3 Ways With... Halloween!

Do you know what is terrifying me this Halloween? My own bad time management. Seriously. It’s terrifying. Mostly because Halloween is such a good time to try new things and be really creative but I didn’t manage it very well and have left myself feeling disappointed. Take this giant cupcake for instance; it didn’t turn out like I had it in my head, mostly due to no time for planning.

I don’t like it. That’s that.

But anyway, moving on to some things I did actually a little bit like, here are 3 ways with Halloween:

1. Cake Pops

I always dread a little bit being asked to make cake pops, mostly because my skills with them aren’t terribly reliable – sometimes they work great, other times not so much. I know a worklady shouldn’t blame her tools but I think the candy melts play a big part in whether the pops are going to be a success or not: sometimes they are beautifully smooth and perfect consistency, other times they are thick and lumpy. It varies from make to make and from colour to colour.

So when they actually go right, like with this lot, I make sure I do a little happy dance.

These were for my cousin Oliver who loves the cake pops. He loves them so much that when my auntie asked if I would do him some I already had it in my diary because he’d already placed an order! His brother, Sam, also loves the cake pops but hates Halloween so he got some plain ones and everyone was happy.

These little Frankensteins are the most creative I have ever been with the cake pops and I was pleased with how they turned out. Could this be opening the door to cake pop adventure land? We’ll see…

The cake pops for the ghosties didn’t cover so well but that wasn’t so bad because they were covered with fondant sheets. Wooooooo!

2. Iced Biscuits

Oh I do love an iced biscuit! The only thing I love more than decorating an iced biscuit is eating one. We make so much cake these days that we’ll take it or leave it in our house,but everyone is all over these sugar cookies and the lovely royal icing.

Iced biscuits are something I would love to work with more often – they are just time consuming because there is a lot of drying time required but I think the results are worth it.

Again, I had more ideas in mind for these but time got the better of me. But I think Frankenstein and his bride turned out pretty well.

3. Cake

I got to do a Halloween cake…For my Nanna! Love it! Her country club put on a Halloween party so she wanted to have a cake to take to give to the committee to say thank you. Now that may sound very sweet but I was having nightmares about what she was going to say about this cake. My Nanna has entered that stage of life where she doesn’t care who she offends. (BTW I adore my Nanna she is the loveliest, most generous woman who just makes me giggle with her old lady sass!) So I was worried about the comments. The least terrible being: “yes, Rosie it’s very nice.” The worst being “What on earth is that? It’s rubbish. I can’t give them that.”

Her actual response was: "Oh isn't that lovely! They're going to be over the moon with that!" Yay!

When I Googled Halloween cakes this one instantly caught my eye; I thought it was suitably grown up and just creepy enough. Mine is an amateur take on this one, which I just completely adore, but I think it turned out ok. My favourite bit is the black roses topper – makes me think of an eerie wedding cake.

Funny story – when I was trying to cover this, I accidentally hit myself in the chin with my silicon rolling pin. Those things are heavy. Given the noise that occurred I was lucky to escape a cracked tooth but I do have a bruise (thankfully) under my chin and my left ear just isn’t quite right. Baking is dangerous, kids.

Ok.... 4. Cupcakes

Just because it's Halloween. 

Black velvet cupcakes with meringue ghosts! Spookilicious.

Word to my mother for these Halloween cupcakes!

Halloween: next year I'll be really ready for you!

Vicky xx

Weekend Bakes: Banoffee Pie Cupcakes

Banoffee pie is one of my favourite desserts and I have been meaning to get them into cupcake form for a while. So when Kat Buckley , aka The Baking Explorer made a batch of delicious looking banoffee cupcakes and we happened to have a few over ripe bananas I knew how I was going to spend my afternoon.

We seem to have had a bit of a run of bananas that were ripening far too quickly, hence the two weeks running of banana-related recipes!

Having made the banana loaf the week before, I already had a good idea of what was going to go into my mix and used light brown sugar and butter as opposed to caster sugar and margarine.

