Standard Vanilla Butter Cream

This is just a standard vanilla butter cream recipe that can be used on cakes of most kinds and is very adaptable.  You can add other flavours to the vanilla butter cream, using it as a base flavour, for instance: vanilla fudge, mint, raspberry, orange and lemon.  You can add any colour to the frosting as well :)

Ingredients: enough for 12 cupcakes

• 500g icing sugar
• 80g butter (Lurpak)
• tsp vanilla extract/flavouring
• 25ml semi-skimmed milk

Method:

1. Add all of the ingredients together in a big bowl and mix together with an electric whisk.  Use a low setting at first to avoid a huge icing sugar dust cloud and then switch to a higher powered setting until it is light and fluffy.

This is a standard vanilla cupcake, cooked with a raspberry in the bottom, with vanilla butter cream on top and a rose shaped candy on top.  To learn how to make the rose shaped candies read here.

Marshmallow Fluff

You got to love marshmallow fluff, but you must admit that it is expensive, you can only buy it in specialist stockists like Harvey Nichols, and it's full of nasty preservatives and chemicals! 

It's a great cake filling and can be used to make fudge too.  I'm using it today for filling my 21st birthday cake instead of jam or butter cream. 

This recipe is for seriously fluffy and seriously sticky marshmallow fluff, using natural ingredients for a tasty dessert!

Ingredients: enough for 2 cakes, 4 jam jars (for presents) and a fair few cupcakes!!!

• 470ml runny honey
• 470ml caster sugar
• x3 egg whites
• Tsp vanilla flavouring

Method: WARNING - STRENUOUS: Please use an electric whisk!

1. Add everything to a big bowl - you need a big bowl because when you start whisking it it rises quickly and you don't want it overflowing!
2. Whisk on full power for 10 minutes, or more until it's white, fluffy and sticky!

NB: the mixture does start off brown and it is bitty from the sugar, but the longer you whisk it, and the faster you whisk it the whiter, and smoother the fluff goes!  This recipe is good if there are two of you making it because then you can swap half way for a break whilst your friend whisks!

You can store this in the fridge, or use it straight away! Enjoy this seriously fluffy and seriously sticky marshmallow fluff!

Oranges and Lemons said the bells of St. Clements

This post has absolutely naff all to do with St. Clements and neither do the cupcakes I frosted today apart from the fact that they are orange and lemon flavoured!  Even though the weather isn't perfect, there is nothing wrong with having cirtussy summery cupcakes to celebrate a birthday with!

This weekend is my boyfriend's mum's 50th birthday party, so we came all the way down to Windsor from the North to celebrate - and make cupcakes for her.  She asked me last year to make these for her and in all honesty it doesn't seem two minutes ago since she did!

Using a plain vanilla cupcake - find the recipe here - of which there were 64 of them in total (excluding the one I dropped on the floor!!) I then iced 32 with orange butter cream frosting and the other 32 with lemon butter cream frosting...

- Orange butter cream frosting - enough for 32 -

Ingredients:
1100g icing sugar
340g Lurpak unsalted butter at room temperature
x1 tbsp orange flavouring
Grated zest of x2 oranges
x1 whole cap yellow colouring
x2 drops red colouring

Method:
1. Gently grate the orange zest using a fine cheese grater - similar to the one you would use to grate parmesan - in to a small bowl.
2. Add and mix all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl - the longer you whisk/hand mix it the fluffier and lighter it gets.
3. Spread on to your cakes with a flat knife, or using a piping bag, pipe the frosting on to your cupcake - I used a star shaped nozzle and piped the frosting on in a circular motion.

- Lemon butter cream frosting - enough for 32 -
Ingredients:
1100g icing sugar
340g Lurpak unsalted butter at room temperature
Juice of x1 lemon
Grated zest of x2 lemons
x2 caps of yellow colouring

Method:

1. Mix the lemon juice and 100g of icing sugar together in a small bowl.

2. Add and mix all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl - the longer you whisk/hand mix it the fluffier and lighter it gets.

3. Spread on to your cakes with a flat knife, or using a piping bag, pipe the frosting on to your cupcake - I used a star shaped nozzle and piped the frosting on in a circular motion.

Vanilla Fudge Cupcakes

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the length of time it has taken me to write a new post for you all! But I finally got round to baking this weekend I made these wonderful vanilla fudge cupcakes....

Using the standard vanilla cupcake recipe you then top the cupcake with a sugary, tasty vanilla fudge butter cream dusted with crumbled digestives and tasty vanilla fudge cubes.


