An Easter Market Cupcake Stall at Bangor Uni & Mini Egg Rocky Roads

So 14 hours of baking, 150 cupcakes later and this is what I had to show for it! This was my cupcake stall at the Easter market my Uni put on.  

The things that couldn't fly off the table quick enough were these assorted boxes of mini's! I'd been saving egg boxes for weeks, along with some very thoughtful friends and sisters who did the same for me! My mom sent me that lovely flowery paper and so I decided to cover each box with it to make it prettier, and in case some people wanted to give the egg boxes as gifts.  That was a time consuming task - who knew that some egg labels are stuck on with such nasty adhesive that takes forever to get off! but I think it was worth it in the end!

People couldn't resist their cuteness and the opportunity to taste every cupcake I was selling without looking like a piggy! I made four varieties of cupcakes, including Cookies and Cream Oreo Cupcakes (I forgot to take a picture of them on the stall but you can see the mini one above)...

I also made Creme Egg Cupcakes...

and Coconut Birdie Nest Cupcakes...

and these Malteser Bunny Cupcakes were definitely the hit of the day and I sold out of these first.

Here's another shot of the mini's all lined up and ready to be bought! 

My mom got me this awesome cake stand from a charity shop! On the second row down you will see some Mini Egg Rocky Roads that I decided to make at midnight the night before the stall! I had finished all the cupcake baking and still had a whole bag of Mini Eggs left and decided I should really whip something up for people who don't like cupcakes (yes, these people really exist - who knows how or why!)

So I'll leave you with the recipe, it's pretty simple and easy to whip together.  They would be fun to make with kids, but make sure they don't get involved with the chopping of the Mini Eggs! I nearly lost two of my thumbs to this process! and that's not even an exaggeration.  I was using a super sharp knife and because they roll around when you try and chop them in half it was a dangerous task! My one thumb still hasn't properly healed and it was 3 weeks ago now that it happened!

Warnings aside, these were absolutely delish and would make the perfect addition to any Easter gathering this weekend!

Mini Egg Rocky Roads:

Makes 12 cupcake sized

From Cupcake Crazy Gem

300g milk chocolate

150g dark chocolate

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 cup Rice Krispies

1 cup Mini Eggs, chopped in halves or quarters

150g mini marshmallows

36 Whole Mini Eggs

Melt both chocolates in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Add the vegetable oil and mix together.

Chop up Mini Eggs, with caution!

Add Mini Eggs, marshmallows and Rice Krispies to the cooled chocolate mixture.  Mix together until combined.

Pour into cupcake cases.  Decorate each one with 3 whole Mini Eggs.  Press them slightly into the chocolate.

Refrigerate overnight or for at least one hour if you need to try them right away!

Malteser Bunny Cupcakes - Alphabakes

Last week I ran another cupcake stall at the spring market at my Uni, it was slightly less attended than the one I did at Christmas but fun all the same! If your definition of fun is 14 hours straight of baking :)

So over the next few weeks I will show you the Easter-y delights that I baked up for the occasion!

Starting with my favourite of the bunch - the Malteser Bunny Cupcake! 

I am obsessed with Malteser Bunnies, when that time rolls around each year that they start popping out on Supermarket shelves I can't help but buy one...every single time I go to the supermarket! Literally, I can't walk by them and not pick them up! It's not a good habit for my wallet or my waist line.  Luckily I have a rather fantastic mom who likes to supplement my addiction by posting me packages of the little guys, even when I'm not even living in the same country (that is if she can hold off eating them until my package is posted - the addiction must run in my family!)  In a package she sent me a few weeks back filled with baking goodies, cupcake magazines, cake stands etc... I called her and told her the one thing I was most excited about was the Malteser Bunny she had included.  She guiltily asked how many Malteser Bunnies I had received, so I told her just the one, to which she shamefully replied that she had bought a whole bundle but by the time it came round to post my package only one remained!  She felt so bad that she promptly sent me a new package the next day filled with bags and bags of mini Malteser Bunnies! Yes you heard me right - mini's!