The batter smelled lovely and banana-y and there was a lovely sugary aroma when they were baking. I was a little disappointed when they came out of the oven because every single one of the cupcakes had sank. The mixture made about 16 cupcakes so I'd put 12 in my gas oven and the rest in the electric oven and, as you can see, they all sank so I think this must have been a problem with the mixture rather than the ovens. I'm thinking maybe the bananas were too heavy for my usual, light sponge mixture?

However, I was not to be deterred: the middles were coming out anyway so I could fill them with lovely sweet toffee sauce. I did cheat a bit on the sauce. We had some ready-made toffee sauce in the cupboard and I opted to use that instead of making my own and perhaps having a lot left over.

The usual topping for a banoffee pie is lovely thick whipped cream but because I wanted the cupcakes to last a few days I chose to top mine with buttercream but I think this worked ok. It gave a different flavour and texture being heavier and sweeter than whipped cream but as it was on a cupcake I think that was allowed.

The cupcakes were then topped with grated chocolate and were ready to eat.

Banana and toffee is such a fantastic combination, so when you take that first bite and you get the lovely moist banana-y cake mixed with the smooth toffee sauce, you know you're on to a winner! I think this would have worked as a 'naked' cupcake with a dollop of whipped cream or buttercream on the side.

The only thing lacking with these cupcakes was the biscuit element. Kat added Speculoos to her batter to get a biscuit flavour. I did think about crumbling some biscuit on the top with the chocolate but I didn't want it to go soft. Maybe I need to experiment with a  biscuit base at the bottom of the cupcake case! After all it is all about the buttery biscuit base... 

Recipe:

For the Cake:

6oz soft light brown sugar

6oz unslated butter, softened

3 eggs

6oz self raising flour

2 ripe bananas, mushed

For the middle:

toffee sauce of your choosing

For the buttercream:

400g icing sugar

100g unsalted butter, softened

a few tablespoons of milk

To top:

- chocolate to grate

Method:

- pre-heat oven to gas mark 4/170 degrees C

- line baking tins with cupcake cases

- cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy

- lightly beat the eggs then add them to the sugar mixture a bit at a time

- add the occasional tablespoon of flour to stop the mixture curdling

- add half of the remaining flour and fold in gently

- add the remaining flour and the mushed up banana, again folding in gently

- spoon into the cupcake cases about 2/3 full and pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes and 

  hope they don't sink!

- in the meantime, make the buttercream by mixing the butter and icing sugar, adding the 

  milk a bit at a time until you get a good piping consistency (soft enough to pipe, firm 

  enough for it to stay piped!)

- when the cupcakes are done, take them out of the oven and leave them to cool

- when fully cool take out the middles of the cupcakes with an apple corer or knife, fill 

  the holes with toffee sauce and then pop the removed cake back in

- top the cake with a swirl of buttercream then sprinkle over some grated chocolate

- stuff your face!

Vicky xx

Cake Time: Monday Morning Monsters

Morning All! Hope you have all had a lovely weekend. I enjoyed a rare weekend off and I'm only back for one day before I'm off again. It just makes Monday a little more bearable! 

I am working really hard at the minute to make sure I have lots of lovely things to post on here and to make sure I keep up to date with the cakes I have been doing. That's why you have been treated to cake posts two days in a row!

These are some cutie little monsters done for a little boy's birthday a few weeks* ago. All cupcakes were vanilla sponge and decorated with buttercream, fondant and royal icing.

*months

We had to make 30 cupcakes. Do you know how hard it is to make 30 monster cupcakes? It's pretty hard! You have to be truly inspired. It was suggested that I should be doing 30 completely different ones but I think I'd still be doing them now...

Despite having to work hard thinking of enough good ideas, I enjoyed creating these monsters and monsterettess and we managed good levels of both brightness and silliness. Perfectly appropriate for a fun children's party.

Awww, you wouldn't mind finding such monsters under the bed, would you? :)

Vicky xx

Weekend Baking: Rose Water, Pistachio & Raspberry cupcakes

I've called this new feature 'Weekend' Baking but don't worry - I'm not confused about what day of the week it is! Working at a tourist attraction means my working week runs from Thursday - Monday so I have my weekend on a Tuesday and Wednesday. So these tend to be the days I get to play in the kitchen.

