and they are a bit crisp on top - they will still taste delicious.
I find that this frosting helps to keep your cakes nice and moist if you eat them gradually over a week like me and it doesn't separate over time like butter cream.
The frosting comes out in very white so you can add any colour to it and get a great effect. White also goes with any colour of sprinkles.

Red velvet cupcakes

2009-12-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

I had never heard of Red Velvet cake until recently. Firstly, I tried some in the cafe at my work, then Crumbs and Doilies had it as their flavour of the month, then I saw them everywhere on all my favourite cupcake blogs. This was something I only tried this week and it's been a while since I've shared a recipe, so here goes:

Ingredients

1x large egg
100g baking margarine
100g caster sugar
75g self raising flour
25g cocoa (Green & Blacks fairtrade is my favourite!)
1 bottle of red food colouring (Silver spoon cake craft is the best for colour)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180ºC or Gas mark 4 or 350ºF
In your mixing bowl beat together the margarine and sugar with a spatula until smooth.
Break the egg and add to the mixing bowl, fold into the mixture.
Add the flour and cocoa, mix together until you have a smooth batter. If you want to make it more chocolate-y just add more cocoa here but take out an equal amount of flour - make sure that whatever ratio you use, the flour and cocoa should equal 100g.
Pour in the entire bottle of red food colouring (yes, the entire bottle! If you added more cocoa you will need more food colouring to make them just as red)
Put the batter into a zip lock bag and pipe equally into cupcake cases.
Put in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes. Once you think they are cooked press down on one of the cakes, if it springs back then the cakes are done!
Frost with lots of cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with chocolate flakes or curls.

Blue and pink edged cupcakes

2009-12-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

After I made my black and white cupcakes I wanted to do some edged cupcakes again.

These lovelies were made with vanilla cakes and cream cheese frosting, I then edged with blue and pink ball sprinkles.

I actually used sprinkles from two different sets. I matched them up because they both have a similar matte look. Even though the blue ones came in a set with red and blue sprinkles I think the pink and blue look great together, it's sort of a blue-purple colour, lush!

Black and white cupcakes

2009-12-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've blogged, I need to catch up!

I made these cupcakes with my favourite vanilla recipe and used some of the designer icing tubes that seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment. I chose black and white tubes then I decorated with black writing icing, white jimmies, white stars and white sugar balls.

I have to say I'm not keen on icing. I'm so used to cream cheese frosting now that I found the icing to be dry, it hardens very quickly and even the cupcakes underneath seemed to dry out more quickly. I think that cream cheese frosting keeps your cakes nice and soft.

I did however, love icing the cakes and then dipping only the edges in white jimmies. I love that look where the sprinkles are only around the edge. I think I might try it again ;)

Cookies and cream cupcakes

2009-11-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-11T14:08:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-08T13:35:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-05T14:55:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Very berry strawberry cupcakes

2009-09-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

So I made these with my fave vanilla recipe, but between spoonfuls of mix I piped a little strawberry preserve in the center of the cake. When they were baked I found the jam had made its way to the bottom so it might be best just to put it at the bottom next time...

I mixed some cream cheese frosting (the left overs from a couple of weeks ago that I had frozen and then defrosted) together with one teaspoon of strawberry preserve and a couple of drops of pink colouring. To finish off the berry heaven, I topped each cake with half a strawberry. Delicious!

Floral bag

2009-09-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the Floral Bag pattern from Helen Ardley's Crocheted Accesories book for a while now.

Firstly, I started it with some Wendy Fusion yarn in the Bouquet Garni colorway and I finished one half of the bag (and all my ball) before I realised that the shop I originally bought the yarn from had sold out AND, worse than that, the range has been discontinued!

So, I went to John Lewis and dribbled over the Rowan Felted Tweed that the pattern suggests you use. But at £5.50 per ball and eight balls required I thought it was a little too much money to justify.

However, the Rowan knitting consultant at John Lewis (and my Blue Kitty knitters friend), Helen pointed out that Rowan have just released an Aran and Chunky weight!! The pattern uses a pink / lilac colorway called Melody which isn't stocked by John Lewis. So, I opted for a nice teal - turquoise goes with everything, IMO!

So I bought two balls and almost finished the pattern in one night. I went back the next day to buy a third ball and the purple and green Felted Tweed to make the flowers. I was planning on using only two colours for the flowers and leaves but seeing it all come together makes it irresistible to buy more colorways! I was especially pleased with the fact that I had finished with only three balls of Aran weight, instead of 8 balls of standard.

I'm so pleased with the results - I just need to finish some of the beading on the red flowers and find a handle (so hard to find 8" handles!!)

