Giant cupcake

I finally got to try out my new giant cupcake pan from Baker's Secret.  After reading all the recommendations online on whether to bake the top and bottom half of the cake at the same time, I went with the 10-15 minute gap by baking the bottom half first for 10 minutes then adding the batter to the top half after that.  Both halves baked almost to the same time after that.  The only issue I had was trying to get it out of the pan all in one!  I should have greased and floured the pan but decided to go ahead and not do it.  Big mistake!  Always grease and flour your pans before adding the batter and the cakes with pop out with no issues.  Anyway I did finally get most of the cake out in one piece, thank goodness. 

This cake is carrot cake with loads of cream cheese icing on top as well as in between the top and bottom halves.  Bottom half is covered in strips of fondant and the top is sprinkled with giant sprinkles made from fondant circles.  I did try rolling a large strip of fondant around the bottom half but it came out looking like a bowl instead, hence the individual strips.  Will have to try again, maybe with buttercream icing as cream cheese is rather soft and doesn't give a good undercoat.  Tasted yummy though! :)

Lemon poppyseed cupcakes {Recipe}

These lemon poppyseed cupcakes are from the book, Bake Me I'm Yours... Cupcake Love, by Zoe Clark.  It is such a good book and I love the ideas she has given for decorating cupcakes as well as all her recipes.  These cupcakes are yummy and very light and fluffy.  You can also switch the lemon for orange, which is equally tasty. The only thing I have changed is not soaking the poppyseeds in milk as I found the texture a little too crunchy, but that is my personal preference.

Recipe for Lemon poppyseed cupcakes (makes 12)


1 1/2 tbsp poppyseeds
200ml milk
100g butter
120g sugar
2 tsp lemon zest
2 eggs
240g self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs, one at a time.
4. Sift flour and add poppyseeds to the flour.  Add flour mixture to egg, folding in til just combined.
5. Add milk and fold into mixture.
6. Spoon into cupcake liners and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. 
7. Cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack.

Happy Baking!

Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting {Recipe}

The last few months has seen me trying out a healthier lifestyle.  All this baking has not been very good for the waistline!  However, I could not stay away from my oven too long, so I decided to make something a little healthier and satisfy my craving for cake.

This carrot cupcake recipe is from the book 'Bake me I'm yours...cupcake love' by Zoe Clark.  There are some delicious looking recipes as well as the prettiest cupcakes you could find in this book.  So I decided to try out the carrot and pecan cupcakes.

I tweaked the recipe a little, substituting some of the ingredients I had in my kitchen.  The cakes turned out moist and nutty, with a hint of cinnamon. I topped them off with a cream cheese frosting.

Recipe for Carrot cupcakes (makes 12)

125g soft brown sugar
120ml canola oil
2 eggs
190g self raising flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
280g grated carrots (about 4 medium carrots)
50g chopped pecans (add more or less to your taste)

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.
2. Line cupcake tin with cases.
3. Whisk sugar and oil together.  Add eggs, one at a time, and whisk til combined.
4. Add flour, baking soda and cinnamon.
5. Mix in grated carrots.
6. Fold in pecans.
7. Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 15 minutes or until skewer inserted in the centre of cake comes out clean.
8. Cool for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe for Cream cheese frosting

60g butter, soft
120g cream cheese
1tsp vanilla extract
400g icing sugar, sifted (add more or less according to taste)

1. Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla.
2. Add sugar, a little at a time, beating well between each addition, until smooth and creamy.
3. Frost completely cooled cupcakes.

I used a 1M tip for the three designs in the photo.

• The rose swirl in the front is done by starting in the middle, and working your way around until the edge.
• The high swirl starts at the edge, working your way around, overlapping round and round until you get to the peak.
• The stars are done simply by squeezing the tip once, stopping and lifting up. Repeat stars all over the cupcake.

I made the little carrots out of fondant, shaping the orange fondant into long tear drops, and sticking some green fondant on the top for the shoots.

Happy baking! :)

Mocha walnut cupcakes

I was reading through one of the cake decoration magazines and came across a recipe for a coffee cake.  Now I don't really drink coffee, I am more a tea person, however, I do love the smell of coffee in cakes so I decided to make some and try them out.  I also added some cocoa powder and walnuts to the cake to make it more to my taste and I loved how it turned out.  The coffee glaze added just the right touch to the cupcakes.  I just have to remember not eat this before bedtime, or I'll be bouncing off the walls! 

