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.

Very berry strawberry cupcakes

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!

Yellow flowers and butterfly vanilla cupcakes

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.

Toffee and vanilla cupcakes

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

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

White chocolate cupcakes with pink butter cream icing and pink sprinkles

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