When my mom first told me she'd been snacking on mini ones I thought she was making it up, I had looked all over in the supermarkets up here and not seen any mini ones, it seems they were rather scarce! but I knew if they were creating mini ones then they would just be called out to be used as cupcake toppers! and so that is exactly what I did.

I baked up a malt cupcake base, the most amazingly delicious chocolate malt frosting that you seriously need to have in your life, and then topped the regular cupcakes with the mini bunnies and the mini cupcakes with regular Maltesers! and a couple of sprinkles never hurt anyone.

I am entering these into the Alphabakes Challenge this month because the theme is 'M' based bakes.  It is hosted by Caroline Makes this month, and will be hosted by Baking Addict next month.

Malt Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular cupcakes and 24 mini's

From Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery

165g unsalted butter, at room temperature

180g light soft brown sugar

150g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

187g self raising flour, sifted

90g plain flour, sifted

75g Ovaltine (malted drink) powder

187ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

3/4 tsp good quality vanilla extract (I use Nielsen-Massey)

11/2 tbsp sour cream

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Line the cupcake trays with cupcake cases.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars until pale and smooth, which should take about 3-5 minutes using an electric mixer.  Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition.

Combine the flours and Ovaltine in a separate bowl.  Mix the milk, vanilla extract and sour cream in a jug.  Add one-third of the flour and Ovaltine mixture to the creamed mixture and beat well.  Pour in one-third of the milk and beat again.  Repeat these steps until all the flour mixture and milk have been added.

Fill the cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until slightly raised and golden brown.  If a skewer inserted into the middle of one cupcake comes out clean then they are done.

Remove fromt he oven and leave in the cake tins to cool for about 10 minutes before carefully placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

Malted Belgian Chocolate Frosting:

Makes enough to frost 50 cupcakes and to have plenty leftover!

From Sweetapolita

500g icing sugar

450g unsalted butter

3 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup Ovaltine powder

250g Callebaut* Chocolate (I used 200g Callebaut and 50g Milk chocolate)
1/2 cup double cream

In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine half the icing sugar and butter and beat on low speed for one minute.  While that is mixing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool. Add the rest of the icing sugar and butter to the stand mixer and mix on medium speed until completely combined (I do it in two stages so as not to completely cover my kitchen in icing sugar).

Add vanilla and Ovaltine, and beat on low speed until well combined.

Add the melted, cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes). Add double cream and beat on high speed for one minute.

The recipe recommends using it straight away, which I did to frost the cupcakes.  I also refrigerated the leftovers and iced some sugar cookies with it a few days later and it was still delicious.  I just left it to get up to room temperature and then whipped it up in my KitchenAid again before using it.

*Baker's note: Callebaut is a brand of Belgian chocolate - which is the reason the recipe title is Belgian chocolate frosting.  It is good quality chocolate with 70% cocoa solids.  You can just as easily make it with Green and Black's or any other high cocoa solid content chocolate...but if you want to make it with the real deal you can buy it from here.

Birthday baking: A Double Chocolate Smarties Layer Cake!

I feel like I haven't stopped baking all week! Byron turned 24 on Monday and so that called for a layer cake. I've only made one once before but I had big plans for this one! Byron had asked for smarties, so I had a quick look on google images for some inspiration. I found a cake that had circular layers of different coloured smarties, it looked quite cool so I thought I'd have a go at making coloured stripes on my cake. The first part of the process was separating out all the smarties, this was not a quick activity!! I bought 22 tubes of smarties to ensure I would have enough of all colours needed!

I used the chocolate cake recipe from my Primrose Bakery recipe book. They said it was their go to birthday cake recipe and so I was expecting big things! I had a quick taste of the mixture pre-oven and wasn't jumping up and down so I was pleasantly surprised when it came out of the oven and tasted incredible!!! 5 days later and it's still as moist and delicious as it was on day one - I am definitely impressed!! The recipe said it would make 2 layers, maybe my cake tins were small but I could see straight away I could make far more so I split it into 3 cake tins. In between each layer I put some vanilla buttercream (I dyed it green for one layer and blue for the other - By's fave smarties colours) and then covered the whole cake in the Primrose's chocolate buttercream which I hadn't ever made before but it was so light and fluffy I will defo be using it again!!

