Snickers Rocky Road

I thought it was about time I added this on here..as it's one of my fave easiest treats to make and it is such a hit too, I made it once for some youth thing at church for By and then everyone wanted recipes and my visiting teachers wanted me to make it for them too. It's super easy too..you basically melt 400g eating chocolate with 2 tsp vegetable oil. Then mix a cup of rice krispies, 150g chopped marshmallows and 4 chopped snickers bars. Mix this with the melted choc and refrigerate for an hour and cut into pieces...yummy.

Wedding cupcakes

Mel had a cupcake tower at the wedding too. Her theme was turquoise and purple..and she sort of had a Thai theme with Thai caterers etc.. and orchids as the table decorations so the turquoise cupcakes were coconut and the purple ones were chocolate. They had buttercream icing with a fondant heart and a fondant top cake. It was a pretty awesome day. Congrats Mel and Arne.

1st attempt at Pavlova

So Sister Eyre was leaving to go back to Utah and I wanted to make her a fun cake, I asked her what her fave flavour was and she said she liked the meringue and berries she'd had at our house a few weeks before so I decided I'd try and make a pavlova.
I was excited to be using my kitchen aid again! so it was all going quite well..but I didn't realise you had to whip it for quite so long so it wasn't quite stiff enough and when i piled it onto the baking sheet to make a nice circular shape it all spread out into more of a rectangle!!! but it actually was better that way as i wanted to write a message with icing! and it still tasted good. At least now i know for next time tho..lots of whipping is required!

Cupcake Kitchen Tea

My sister Mel got married this past weekend so two Saturdays ago I threw her a Kitchen Tea for her bridal shower and the theme was cupcakes...what else!
I got some cupcake bunting off ebay with matching serviettes and matching cupcake cases and my lovely sister Mara made the cupcakes on my behalf due to me coming down with flu on the day and not wanting to infect everyone! It was the mint chocolate brownie cupcakes from Martha stewarts cupcake book and pineapple and coconut ones from the hummingbird bakery book. It went down pretty well and they were loved by all..pity i couldn't enjoy one - that's when you know i'm sick..when i can't even manage a cupcake!!!

Oreo Sunday!

So I've been desperate to use my Kitchen Aid ever since I got it but it needed a real special occasion! I decided oreo cupcakes were the best way to christen it! suprisingly though despite having 11 cupcake recipe books now I couldn't find one oreo recipe! so I looked online and found one which included oreos in the batter and the icing which sounded good in my opinion...then i decided to top them off with a mini oreo too!
I was a bit disappointed as despite crushing the oreos down as small as possible for the icing when I tried to pipe them out some of the pieces were too big to get through the icing tip so I had to just slap it on but it still tasted yummy!
The trouble was it made an enormous batter...I baked 24 cupcakes and still had half the batter left over so I've frozen that for a rainy day...but we still have 20 cupcakes left in our fridge...oreo cupcake anyone?

America is calling..let's care enough to give our very best!

So I'm quoting Grease 2 but it seemed appropriate for what this post is going to be about.

America is calling me more than ever! It is my lifelong dream to live in the USA..California to be precise...San Diego to be exact! for oh so many reasons..the sunshine, the beach, the lovely friendly people who would be our fellow neighbours and church-goers! the root beer, the milkshakes, the 24 hour diners, ihop, taco bell, WAL MART!, scrapbooking supplies and stores a-plenty!, cheesecake factory, nathan's hot dogs....

and of course the cupcakes! When I look up cupcakeries in California they seem to be everywhere and I'm hoping this is a recent thing and that I didn't just miss them when I was on my travels there 4 years ago!

So there are 2 new reasons to add to my list of why I want to move to America...

1. They certainly don't do this in England...

so i couldn't work out how to post videos! go to you tube and type in cupcake parade and you'll see what i'm talking about!

A cupcake parade! I absolutely love it!

2. They certainly don't have these in England...I was just thinking on the way home from work today how a drive thru cupcakery would be absolute genius! so i googled it and of course America has come up with the goods already!...in Provo Utah to be exact - how i would love to visit!

Birthday cupcake madness!!!

I made hummingbird cupcakes to take to School yesterday for birthday fun. The cupcakes were soooo easy to make, and turned out brilliantly. The icing was not so easy...and this is where I always seem to fall down! I spent missions trying to make my cream cheese frosting thick ..thick enough to ice a cupcake with and it just wasn't happening!!! I turned to google in my very late hour of need and found out that 1. to make cream cheese frosting thick you need the butter to be cold not room temp like i had done and 2. you need to not overbeat the cream cheese to make it too soft - i did this too! so I didn't stand a chance, I kept adding more icing sugar to hope it would magically thicken, I put it in the fridge overnight - it didn't work! so it was a very early start on my birthday morning to go to co-op and buy some more icing sugar (since i'd used up 2 boxes the night before!) and I made some banana buttercream frosting instead which I was pretty pleased with -they went down well so I was pleased!

Next on to my amazing array of cupcake presents I received..the pictures speak for themselves

And yes your eyes are not deceiving you....I GOT A KITCHENAID!!!! it was the best most fantastic birthday surprise ever!!! A while ago I had sent my Mom an amazon wish list which included the cheapest mixer I could find online, I had picked that one as all the reviews of it on amazon had been from people who had been coveting a kitchenaid but settled for that one instead and so I was secretly hoping I might get it but it was pretty expensive so when I opened 3 parcels already from my Mom and sisters of all the cupcake related goodies shown in the pic I was already more than happy!!! and then I got home from work tonight and there was a big box left...well i opened it up and i just couldn't believe my eyes! I wish I'd captured a picture of that exact moment because I was in shock...I ran outside to Byron who was starting up the BBQ and was like 'ahhhh you'll never guess what i got'! so yes i got a kitchen aid - My Mom is the best Mom in the whole world! and what a fantastic birthday it's been! Here it is up close ..check the shininess!!!