Lemon Meringue Cupcakes!

Adapting Recipes

Hello everyone! I hope you are all keeping your spirits up through the horrible weather! I have a spring recipe for you, which might just cheer you up!

I absolutely love lemon drizzle cake and I've been using the same recipe for years! I love adapting recipes to make new ones, so I decided to give this one a bit of a re-vamp. 

I used the BBC GoodFood lemon drizzle cake recipe (available online) but used it to make several cupcakes rather than one big cake. Essentially you can do this with any recipe, just remember that you will end up with more than 12 cupcakes at the end (never seems to be a problem in this house)! The recipe itself is really just a sponge recipe with added lemon zest, you can swap the lemon zest for orange or lime zest if you like, both work well with cakes!

Once baked, I made a small hole in each cupcake using a knife and filled this hole with a good quality lemon curd. This gives an extra hit of lemon goodness! Yum! I then placed the cut out piece of cake on top of the lemon curd filling to cover up the hole.

Instead of making a lemon drizzle icing, I made a lemon buttercream using the lemon curd, butter and icing sugar. The lemon curd gives a really good zingy taste and you get a really smooth finish on your buttercream! 

So lemon meringue cupcakes wouldn't be completely finished without the meringue right? I whipped three egg whites and caster sugar to create my meringues. I then pipped them onto a baking sheet and popped them in the oven on a really low temperature until they were dried out (usually takes about 2-3hours but you can leave them overnight). They will peal off the baking parchment easily when they are ready! I dusted mine with edible glitter (just because).

Meringues can be really tricky to make and I did need to try a few times before my egg whites thickened. The main thing is to make sure all your equipment is clean and free of fat, use a stainless steel or glass bowl as plastic holds in grease. Then its really about patience and knowing when to stop whipping. They say practice makes perfect (or near perfect at least)!

Anyway, I'm very pleased with the end result, they looked and tasted great! Lemon always reminds me of spring, so you could always make these as an alternative or addition to Chocolate Easter eggs!

 Thanks for reading!

Christmas Party Treats

Gingerbread

Hello again everyone! I hope you are all getting into the Christmas spirit! Not long to go now until the big day. For those of you who don't know, my contract at the Science Museum ended a month ago :( 

Thankfully I was invited to the Christmas party! The beautiful people I used to work with always appreciated my baked goods, so I thought I would bake some Christmas treats to bring along to the party. 

Gingerbread is so easy to make and has such a lovely winter warmth to it! You can find plenty of recipes online for gingerbread. These gingerbread biscuits have ground cloves and ground ginger in them, but you can also use cinnamon or nutmeg. I also used light brown sugar, but if you prefer your gingerbread a darker colour then you can use dark brown sugar. 

I decorated these with some royal icing using a very fine writing nozzle, perfect for little details and writing.

Ginger and Salted Caramel Cupcakes

I also wanted to bake some cupcakes for everyone and I always struggle to find a Christmas cupcake recipe that really works. I've made chocolate and orange cupcakes before which also remind me of Christmas, but I wanted to try something different.

The cupcake batter contains two whole eggs and two egg yolks. I've never used a recipe like this before, but it made the ginger cake itself really soft and moist! Delicious!

The salted caramel icing is a bit tricky to make if you haven't made a caramel sauce before. But basically its a normal buttercream but using salted butter and mixing in homemade caramel sauce.

I decorated my cupcakes using edible glitter (I cant live without it!) and a small gingerbread biscuit decorated with royal icing. I love adding small biscuits to cupcakes, it makes you feel like you are getting two treats in one!

Overall I'm really happy with how they turned out and everyone seemed to enjoy eating them!

 Thanks for reading!

Vanilla Cupcakes

Delicious Vanilla Cupcakes

Hello everyone! So I made these cupcakes from two different recipes, the cake is a basic vanilla cupcake recipe using vanilla paste from the "Boutique Baking" book by Peggy Porschen. The vanilla buttercream is made just by mixing icing sugar, butter and vanilla paste together.

I made the buttercream in two slightly different shades of pink, to give the roses a little bit of depth to them.

The butterfly decorations are made from sugarpaste, mixed with sugarcel. This means that they set hard and don't go soft when you put them on the buttercream.

I finished the butterflies off by painting them with edible

lustre and added a sprinkle of glitter to the buttercream roses.

 

How to transport cupcakes (on a budget)

 

So usually I just put cupcakes in a spare food tub to transport them and just use foil barriers to try to stop them squashing each other. 

But today I had a brainwave! 

 

I decided to cut some plastic cups in half and place each cupcake in a cup. This means that each cupcake has a sturdy ring around it, preventing it from being squashed and stopping the icing getting stuck to the other cupcakes.  

                                           

The cupcakes are then easily released by popping them up from the base.                                                      

This method worked perfectly and is ideal if you don't have the money to buy an expensive cupcake carrier! 

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. I think the roses themselves could be better, but this is the first time I've used a star nozzle to create them. So I think I just need a bit more practice!

Thanks for reading!