When it comes to baking I'm still at the stage where I need to stick to the recipe but I'm hoping the more practice I get the more I will be able to be one of those clever people who just adapt recipes and make stuff up if they feel so inclined!

So here is my first weekend bake:

Rose water, pistachio & raspberry: this is a Middle Eastern combination of flavours that I kept coming across and so decided that it was a sign that I had to give it a go, and I'm glad I did!

Rose water is something I have used before but for the life of me I can't remember what I did with it: must have been a mind-blowing creation... But still I am a little bit scared of it; it's one of those things that has such a distinct flavour and aroma I worry about over using it.

I did a little research before I got started and found that 3 teaspoons of rose water was enough and that I could easily add it to my own plain sponge recipe. Some recipes also suggested using lemon juice, sometimes as much as the juice of one lemon, but I wanted to make sure I didn't overpower the taste of the rose water and just went for a couple of tablespoons (as much as I would use in lemon sponge.)

The smell of rose water is fantastic: it's that soapy, floral smell that reminds me of floral gums or cherry lips. My work colleague's perfume is also laced with it and it always leaves a wonderful smell in the office. For me its tradition personified in a smell. The smell of it as it came out of the oven and when they cake was cooled was just as lovely as when it's in the bottle.

Once you get over the faff of de-shelling the pistaschios, you can appreciate the further element of middle eastern flavour, as well as a wonderful texture and colour. I loved the way they looked crushed and sprinkled over the cupcakes, contrasting with the white buttercream and pink raspberries. 

Raspberries are one of my favourite fruits and I don't find them too sweet so it was the perfect accompaniment to a cake that, overall, wasn't (buttercream aside) overpoweringly sweet.

The cupcake itself was light and moist and just the right amount of rose water came across in each mouthful. The best way to eat this is taking a big mouthful and making sure you taste every one of the ingredients together because the combination of tastes and textures is delicious. I would definitely make these again: for such a powerful ingredient it was such a delicate cake and would be a perfect partner to a glass of champagne on a sunny afternoon. I enjoyed mine with a cup of tea but a girl can dream...

Recipe (makes about 15) 

Cake:

6oz/150g caster sugar
6oz/150g margarine
3 large eggs
3 tsp rose water
2 tbsp lemon juice
6oz/150g self raising flour
100g chopped and shelled pistachios 

Buttercream: 

16oz/400g icing sugar 
4oz/100g softened unsalted butter
2tsp rose water
a few tbsp milk as required 

To decorate: 
30 - 35 raspberries, enough to put a couple on each cupcake
50g pistachios, roughly chopped


- cream sugar and margarine until pale and fluffy
- add rose water and lemon juice to the cracked eggs and add a little at a time to the    
  butter mixture, add a spoonful of flour at intervals to stop mixture curdling
- gently fold in half the flour 
- fold in the remaining flour along with the pistachios
- add to cupcake cases and bake on gas mark 4, for 15-20 minutes until springy to touch 
  and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean

- to make the butter cream, cream together butter, icing sugar and rose water until mixed
- add a tablespoon at a time of milk to create your best consistency for piping

- to decorate pipe swirls or spread buttercream on to the cooled cupcakes
- top with a sprinkling of pistachios and finish with a couple of raspberries

Vicky xx

Valentine's Day Round-Up

Ooops! Again! 

We've had quite a busy week this week with 2 birthday cakes, an order of cake pops and Valentine's orders, so my head has been filled with little other than cake! I blame this for me being a bit scatterbrain and not remembering to take pictures of the stuff I've been doing! Silly!

For Valentine's Day we made 2 orders of cupcakes and a whole bunch of cupcake sundaes and I forgot to take pictures! My Mum saved the day and took some of the sundaes, but I was gutted that I gave out the cupcake deliveries before remembering to take a few snaps - I was so pleased with them too! :'(

This was the picture I was given to base them on:

The original cupcakes came from www.glorioustreats.com

To be honest, the cupcakes looked pretty much just as the picture, apart from I used a different nozzle so my swirls were different. Still gutted I don't have a picture to add to my portfolio though - I may have to recreate them! They were actually very simple but looked so effective. Some of the hearts were made from royal icing, which I did the night before so they could be left to harden overnight, and some from fondant icing.