Do you like coffee cakes?  

Choco-banana-nut cupcakes {Recipe}

Chocolate banana walnut cupcakes!  What a mouthful!  And oh so yummy too! :)
I love banana cake and bread but had never tried making either so when I had some bananas left over, I thought it was time to try something new.  I got the main recipe from epicurious but tweaked it a bit as I did not have cinnamon and reduced the sugar as I did not want it so sweet.  I also changed the quantity of nuts and chocolate, and you can add more if you want, depending on how much you like them in your cake.


Recipe for Choco-banana-nut cupcakes

2  1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 stick (about 113g) butter, softened  (I use the salted kind but you can use unsalted butter and add ½ tsp salt)

1/2 cup sugar (more if you want it sweeter)

2 eggs

1  1/4 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 medium bananas)

2/3 cup plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup  bittersweet chocolate chips (or as much as you want. I used Ghirardelli brand, 60% cacao, you can use semi-sweet chocolate too if you like)

1/2 cup walnuts (or more if you like it more nutty), toasted, cooled and chopped coarsely

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Sift together flour, soda and salt (if using).
3. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add eggs until blended. 
4. Beat in bananas, yogurt and vanilla.  (Mixture will look curdled, don’t worry!)
5. Fold in flour, chocolate chips and nuts.
6. Put into cupcake liners and bake for about 12-15 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Let the cupcakes cool a little before turning them out onto a rack to cool completely.

This recipe made 24 cupcakes as I filled the liners halfway with batter but I think, next time, I would fill them up to almost full as they did not rise much.  Let me know how it goes if you try it.

Happy baking! :)

Marbled cupcakes

 
I decided to do a little baking for a friend who was moving overseas.  And I thought I'd try something a little different - marbled chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.  All you need is a chocolate batter and a vanilla batter.  Then spoon equal amounts of both batters into the cupcake liners and swirl the batter with a toothpick before baking.  Or you can skip the swirl and end up with a two-toned cupcake.  Just as fun!  Add some icing on the top in a lovely swirl and you have some pretty decent and yummy looking cupcakes!  I used a Wilton 1C tip for this swirl (simply because I had just bought it and wanted to try it out) or you can use the usual Wilton 1M or even a 2D for slight variation.

I used the same tip to make a rosette as shown above.  Simply start your icing in the middle of the cupcake and then press and move outwards clockwise.  Stop icing once you've made a round.

Here's what it looks like on the inside.  In this case I didn't swirl the batter so I ended up with a two-toned cupcake.

Pretty cool eh?  And you get the best of both flavours too! Yum!

Happy baking!  :)

Mermaid cake

I did another cake for my friend's 4-year-old daughter (lucky girl!) for a second party she had today.  She wanted a mermaid cake and I thought I'd take it to the next level by making matching cupcakes and setting it all up in a cupcake tower.  I was so excited to set up the whole dessert table - though the background was not quite ideal for a photo shot, the birthday girl absolutely loved her cakes!

Here are some more close ups.

Rows of cupcakes on the tray.  The cupcake toppers were made by me.  I was quite pleased with how they turned out.  :)

  I love the whales!

The crab and octopus are pretty cute too!

And here is a close up of the cake.

And the back of it.

It was sooo much fun to do!  I can't wait for my next cake! :)

Message in a cupcake? C-mail!

How nice is it to have a pretty cupcake given to you any day? That would put a smile on my face anytime! :)

But how great would it be if your lovely little cupcake was also holding a secret message especially for you?  You've heard of message in a bottle - well here's message in a cupcake!

 Here's the little cupcake topper - ordinary looking, you say.  But when you turn it around ....

....a hidden message awaits!  Pull it out of it's holder and what have you got......

Isn't that sweet?

Or how about...

Or even...

What would yours say? :)

my lil pony

After the success of making little Harry Potter for the Castle cake, I decided to try making some other figurines.  Having no experience on where to begin, I started looking through the Net and You Tube to get some ideas.  Thank goodness for kind people out there who share stuff with you.  I watched this video by yourstrulytx on how to make this cute lil pony and thought I'd share it with you.

Isn't he adorable?! :)

Let me know if you make one too!

Eleanor's cupcakes

These cupcakes were done for my sister's friend,  who wanted to surprise her cousin Eleanor for her birthday.  She wanted pink, purple and orange frosting with loads of flowers and sprinkles.  The letters were made of royal icing as well.  Lots of fun!