Vanilla and Strawberry Cupcakes

Having iced the thirteen mini birthday cakes for Gramps, I had fourteen vanilla cupcakes left over.  I made some more butter cream icing using the recipe from Love Food: The Cupcake, adding three teaspoons of strawberry jam and mixing well.  I smoothed this onto the cakes and rolled out a small lump of fondant icing.  Using a small sharp knife I cut little hearts out of the fondant and stuck them gently on the cakes.  They still tasted light and fluffy even after a few days, and the butter cream and strawberry icing worked nicely.  Waste not want not, I suppose; you cannot have too much of some good things.

Mini Birthday Cakes

My next cake project was for my grandad’s eightieth birthday.  Birthday cakes for me have a very specific taste – soft vanilla sponge with a strawberry jam and buttercream filling and topped with beautifully sickly fondant icing.  I decided to try and emulate this specific taste in the miniature form of a cupcake.  Since birthdays are supposed to be extra happy days, I wanted to make them standout; with this in mind, I decided to try and make 3D icing balloons coming out of the cakes.

For the sponge, I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days.  For some reason the recipe uses double the amount of all the ingredients in the same bakery’s vanilla cupcake recipe in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook while claiming to produce the same amount.  I decided to try out the new one and ended up with twenty seven, rather more than I needed for Gramps.  Luckily, Grandma was making dinner for everyone on Thursday, in two days time, so I put the rest safely away and kept thirteen to write ‘Happy Birthday’ on.  Despite a new oven, the cakes came out looking generally unscathed, although a few were a bit brown on top.  While they cooled, I got on with making the balloons.

I made three balloons in green, pink and blue, and four in yellow.  I washed thirteen coloured paperclips in washing up liquid, rinsing and drying them well before straightening them out.  I bent a curve into the middle of each one, with a straight bit at the top.  At the bottom I doubled the paperclip over to stop it toppling over once the balloon was on top.  To make the balloons I used small lumps of fondant icing dyed with food colouring.  I took a small lump of the coloured icing, a couple of centimetres in diameter, and rolled this into a ball.  For the knot of the balloon I took a small bit from the coloured icing and pushed it to form a point.  I stuck this under the balloon, pushing gently until it stuck on.  I put the balloon down on a clean surface to dry, as I would need to wait until I was at Gramps’ house to assemble them. 

Meanwhile the cakes had cooled so I added a teaspoon of strawberry jam to the top of each cake and smoothed it over.  Using butter cream icing from Love Food: The Cupcake I put this on top of the jam and smoothed it down with a spoon.  Although it got a bit mixed up with the jam, this did not really matter as the taste would be the same.  I rolled out white fondant icing and used a cookie cutter to cut wavy circles large enough to cover the top of each cupcake and gently put each one on top of the jam and butter cream.  I had initially wanted to spell out ‘Happy Birthday’ on the cakes in blue fondant icing, but I did not have any cutters and was running out of time.  Instead, I used spare butter cream to stick small blue circles in the centre of each cake, and went to Gramps’ to construct the cakes.

A few of the paperclips needed bending again to make them look more like balloon strings, and I think that the ‘Happy Birthday’ message would have looked better.  The idea did not quite work as I had hoped.  However, the vanilla sponges were very light, and were proclaimed by Mum to be ‘the best we’ve had yet’, which was a nice compliment.  They really tasted just like little birthday cakes, even if the balloons left me a little deflated.

Merry Christmas Gingerbread Cupcakes

As the Uni term drew to a rather early close, my course mates and I found ourselves so overwhelmed by festive cheer and goodwill that some kind of course Christmas fest seemed inevitable.  Sure enough, in stepped domestic goddess Sarah and the elf to her Mrs Santa, Olivia, and suggested a Christmas dinner.  Knowing that my cooking skills are limited, I thought the best I could offer would be a dessert.  For Christmas inspiration I turned to The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days, my new birthday book, and found Gingerbread cupcakes.  Although they sounded a bit strange, the prospect of two desserts in one was an offer I could not refuse and seemed in-keeping with Christmas generosity.  It is, after all, the thought that counts.

