Cupcake Presents!!!

How exciting is Christmas! I got ridunculously spoilt and as many could predict there were alot of cupcake presents to be given!
Here are a few pics showcasing my cupcake goodies:

An amazing cupcake cake stand from my best girls Christmas in Harpenden (this was the prezzie from my secret santa!) Excuse the crazy face...I was obviously too excited by the gift!


An even more amazing tiered cupcake stand from my boss..I've never seen a tiered stand before with actual cupcakes on it so I was super impressed with this! Isn't it beautiful!

A lovely porcelain trinket box from my visiting teachers...I was so excited when I unwrapped it that I forgot Byron had told me not to come into the bedroom as he was wrapping my presents up and I went running through to show it to him! He was not impressed..but I just loved it so much I had to show him right away!!


And here I am with my mountain of cupcake prezzies I unwrapped this morning. Some were from Santa, some from my Mom and I got a huge candy cane box filled to the brim with all kinds of exciting cupcake gifts from my sister Mara consisting of cupcake bandages, cupcake tissues, cupcake ribbon, cupcake cases, 4 cupcake recipe books, mini cupcake magnets and some awesome coloured shimmer to decorate cupcakes with. It is clear everyone knows how much I LOVE cupcakes! Excuse the bed hair!

Christmas Day Candy Cane Cupakes!

I have been wanting to make candy cane cupcakes for a while now! I bought some candy cane cupcake cases off ebay and decided it was time! We were leaving on Christmas Eve to come up to my parents house and I tried to bake them before we set off but there were lots of other last minute things to do so I got all the cupcakes baked and off we went! which meant it was time to ice them today. I baked a variety of big ones and mini ones. I used the candy cane wrappers, along with some red and white polka ones and some mini festive ones with santa and snowmen on just for a bit of variety.

The plan was to decorate them with red and white swirled icing to resemble a candy candy. If you read my post about my Ghana flag cupcakes the turning buttercream to red was really not happening for me so I read up about it on google and someone assured me wilton's red food colouring worked. I bought some especially and what do you know I ended up with pink icing again!! If anyone can tell me the secret for red buttercream I'd be grateful! I then put some candy canes on top for decoration and crushed bits of candy cane on the mini ones.

They were double chocolate cupcakes with mint buttercream and we haven't been able to stop eating them all night! The mini ones are especially easy to just keep popping in your mouth..but hey it's Christmas so you have to over eat right? it's just what you do!

I was showcasing my candy cane earrings and ribbon in my hair along with my candy cane cupcake! I don't know why I look so unimpressed though..I was very excited at this point!

Finally visiting Lola's!

Well I finally made it to Lola's! The weekend we moved my parents came down South to help us and since they don't venture down here much a trip to London was a must! and I knew exactly what I wanted to do...go on a cupcake hunt! Unfortunately it was late in the afternoon and by the time we got to Kings Road there was no sign of crumbs and doilies so I was sad about that but we made it to Selfridges in time for some mini cupcakes!

I was impressed with their cuteness, I got an oreo, rocky road, red velvet and chocolate one. Whilst they looked pretty and I loved the little holder they gave it to you in I have to say I wasn't bowled over by the taste or anything so I won't be rushing back in a hurry.

Snickerdoodles...in my new oven!

So we've moved house to the most gorgeous coach house! I'm actually in love with it! The kitchen is beautiful..we have a dishwasher which is super exciting and we have a whole giant cupboard now I can dedicate to all my baking supplies which is super exciting! The first things I made in the new oven were some snickerdoodle cookies. I was planning on using this cookie press my sister got me last Christmas and I've never used but the choc chips wouldn't have fit through so I tried to impress the Christmas tree pattern on the cookie just before baking. You can see it slightly but it's not too clear..will have to try it properly again another time.

Gingerbread Men & Cookies

I had a little festive baking session at the beginning of the month.. (we are STILL without internet in our new place so I'm catching up on some blogging while I'm at my parents!) and made some gingerbread. I decorated some men and wrapped them in cellophane to give as presents to some friends from uni who I had a festive gathering with!

Gingerbread man cupcakes!

It was our annual Christmas get together with my school friends last weekend and I was in charge of doing the table! I'd seen this gorgeous gingerbread man ribbon and decided I had to do something with it so I themed the whole table around gingerbread men! so I decided it was only appropriate to do gingerbread man cupcakes! and I used these as the place settings.

I used a pretty simple gingerbread recipe I found off google to make the little men and then I decorate them. I planned to write the whole name on each little man but as they were so small I just put the initial of each person on the front in icing. I then baked some gingerbread cupcakes (again with a quick recipe I found off google) and topped them off with Hummingbird's cream cheese frosting and then stuck the little man in the top.

I was pretty pleased with how they turned out, they were pretty yummy to taste too! and they seemed to go down well at the party.