Lemon and Raspberry Cupcakes

Summertime Treats

 

Hi again everyone! So I made these cupcakes only a couple of months ago and they are really good as a summertime treat. I used a recipe from the book "Boutique Baking" by Peggy Porschen, which my brother bought me for my birthday in May.

The main cake is a lemon sponge recipe, but with a few raspberries thrown in. Once you've baked them, you cover them in a lovely lemon syrup (just lemon and caster sugar which has been heated up to dissolve the sugar). This makes them so moist (I'm making my own mouth drool!).

The cupcakes were then topped with a cream cheese and lemon frosting (hence why its a bit runny) and a juicy raspberry. 

I love how these turned out! They look gorgeous and they taste even better! They are a good contrast of sharp and sweet. Perfect with a good cocktail.

By the way...if anyone would like any of these recipes, just contact me and I'll be happy to supply them! 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Belated Easter Cupcakes

Chocolate and Chicks!

Hello everyone! I know, shocking isn't it?? I'm still alive! I've neglected my blog over the past few months, but haven't neglected the baking, so expect and influx of heavenly cupcakes!

So these cute little cupcakes are chocolate fudge cupcakes! A recipe I used from one of my (now numerous) baking books. The cupcake is chocolate and the icing is chocolate fudge.

I've decorated them really simply, with broken up pieces of chocolate flake for the 'nests' and mini chocolate eggs.

You can find chocolate flakes, the mini eggs and the Easter chicks in any good pound shop! So these cupcakes are really good to make if you don't have many pennies.

I was really pleased with the way they turned out! Very cute and very tasty!

Belated Happy Easter!

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Experimenting

So you know that bbc GoodFood lemon cake recipe I keep banging on about?? Well I decided to experiment a little and use an orange instead! 

I always associate oranges with Christmas and as it is only around the corner, these chocolate orange cupcakes are perfect for those long winter nights! 

So the bbc GoodFood recipe makes one cake or you can use it to make 12 big muffin sized cupcakes! Yummy! These cupcakes are flavoured naturally with orange zest and orange syrup. I then made a simple chocolate buttercream using cocoa powder, which gave a great dark chocolate contrast to the zingy orange! 

Remember those molds I made? Well I thought it might be good time to try them out! I made some orange coloured sugarpaste to go with the flavour of the cupcakes and made several different cupcake 'toppers'.

I also decorated the buttercream with edible glitter (becoming my favourite decoration) and silver and pearlised dragees (balls). 

It was a lot harder then I thought it would be to make the little sugarpaste toppers! It was very difficult to get the mold out perfectly and all of them required some form of trimming or neatening! 

 

These three are my favourites! These cupcakes taste so delicious! Perhaps if you are near Nottingham you should drop me a bell and see if there are any left to eat!

P.s. All these photos are taken by my boyfriend Chris Lane. A professional videographer and photographer. 

Thanks for reading!

Cupcake Bouquet

Edible Flowers

Hello everyone! It is my boyfriends mum's birthday on Sunday and I thought a cupcake bouquet would be a lovely birthday present for her! When I went to Cake International, Queen of Hearts Couture Cupcakes showed us how to make a cupcake bouquet.

All you need is a paper plate, some plastic cups, sellotape and some tissue paper! You just stick as many cups as you like together, stick it to the plate then stick some tissue paper around the outside. Then tuck some different coloured tissue paper into each cup and there you have it!

 

I used my favourite bbc GoodFood lemon cake recipe again and separated the mixture into cupcake cases in a muffin tray. The recipe gives such moist delicious cakes! 

I then attempted to make some lemon buttercream flowers (I am not sure what these are!). I have to admit, I struggled to remember the different flowers Queen of Hearts showed us at Cake International! I am still pleased with the results though.

I then covered them in edible glitter and pearlised balls. I think Mary liked them, so all was successful! I think the end product looks pretty good, I just need some more practice with buttercream (slowly becoming my nemesis)!

 Thanks for reading!

Birthday Treats

The Giant Cookie

On Thursday last week it was my brothers birthday and I wanted to bake him something special and tasty, so I thought I'll make him a giant chocolate chip cookie!

I used a recipe that made 20 cookies and put all the cookie dough into a pizza pan, lined with greaseproof paper. These cookies are so easy to make yourself! Why not try it for someones birthday?

 I then made some buttercream to pipe around the outside and also for the writing in the middle.

Party Ice Creams

My parents requested I made some cupcake ice creams for them, my brother, my boyfriend and me for Sunday (when my brother was visiting). So, eager to please, I made some more of the fantastic cupcake ice creams, but this time I covered them in lovely edible glitter!

I really enjoyed baking these and I thought the cookie tasted delicious! I need to work on my writing a bit, but I am slowly getting better!

Thanks for reading!

Treats and Techniques

Mini Burgers and Chips

 

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been a while since I posted a blog, I've actually been a bit busy this week! I've been doing lots of different bakes this week, all in smaller quantities, so I thought one blog would do them all justice! 