My sis had sent me a chocolate disc she had made at work that said 'Happy Birthday By' on it so I stuck this in the middle of the cake and then began decorating with stripes of coloured smarties.

The birthday boy was very happy. It was certainly a more impressive looking cake than last year's and far more delicious too! Here he is blowing out his candles!

Double Chocolate Smarties Layer Cake:
Serves 12-14
From Cupcakes From The Primrose Bakery
For the cake:

230g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids - I used Lindt)

170g unsalted butter, at room temperature

350g light soft brown sugar

3 large eggs, free range or organic, separated

370g plain flour, sifted

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

500ml semi skimmed milk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons good quality vanilla extract

For the Chocolate frosting:

175g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids - I used Lindt)

225g unsalted butter, at room temp

1 tablespoon semi-skimmed milk, at room temp

1 teaspoon good quality vanilla extract

250g icing sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c.

To make the cake: Break the choc into pieces and melt in 30 second intervals in a glass bowl in the microwave.  Set bowl aside to cool.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl for 3-5 minutes until the mix is pale and smooth.

Put the egg yolks in a separate bowl and beat them for several minutes, slowly add the egg yolks to the creamed butter and sugar and beat well. 

Add the cooled chocolate to this mixture and beat well again.

Combine the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a separate bowl.  Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a jug.  Add one third of the flour to the creamed mixture and beat well.  Pour in one third of the milk and beat again.  Repeat these steps until all the flour and milk have been added.

In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form.  Carefully fold the egg whites into the main batter using a metal spoon (Do not beat or you will take the air out of the mixture).  

Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and bake for about 30 minutes.

Insert a skewer in the centre of one of the cakes, it should come out clean if cooked.  Leave to cool.

Whilst the cakes are cooling, make up a batch of this frosting:

Vanilla Frosting:

From The Hummingbird Bakery

500g icing sugar, sifted

160g unsalted butter, at room temperature

50ml whole milk

a couple of drops of vanilla extract

Beat half of the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding electric mixer.  Once it has all been mixed together, beat the remaining butter and sugar for about 3 minutes. 

Turn the mixer down to slow speed, combine the milk and vanilla extract in a separate bowl and add it to the butter mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time.  Once all the milk has been incorporated, turn the mixer up to high speed and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

I split it in half and coloured one half blue with gel colour and the other half green.

I used a palette knife to spread each batch of frosting on top of the cakes until the stack consisted of cake, blue frosting, cake, green frosting and then cake.  I put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up and made the chocolate frosting in the meantime.  

To make the chocolate frosting: Melt the chocolate in 30 second intervals in a glass bowl in the microwave until smooth.  Leave to cool slightly.  In a large mixing bowl beat the butter, milk, vanilla and icing sugar until smooth - this can take several minutes with an electric hand mixer.  

Add the melted chocolate and beat again until thick and creamy.  

Take the cake out of the fridge and cover it in the chocolate frosting.  It doesn't have to be especially neat because the smarties will cover up most of the frosting.  Split your smarties into colours and starting at the base of the cake start making coloured rows up the side and onto the top of the cake.  I had a chocolate disc on top so I stopped placing smarties on when I reached the disc. 

It took quite a while to put each smartie on, but it was definitely worth it! 

We also went out to Gourmet Burger Kitchen for some burgers and oreo shakes. We were a bit disappointed with the amount of Oreos in our shakes as it had a very weak flavour, I actually had a pack of 4 Oreos in my bag at the time and joked we should have crushed them up and put them in but I'm not sure it would have blended!!! We make our Oreo shakes at home super Oreo-y so the ones we have elsewhere never quite compare! Here we are enjoying them:

The burgers were delicious though and so we were so full up by the time we got home that we couldn't even manage a piece of cake!!! how disappointing! So we cut it the next morning and took some to work for lunch, I 'accidentally' cut my slice too big and so had to eat the rest for breakfast ...shh! don't tell Byron! Here is what the inside of the cake looked like with the coloured icing:

On Tuesday night Byron asked me if I could make 40 mini cupcakes for him to take into work so I whacked out the old Martha Stewart Brownie cupcake recipe which I just fall more in love with everytime I make them and I did a few different decorations on top. Most were chocolate cream cheese frosting, some with smarties, some with white maltesers, and some rocky roads and the rest were Oreo cream cheese frosting with a mini Oreo. Not quite adventurous as my last mini's I made for the tea party but I was pretty worn out by this point!