It turned out that these cupcakes require a lot of ingredients, including three types of spice, golden syrup and black treacle.  The kitchen smelt like a gingerbread house, which was delicious.  Once they had cooled, I mixed some cream cheese icing and waited for the Christmas muse to drop by and explain to me how to use the load of red, gold and silver edible glitter I had at my disposal.  I tried a few experiments, but the glitter was hard to control and I had no clear idea of what I was trying to do.  In the end, I mixed half of the gold into the icing and added a lot of red food dye.  Just as I set down the bottle of food dye and surveyed the 'happy red' icing, the Christmas muse suggested making snowy white snowman faces.  Sigh.  I carried on regardless, icing them with the red icing and my shiny new pallet knife (such an unappreciated tool unless one is without it), before melting some white chocolate and carefully spelling out ‘Merry Christmas’.  On closer inspection, the glitter had disappeared into the icing, suggesting that further work on the use of edible glitter may be a future project.  I put them on a tray and braved the cold and embarrassment of carrying a tray of cupcakes round the chilly streets.

Like fairies in a pantomime, Sarah and Olivia produced a delicious Christmas dinner, including four kinds of meat, homemade Yorkshire puddings (unheard of where I’m from), potato in three different forms and enough vegetables to supply a family of rabbits throughout the festive season.  With everyone full to bursting, it seemed that just as at my family birthday party the desserts would go unloved.  However, students are hungrier people than proper grown-ups, and gradually the cakes began to dwindle in numbers.  They did taste like gingerbread and the cream cheese and chocolate added a bit of sweetness.  Although the food colouring meant the icing was not as tasty as that which the Hummingbird recipe usually produces, it was not particularly noticeable.  I even managed to convince people to take them home, suggesting that the unusual combination of biscuit and cake was a success.

If you are looking for an original idea for a Christmas dessert, these work really well.  Just make sure you consult the Christmas muse about your decoration well in advance of adding any red food dye.

Flavour of the Month - December 2011

As the sound of advent calendars being opened for the first time could be heard across the country, everyone braced themselves for the official start of Christmas.  Although seasonal offerings have been sneakily popping into shops, radios and cinemas since about mid-October, we could now start enjoying the build up to the most wonderful time of the year.  Tree up, presents wrapped and cards written, the next job is what to make for dessert.  To help you with this important process, here are some of my favourite festive accessories to help you create your Christmas masterpieces.

Festive Cupcake Cases

Cheerful Christmas-themed cases are a necessity for any seasonal cupcake.  While cheerful snowmen may not be the most traditional aspect of Christmas, the light blue background and tumbling snowflakes go well with snowy white icing and add a touch of brightness to the red, green and gold of Christmas.

Buy the snowmen cases here.

Edible glitter

Vital in the creation of any mini Winter Wonderland, this edible glitter will add a touch of sparkle to your cupcakes and give the impression of snow.  It is also widely available in other colours, including red, gold and silver.

Buy the Snow White Magic Sparkles here and search the site for other colours.

Christmas cupcake toppers

Aside from all the fun, mince pies and general merriment, Christmas is one of the busiest times of year.  If you are just too busy searching for that perfect Christmas jumper for grandad and the ideal bubble bath for mum, invest in some ready-made cupcake toppers to polish off your Christmas treats.  These adorable penguins would go well with the snowman cases and snowy icing, but there are lots of different choices to go with.

Buy the penguins and search for others here.

Kenwood mixer

As much as I love snow, it is not a white Christmas I will be dreaming of this year.  If you have been a very good baker in 2011, you might be hoping Santa will slip one of these into your socking.  Looking hot in raspberry red, it even co-ordinates with the festive season.  Say goodbye to arm ache and showers of icing sugar and hello to elegantly waiting for your gorgeous gadget to do the hard work for you.

Check out this and other colours here.

Cupcake t shirt

If you want to share your love of cupcakes with the wider world you can be a proud ambassador in this colourful t shirt.  A must-have on any baker’s Christmas list, it won’t make your cakes taste better but you will look cool.

Buy it here.