While all this was taking place I had trawled the internet for some more Wendy Fusion in the right colourway. I find ONE shop, JUST ONE, that had any Bouquet Garni in stock still. So I ordered three balls and managed to finish the other half of the original bag. I don't plan to make flowers for this bag, but I plan to use some vintage buttons that I have. Then I'll have a matching hat and bag set ready for autumn.

Yellow flowers and butterfly vanilla cupcakes

2009-09-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

So, I've got my frosting down now! This week I made the same recipe as last week which I have almost perfected now! Vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (piped with a freezer bag).

I used yellow cases and decorated with some yellow flowers and white hearts with yellow jimmies to make butterflies. I bought the jimmies in NYC from Macy's Martha Stewart collection when I was over there in July for my birthday.

I also used decorated a few with hundreds and thousands to add some extra colour.

Frosting success!! Vanilla cakes with cream cheese frosting and hundreds & thousands

2009-09-19T10:01:00.001-07:00

Hurray! I have mastered the cream cheese frosting that I've been trying to accomplish for weeks! And all it came down to was using a whisk instead of a wooden spoon to mix the frosting together.

I used the exact same recipe as last time and I decorated them this week with hundreds & thousands / tiny sugar balls.

This week I also tried something with the piping bag for the first time. I used a zip lock bag, as usual, to pipe out the frosting but instead of cutting across the corner to make a hole, I cut two very small slits going up the bag. This, effectively created a four corner star shape. It wasn't a very defined star, I need to practice to make the slits very delicate, but still was very effective.

I also need to practice making circles with a piping bag because every time I go round I seem to make more of a triangle shape!

I'm very pleased with the outcome, I think they look great. The cakes are absolutely delicious!!

Vanilla frosting and white sprinkles on vanilla cakes

2009-09-14T10:58:00.001-07:00

Well, this time I had another frosting fail. But I am determined to get it right!

I used eight parts cream cheese, one part butter and nine parts icing sugar on some vanilla cakes. But it still came out so runny and creamy - not like fluffy frosting at all. It still tastes delicious so once I frosted the cakes I sprinkled them with all of my white sprinkle collection; sugar pearls, flowers, hearts, stars and sugar strands.

My sister suggested that I whisk the frosting instead of mixing it with a wooden spoon next time. That should help to get some air into the mixture and hopefully achieve the fluffy effect that I'm looking for.

Vanilla cakes with vanilla frosting and pink balls

2009-09-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

I made some bonus midweek vanilla cakes for my friend Carrie's birthday!!

I actually made a little change to my recipe after reading this month's Sainsbury's magazine. So I made the recipe as usual then ten minutes after taking them out of the oven I pricked the cakes and brushed some vanilla syrup over them. This helped to make them extra vanilla-y and super moist.

I frosted them with canned frosting and decorated with pink sugar balls to make them all matching. Of course I used pink cases to make them uber-cute.

As we went out to Las Iguanas for dinner the waiter brought them out with pink candles after our meal and Carrie loved them. The waiter also commented that everyone in the kitchen was impressed too!

Toffee and vanilla cupcakes

2009-09-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

I made these little lovelies with my favourite vanilla cupcake recipe and I added some toffee chunks to the mix before I spooned it into the cases.

Incidentally, I found it pretty tough to find toffee chunks but I finally sourced a mix pack of chocolate and toffee chunks from Somerfield - I just picked out the chunks that I wanted and saved the chocolate ones till another time ;)

For the frosting I made my own (first time not from a can!!!) using one part margarine, two parts cream cheese and three parts icing sugar. It came out a little more runny than I would like so I think next time I'll use unsalted butter instead of margerine, but it still tastes absolutely delicious.

To decorate I bought some toffee sauce and dolloped a big scoop into a zip lock bag, snipped a tiny hole in the corner and piped it out in a grid pattern.

I then gobbled them all down before anyone else got a chance (not really, but almost)!

Vanilla and choc cakes with buttercream icing and chocolate sprinkles

2009-08-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

As I have moved home recently I had a house warming party this weekend which, of course, called for lots of cupcakes!

I made three batches of 12 cupcakes; one chocolate batch, one vanilla batch with a big chunk of dark chocolate in each cake (a lot like my white chocolate cakes), and finally a batch of vanilla cakes with chocolate sprinkles added to the mix.

Now, it may seem strange to put the sprinkles actually into the mix but I think it gives a great taste and effect - you get lots of specks of chocolate in the vanilla sponge, yum! You can also try this with brightly coloured sugar sprinkles which will give you lots of rainbow specks in the cake - wow!

I iced the cakes with buttercream (equal parts butter and icing sugar) and piped it out using a zip lock bag with a snipped corner.

I had decided on a chocolate and blue theme for the cakes so you will notice they were all made in blue cases. I also used one of my favourite sprinkles on some of the cakes - a blue sugar from Martha Stewart which I bought in Macy's when I visited in New York last July.