These mini burgers and chips look a bit messy don't they! They were really interesting to make, and yes, they are 100% cupcake! I used a recipe from a magazine which uses piping gel to make mayonaise and ketchup in the burger, but I didnt have time to find any and used buttercream instead (which as you can see didnt really work out!). The 'lettuce' is buttercream and the 'burger' is chocolate ganache!

The 'chips' are actually fried!

The recipe states to cut up some of the cupcakes and fry them in a bit of butter and caster sugar. These babies burnt so quickly! Next time I would use a long tin to make the chips as they look more like wedges, being cut from cupcakes. Also, I would use less butter in the pan and turn them with tongs quickly!

I did like how the burgers turned out, but this was a practice of the recipe really, so they arent how I would present them normally!

Glamorous Ganache Cupcakes 

I wanted to make my boyfriend and I some cupcakes for treats, so I decided to use a small amount of a chocolate chip cupcake recipe and just have a bit of fun! I really loved the taste of the chocolate ganache I made for the mini burgers, so I thought, why not use it again for the cupcakes! I used to think that ganache was this impossible thing only experts made, but it is SO easy you wouldn't believe! Please try making it at home, as it is the most DELICIOUS tasting thing ever! 

So I decided to jazz these cupcakes up a little! I used edible glitter to get  lovely sparkle and edible pearly beads, placing them in the ganache so they look as though they are tumbling down it. I also used some chocolate coloured glitter, rolled it into white sugarpaste and made a butterfly to top it all off!

I am very please how these came out! Super tasty! 

Make Your Own Molds

When I went to the Cake Interational show, I bought a pack of silicone mold, which you can use to make your own molds. Everywhere I go, to buy new molds it is very expensive (around £10 for a pack of just 4) and this silicone cost me only £12 for one pack, which made all these molds! 

I was getting bored of just using that one butterfly cutter for everything! I used some of my own buttons and household objects to create some of these molds. I went to HobbyCraft the other day and bought several packs of different buttons and used these as molds too.

These made fantastic molds and I cant wait to use them! You can use molds for sugarpaste, chocolate and loads of other different things.

P.s. You really wont want to miss my next blog! You might start drooling!

 Thanks for reading!

 

 

Ice Cream Cupcakes!

Deceivingly Tasty!

These little ice creams are cupcakes! I used a recipe from Carol Deacon's book that I got at the Cake International show to create these little beauties! I am so please how they turned out!

 

The cake mixture is a plain madeira cake which has been flavoured separately with lemon, peppermint and vanilla to give different ice cream flavours. The cake mixture is then poured into the ice cream cups, which are covered in foil to stop them burning in the oven.

The pinky ones are vanilla flavoured sponge with strawberry jam buttercream. The white ones are lemon and vanilla sponges with lemon and vanilla buttercream. The mint coloured one is mint flavoured sponge and mint choc-chip buttercream! For the domed ones I just used a palette knife, but for the 'Whippy' ones I used a giant open star nozzle!

This cupcake is my favourite! Just in case you were wondering, they also taste really amazing! This is defiantly my favourite bake so far! They are quite easy to make and you can be really creative with them as you could use any sponge mix and any buttercream/topping you want.

Thanks for reading!

Cake International

Pre-Show Treats

 

So on Thursday I was having a pretty bad day, feeling a bit defeated. So the one thing that really cheers me up is to bake and decorate cakes! I feel like I'm doing something productive and I can then have a bit of lovely comfort food as a reward :)

These cakes were made using my favourite lemon cake recipe from BBC GoodFood. I just separated the mixture into 12 big cupcakes instead of one cake. The buttercream is lemon flavoured and hmmm so delicious!

My parents were kind enough to let me and my boyfriend tag along to the NEC on Friday, they were off to see HobbyCrafts and I wanted to see the Cake International Show. So I gave them both some cakes to say thank you. Now they want regular deliveries of them! :D

Inspiration

There were so many beautiful cakes! Below are some of my competition favourites! 

 

This music cake was stunning! I loved the royal icing detail and the choice of just three colours. 

This cake was in the Junior class, and I really loved the biscuits and the mouse's bum poking out of the box!

This cake was really amazing, it was Hagrid's house from Harry Potter! There was even details inside the house!

 This cake, believe it or not is made completely from buttercream! How amazing is that??

 

This cake was probably my favourite out of all of them, it has been designed around the disney film, Beauty and the Beast!

I did make a few purchases whilst I was there, including some silicone so I can make my own moulds for sugarpaste! I have a few buttons that would make great moulds, and its very expensive to buy pre-made ones, so I thought it was a good buy really!

I also bought a book by Carol Deacon (http://www.caroldeaconcakes.com/) , which she kindly signed for me! Her book is really unpretentious and shows you how to make cakes in a way which is so easy to understand! 

I also attended a small demonstration by Queen of Hearts Couture Cakes (http://www.queenofheartscouturecakes.com/), two ladies based in London who decorate all their cakes in buttercream only! They showed us how to make buttercream flowers and a cupcake bouquet! I am very eager to try these out and also make some cakes from Carol's book! So keep your eyes peeled for more blog entries!

 Thanks for Reading!