Amazing Christmas cupcakes

Finally, for a real treat have a look at these beautiful Christmas-themed cupcakes.  Although I don’t think I could bear to eat the little cat or the slightly gormless but adorable penguin, let alone make them, they definitely inject some festive joy and provide some truly seasonal inspiration.  

View them in all their glory here.

Have a very Merry cake-filled Christmas!

Birthday Brownies

After the last red paper cup had been thrown away and the last crisp swept up, my attention turned to my family celebrations.  Grandma was throwing a big family party and I had promised to provide what would be one of many desserts.  I picked the ultimate indulgent treat: the king of over-eating and the master of buckling belts, the humble yet mighty chocolate brownie.

I love making brownies.  Anything with that amount of chocolate cannot possibly go wrong, and the slightly crisp outside with the gooey centre takes this important credential and produces the chocoholic’s dream.  I have a failsafe recipe for brownies; it involves melting dangerous amounts of chocolate and mixing in chunks of chocolate, so you know it means serious business.  True to form, it did not let me down, and everyone stuffed themselves full of deliciousness.  The problem was that this was before dessert.  Sitting beside two birthday cakes, the cakes were chosen only by my very loyal boyfriend and my cousin’s new boyfriend, Richard, who earned some serious brownie points, not only for eating my cakes but by coping very well when faced with my family dressed in accordance with the theme ‘What I want to be when I grow up’.

While it is safe to say that the brownies did not tempt everyone to test the belts on their fancy dress, they did not go unwanted; when the last streamer from the party canons had been cleared away and the last crumb wiped from the table, I could think of no better way to relieve the bitter realisation of a year-long wait for my next birthday than by returning to the best baked friend a girl could have, the faithful chocolate brownie.

American Flag Cake

As I mentioned in November’s Flavour of the Month post, I recently celebrated my twenty first birthday with an American themed party.  Besides red frat party cups, a patriotic tablecloth and hundred-dollar bill napkins, I of course wanted to provide some kind of American-themed cake.  While researching my top American-inspired cakes, I stumbled across a possible candidate:

Presented with this beautiful example, I found myself asking the fatal question: how hard could it be?

It turned out to be pretty tricky.  For the red and white cakes, I used Mary Berry’s Victoria sponge recipe, placing half of the mixture into one cake tin before gently mixing strawberry flavouring and red food colouring into the other half, until it tasted sufficiently of strawberry and was red enough to shame a particularly scarlet parrot.  So far so good, but then came the bake.  Despite a sincere plea to the God of Cake, both refused to rise, and the red cake turned a puzzling and infuriating shade of orange.  To cut a long story short, I had to make two more the next day, the white half of which came out of the oven raw while the red part was only half baked.  I used the excess vanilla sponge from the first white layer, trying to hide the chunk I had already cut out of it to taste.

 For the blue layer, I used Next’s Simply Chocolate white chocolate cake, mixing in blue food dye at the end.  I also added white chocolate stars, but these melted in the mixture, which involves melted chocolate.  This also refused to cook properly in the middle, although this did not matter as I was only using the outside.  I wanted to cover the whole thing in a perfect, white coating of cream cheese icing, but in a finally act of malice from the God of Cake, crumbs stuck, cake crumbled and icing stubbornly refused to do what it was told.  Having glued all the layers together with icing, I turned desperately to my supply of spare fondant icing from the Halloween ghosts.  Although I did not quite manage to roll out enough to fit over the cake in one go, I sort of patched it together.  In a last ditch attempt to beautify what I know saw as sugary, messy lump, I made a glue from icing sugar and water and stuck little red, white and blue balls of icing in the shape ‘USA’.

 When it came time for the great reveal and I was a curious combination of anxious and mortified.  I was supposed to be good at baking, and now all my friends would be given proof to the contrary.  I took my shiny, purple knife and sliced through the layers of icing and wrecked cake and found... that it had worked: to my astonishment, there was, in fact, a passable representation of the Stars and Stripes peering out from beneath the layers of icing.  

It was not perfect, by any stretch of even the kindest person’s imagination; there was a slit down the middle, the layers were wonky and two stripes were more orange than red.  However, everyone seemed fairly impressed and managed to eat it while looking convincingly happy.  Not quite the American Dream, but not a nightmare either.