Going on a cupcake hunt!

My sister just moved to London on New Year's Eve, we went and watched the fireworks and did

some ice skating which was awesome! but we were also able to go on a cupcake hunt all weekend! I am so excited about the possibility of visiting even more cupcakeries on my next visit to see her! and hopefully it will be slightly more successful than this time!

So we hit up 5 cupcakeries in 2 days, and 2 of them were closed which was very disappointing! but we had fun visiting the open ones!

1. Butter Cupcake, Westfield

Our old favourite..we love Westfield, Mara especially! so we headed there on New Years Day and were delighted to find the cupcake stand was open. I got a cookies n cream one which apparently was limited edition but I'm not sure how different it was to the Oreo one I usually get when I'm there, it was moist, topped with tons of icing and just generally delicious! Mara had a banana one with a banana bread like taste to the cupcake with lashings of banana buttercream - I am consistently impressed with their cupcakes! so we were off to a good start.

2. Bake-a-Boo, West Hampstead

On Saturday morning we set off on part 2 of our hunt. We headed to Bake-a-Boo in West Hampstead and were very disappointed when we arrived there and found them closed. They said they were closed for the Christmas break and re-opening on Wed 6th Jan! It did seem to be a pretty quiet road they were on and not alot else was open so I guess that was fair enough. Here's a picture of their cute pink exterior!

3. The Cupcake Comany, Notting Hill

We headed on to Nottinghill to try out The Cupcake Company which I think is a fairly new addition to the cupcake scene. We couldn't believe when we got there that it was also closed!! The day had not got off to a good start, when we checked out the sign on the door they said they were re-opening on 17th January!!! Now that's what I call some good holidays..maybe I ought to enter into the cupcakery business after all - if only for the holidays! This is my 'I'm hungry and want a cupcake face'

4. Bea's of Bloomsbury, Holborn

Now this is where the day started to get exciting!!! Not only were they open! which was a relief to us but as soon as we stepped through the door we were seriously impressed! Everything they had on offer looked delicious! from the warm spiced apple to drink to the giant meringues which could be passionfruit flavour if you opted for it!! We went for a little platter of goodies for two and it was very decadent indeed!! On the bottom layer we had some delicious scones with jam and clotted cream, the next layer up was a chocolate and raspberry cupcake and a red velet one and on the top layer were lots of mini treats: blondies, brownies, marshmallows and meringues and we topped it all off with some hot chocolate!! In retrospect I'm pretty sure we could have managed with half of what we ate but we didn't realise that when we ordered!

For attractiveness of all their tasty treats on display and general atmosphere I'd definitely give Bea's a 10/10 and would recommend it to anyone but if you were planning to go there for cupcakes only there are better places to spend your time. I'd give their cupcakes a 6, the raspberry icing was lovely but the chocolate cake it was place on was far too rich and the red velvet was just okay.

So we did!!

5. Ella's Bakehouse, Covent Garden

After my last cupcake hunt in Covent Garden I got home and discovered I'd missed this little Gem which had just opened up over Summer! So I was determined to try it this time and was pleased to find another open cupcakery! It was pretty busy and you can imagine Covent Garden was really bustling in the busy crowds! What I loved about all these cupcakes was that they were covered in glitter - I thought that was fun! and they also had cute mini ones for £1 each but only in the regular choc and vanilla flavours and we fancied something a bit different. So we got the malteser one (to share might i add..my husband was horrified at how much we'd managed to consume in those 2 days!!) it had maltesers baked in it and vanilla buttercream with crushed maltesers on top and it was delicious. The icing was just right, I give Ella's Bakehouse an excellent 8!!

And so ends another spectacular cupcake hunt!! I'm sure it won't be long before the next one!! If anyone can recommend any establishments we haven't made it to yet please let me know!