Our other Valentine orders were cupcakes sundaes, which are basically a fairy cake sat on a plastic champagne flute filled with sweeties!

We did a trial run of these a few weeks ago and people got excited about them. I can't claim to have thought of them (the internet is a great source of inspiration) but they are such a nice idea for any occasion.

The cupcakes were chocolate with a rich chocolate buttercream, apart from 2 that were vanilla with strawberry jam and strawberry buttercream. We tried these originally as strawberry & champagne cupcakes but the champagne icing wasn't great - I think mostly because you couldn't really tell what it was, which made it taste a bit odd. Needs more work.

Our champagne flutes were filled with a variety of things, including: love hearts, liquorice pencils, fizzy liquorice (my fave!), chocolates, minstrels, and smarties.

They were then finished off with a bit of wrap and some ribbon. Such a cute present to a loved one...or yourself :)

Since Valentine's Day has ended I've found so many lovely things I would have liked to have made, like cute owl cookies, or super sweet love birds mini cakes. But I guess I don't really need the excuse of Valentine's Day to make something lovely. And maybe I'll even remember to take a picture!

Vicky xx

Birthday Baileys Cupcakes

My Auntie Allison has her birthday on New Year's Eve, so a few weeks before this she subtly informed me that she had a 'big' birthday coming up. She was 45. That's not a big birthday. She just wanted cake. I don't know why because she didn't even eat it but anyway... As it was the festive season, and one of her favourite tipples is Baileys, I made chocolate cupcakes with Baileys buttercream decorated simply with red lettering and fondant hearts and flowers.

For the chocolate cupcakes:

Ingredients:

• 4oz margarine
• 4oz caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3oz self-raising flour
• 1oz cocoa powder
• a touch of baking powder (about 1/4 teaspoon)

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4/170° fan
• Line your baking tray with some pretty cupcake cases :)
• Cream the butter and sugar together until it's pale and creamy
• Beat the eggs together a little until they are just broken up
• Add the beaten eggs a little at a time to the sugar/margarine mixture
• If the mixture starts to curdle, add a small tablespoon of flour to the mixture to bring it back. But don't use it all!
• Fold in the rest of the flour and the baking powder in two batches to the mixture
• Divide into cupcake cases so they are about 1/2 - 2/3 full and bake for 18 - 22 minutes

 

  

Just a note on oven temperature: 170° fan is a little lower than gas mark 4 but if your fan oven is anything like mine, it will be enough! I used to always bake my cakes on gas mark 3 but recently it seems like it isn't hot enough. I need to invest in a thermometer...and to clean the oven!

For the Buttercream:

Ingredients:

• 110g unsalted butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 60ml baileys

 

Method:

• Mix the butter with the icing sugar, making sure the butter is soft and that you add the icing sugar a bit at a time so it doesn't go everywhere!
• Slowly add the Baileys and mix into the mixture
• Beat the mixture until all the ingredients are incorporated and it's lovely and smooth
• Decorate away!

 

The best thing to do with this buttercream is just to add the Baileys a bit at a time because you might not need the full 60ml; it all depends on how you want the consistency. I didn't add enough, so, as you can see from the below picture, the icing was a bit stiff, which meant the finish on the rose swirls wasn't very neat.

I didn't worry about this too much as I knew the icing would be partially covered by the fondant I was putting over them, but for those that I was leaving as rose swirls, I added more Baileys to the buttercream to make them flow a bit better:

Chocolate and Baileys work so well together. The chocolatey sweetness and the creamy liqueur make such an indulgent cake - perfect for a birthday treat! The chocolate cupcake recipe is based on my fail-safe cupcake recipe, which is nice and simple and can be tweaked when you need a different flavour. The smell from baking them is a wonderful cocoa aroma and the finished cupcake is light, moist, and most importantly...chocolatey!

With these cupcakes, I have previously used and apple corer to remove the centre of the cupcake and filled it with a chocolate and whiskey ganache before icing. This wonderfully smooth filling gives off just enough whiskey to compliment the Baileys without being too overpowering. 

I hope you like the recipe! Let me know if you give them a try :)

Tallulah xx