On the remaining cakes I used lots of different chocolate sprinkles on the top; stars, hundreds and thousands in both milk and dark chocolate, choc chips and chocolate covered toffee balls.

And they were all absolutely delicious! :D

Baby hat and blanket

2009-08-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

I made this set for someone at work who recently had a baby boy with his wife. Unfortunately there were some complications with the birth which meant the baby was born 11 weeks premature. Thank God everything has worked out ok, mother and baby are absolutely fine and baby is putting on lots of weight! That is why you'll notice there are two hats; one normal size and one teeny tiny one.

I made it using the Seija Set pattern from Debbie Stoller's Happy Hooker book. I made it up with Cashmerino Aran yarn from Debbie Bliss. As the baby was a boy I've used a light blue (018), beige (102) and a creamy-white (002).

The gauge for the blanket was 13 rows and rows of DC = 4", but mine turned out at 3". As the baby is so small at the moment I figured it didn't matter that I had such a difference in gauge and the blanket might turn out just right! I started the hat realising that it probably won't be the intended size for a 6-month old due to my tight tension but it may in fact fit my friend's baby in six months time as he was premature.

However, I wanted the gift to be wearable straight away so I made a smaller version of the hat. In fact, I halved the pattern; half the number of stitches, half the number of rows. Which has worked out great. I'm really pleased with the result! Hopefully the smaller hat will be just the right size!

I have the set all wrapped up for when my friend next pops into the office. It was such a lovely item to make, I hope that he and his wife (and the baby!) enjoy them.

White chocolate cupcakes with pink butter cream icing and pink sprinkles

2009-08-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

I wasn't able to make any cupcakes this weekend as I was moving all my belongings from my old flat in Leeds to my new flat in Leicester. But it's been two weeks since I've made any and I missed my cupcake rush so much that I HAD to make some tonight.

These beauties were made with my classic vanilla mixture but once it came to spooning it into the cases I used two teaspoons of mixture instead of one tablespoon and I popped in a chunk of white chocolate between spoons. Small chocolate chips in a cupcake are nice but I love having one big chunk of chocolate in the middle, especially when they are still warm because the chunk is all gooey and yummy.

For the topping I made some butter cream icing (equal parts margarine and icing sugar) with pink natural colouring. I used a zip lock bag with a small hole in one corner to pipe out the butter cream in a swirl. Some of them look a bit gooey because I was cooking dinner at the same time and it was a bit warm in the kitchen!

My friend, Carrie was over so she helped me decorate them with my massive pink sprinkle collection; pink stars, white hearts, pink sparkling sugars and sugar balls :D

Chocolate cupcakes

2009-08-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

This is a little advancement on my vanilla cupcakes recipe, and is equally as moist and delicious! This will be plenty to make 12 cupcakes or 6 muffins.

Ingredients

1x large egg
100g baking margarine
100g caster sugar
75g self raising flour
25g cocoa (Green & Blacks fairtrade is my favourite!)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180ºC or Gas mark 4 or 350ºF
In your mixing bowl beat together the margarine and sugar with a spatula until smooth.
Break the egg and add to the mixing bowl, fold into the mixture.
Add the flour and cocoa, mix together until you have a smooth batter - if you want it more chocolate-y then add more cocoa but take out some flour. No matter the ratio, the total weight of the flour and cocoa together should be 100g.
If you want to add any thing to the mix (choc chips, sultanas, banana) then this is the time to do it.
Pour the mixture into a zip lock bag and pipe into cupcake cases (this saves on mess - just throw the bag away, no washing up required!)
Put in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes. Once you think the cakes are cooked open the oven and press down on one of the cakes, if it springs back then the cakes are done.

Vanilla cupcakes

2009-08-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

This is my favourite recipe for classic, soft and moist vanilla cupcakes. I also find it really easy to remember because it's all the same weights. This will be plenty to make 12 cupcakes or 6 muffins.

Ingredients

1x large egg
100g baking margarine
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
1 cap-ful vanilla essence

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180ºC or Gas mark 4 or 350ºF
In your mixing bowl beat together the margarine and sugar with a spatula until smooth.
Add a capful / half a teaspoon of vanilla essence to the batter.
Add the egg to the mixing bowl and fold into the mixture.
Add the flour and mix together until you have a smooth batter.
If you want to add any thing to the mix (choc chips, sultanas, banana) then this is the time to do it.
Pour the mixture into a zip lock bag and pipe into cupcake cases (saves on mess and washing up - just throw the bag away, no washing up required!)
Put in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes. Once you think the cakes are cooked open the oven and press down on one of the cakes, if it springs back then the cakes are done.