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.

Family Fun Baking!

Well I finally did my first big order..and definitely learnt alot! like it took double the amount of time in total to make them all then I originally thought and quoted for, and I didn't really make any profit! If you want snazzy cupcakes then you've got to be prepared to pay alot! and I don't really think people would be wanting to pay the kind of prices I'd have to charge to make a profit so I guess that was the beginning..and end of my fantastic cupcake venture! Thank goodness too for my family who all joined in and helped..we had a good little assembly line going so that made it easier and alot more fun and I didn't really get as stressed out as I usually do when baking!!!




It was for a triple celebration for a lady who works with my Mom. The bottom layer was for her mother's 81st birthday, the middle layer was for her husband's 5oth birthday and the top layers were for their 25th wedding anniversary (hence the hearts) so she was having a big party to celebrate all three occasions and wanted the cupcakes to be the talking point! Here they all are:
Purple buttercream decorated with silver balls:

Lilac buttercream with white fondant hearts and writing icing gel spelling 50:

Purple buttercream with a white fondant heart covered in silver shimmer dust and 3 exploding fondant hearts:

The very top layer of the cake stand was a combo of all 3:

M 'n' M cupcakes with chocolate frosting

So my mini cupcakes I made for munch and mingle produced a HUGE batter! and we had a fireside tonight so I decided to add some m&ms to the plain vanilla batter and make some different cupcakes!
I used the vanilla frosting recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook and I threw in a bit of melted chocolate to turn the frosting into a light brown colour. I then decided it was time to use my assorted chocolate sprinkles I got at Waitrose ages ago and have never used yet. They turned out quite fun..and they tasted delish!

The m&m's peeking through the batter:

Assorted sprinkles:

All packed up and ready to go! I LOVE my cupcake courier:

My not so Ghana cupcakes!

What they should have looked like:

How they turned out:

A missionary in our ward came home this week. He had been serving in Ghana and By had signed me up to bake some cakes for his munch n mingle! I had a think and decided some Ghana themed cupcakes would be best! I would try and recreate the colours of the Ghana Flag.
I was pondering it all week and was exciting to actually make them last night. I used the white cupcake recipe from Martha's cupcake book and her fluffy vanilla frosting.

You had to fold alot of whipped egg whites into the mixture and I think that must have been why the cakes were so fluffy and light, I was pretty impressed. The frosting was okay but not really sweet enough for my liking so I added a bit more icing sugar to it. It was all going well, I divided my frosting into 3 and made the green and yellow icing successfully. I had bought milky way stars to add on the top.

Then I tried to make the red frosting..but of course when you add red food colouring to white buttercream what do you get...pink! Yes if anyone can enlighten me on how to make red frosting I would be most grateful! I tried in vain adding more and more red colouring until the point where I had quick taste and realised it was now inedible due to me using half a bottle of food colouring!! Unfortunately it was too late at night to think of a plan b so my Ghana cupcakes just became green and yellow cupcakes with stars on!
Oh well..they still tasted good!

Lets bake some cupcakes!

Soo it had been a while since I'd baked some cupcakes and I decided it was time! I found this amazing looking oreo recipe here at The Red Deer and co-incidentally found out about a friends birthday at church happening around the same time and as she is American I thought Oreo's were more than appropriate!!

I also had just bought a mini cupcake tin from hobbycraft so decided it needed it's first airing..so I made a mixture of giant and mini cupcakes.

First: You line each paper case with half of an oreo (the half with the cream filling on)


Check out all that melted chocolate-y goodness!! yum and the fine chopping of the oreos



Adding the frosting and oreos:


I was impressed to find at Tesco 3 kinds of oreos..regular, ones with chocolate stuff and ones covered in white chocolate - so I decorated with all 3! I'm just waiting for England to catch on to mint oreos and then I'd be happy!

Latest additions!!

My latest cupcake purchases have been some lovely oven gloves from debenhams which were double-y exciting because while they have cupcakes on one side they have polka dots on the other - my 2 great loves in one item!!
Then I got a cupcake courier which I have been coveting for a while now! (I can't wait to try it out!) and a five tier cupcake stand off ebay. All of which will come in useful for my upcoming first order!

M&M cupcakes!

I'm still having fun using my m&m baking bits..and I have a fun idea for them next Sunday for a munch and mingle at Church for a Missionary's homecoming (I will post pics).
They've lasted well! Byron was promised a homemade pie from someone at work who lives on a farm in return for some homemade cupcakes - a pretty fair swap I felt! So I whipped some chocolate m&m cupcakes up. In the background you can see my new storage containers from Ikea which I love!

Chocolate fun in Bruges

Some of the many yummy choco shops!

I searched the whole of Belgium and there wasn't a cupcake in sight!! Pretty unbelievable I know, especially considering it's the land of chocolate and all things yummy! So I was disappointed not to be able to add a new country to my cupcake hunt..but we still enjoyed all the chocolate-y goodness Belgium had to offer anyway!

Mmmm waffles


They weren't wrong! This was the best hot chocolate, we had to submerge our little chocolate cups in giant mugs of milk to make our own hot chocolate..and check out the plate of chocolate treats that accompanied it...delish!