- Vanilla Cupcakes -
5oz lurpak butter (at room temp)
6oz self-raising flour
6oz caster sugar
x3 eggs
1tsp vanilla essence


Method:

1. Add all the ingredients to a bowl or food processor and whisk/blend until it becomes a batter type texture.
2. Pour mixture into cupcake cases, 1/2 filling each case and cook on 180'C for 15-20mins.

- Vanilla Fudge Butter Cream - 

Ingredients: enough for 12 and a bit extra!

x1 packet of Silver Spoon vanilla fudge

250g standard icing sugar

80g butter (Lurpak at room temperature is the best)

x4 caps of semi-skimmed milk

100g Royal icing sugar

Method:

1. Place the whole packet of Silver Spoon vanilla fudge in a small bowl with 2 tsp of water and melt in the microwave.
2. Whilst the melted vanilla fudge is being left to cool, mix the butter, standard icing sugar and 2 caps of semi-skimmed milk.
3. Once the melted vanilla fudge has cooled add to the mixture and stir.  Then add the Royal icing sugar and 2 more caps of semi-skimmed milk.
4. Put the butter cream in to a frosting bag for piping, or simply spread on top of your cupcakes with a knife.
5. Dust your cakes with crushed digestives and gently push some vanilla cubes on top - because of the fudge, the butter cream sets quite quickly which is why the cubes need to be pushed in.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did, the butter cream is absolutely delicious and sets wonderfully.

The Easter Rabbit

The Easter Rabbit in a cupcake.

This idea was inspired by a very talented lady, namely Astral De La Mare @ The Art of Being Perfect.  She produced some cupcakes a while ago in the theme of Alice in Wonderland, in which she designed a rabbit theme cupcake, along with a clock cupcake to match "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye; I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"

So, I figured that because it was Easter this weekend, instead of buying my boyfriend's parents Easter Eggs - lets face it, it is too hot for chocolate - I would make them some Easter themed cupcakes.  These are great for adults and children, and always make a more interesting Easter present.

The cakes - plain vanilla cupcake.

The mud butter cream - standard chocolate butter cream, using a nozzle I injected the frosting in to the middle of the cupcake and then gently eased it out to give a muddy effect, so that it appeared like the rabbit was in a hole.  Do this first and then spread the green 'grass' butter cream around it.

The grass butter cream - peppermint flavoured frosting with two capfuls of green colouring.  This is spread on with a flat knife and then spiked up in a jabbing motion.

The rabbit ears - using sliced up regal icing, I pointed the ears at the top and then shaped them.  I made some of the ears floppy and some of them slightly bent at the top.  Paint them in with red colouring to make them look like real rabbit ears.  Then stick them in the chocolate butter cream.

Then add a bit of glitter on the grass for some sparkle and then eat!

I hope you enjoy these cupcakes!  Many thanks to The Art of Being Perfect for her inspiration! 

Have a fantastic Easter weekend!

Easter Menu Tag Game!

This morning I received an invitation from the lovely cajunlicious blogger, Jessica, to take part in an Easter menu tag game!  I feel privileged that she chose me to be a part of this game; it will be exciting to see what other bloggers come up with too!

The aim of the game - Each person that is tagged is to come up with 5-10 suggested MENU ITEMS for EASTER. You have to upload these entrees, appetizers, desserts, or whatever you think would make a lovely Easter dinner/lunch from your previous posts with the photos, and link them back for the recipe.  After doing this, link it to 10 bloggers for the invitation to do the same! 

LETS PLAY!

Cream of Butternut Squash and Chili Soup - served cold - starter sized portion.

Pork Medallions in a Lemon and Herb Crust, served hot, with salad and sweet potato chips (optional)

Pea and Ham Soup - served hot -main sized portion.

Spring Themed Chocolate Butterfly cakes 

After Eight Cupcakes - perfect for the end of a night; don't eat them until after eight though.

I am inviting to play this game - 
Lucy @ The Kitchen Maid
Linda @ My Kind of Cooking
Mary @ One Perfect Bite
Teresa @ A Blog About Food
Yadi @ Shop. Cook. Make
Mango Cheeks @ Allotment 2 Kitchen
Shahana @ Me n My Apron
Amy @ Amy's Dinner
Caroline @ All That I'm Eating
Amuse Bouche @ Amuse Bouche

Hope that you can all find the time to participate, it's just a bit of fun :)

Have a lovely Easter weekend everybody!

Chocolate Butterflies

I originally got this idea from the Hello! Cupcake book and whilst the colours that were used for the chocolate butterflies in the book were pretty, it was a bit too Halloween for me with the orange and the black.  So, I used black and pink to add a more girly and summery feel to the cupcakes.  I used a standard vanilla cupcake, with a traditional pink vanilla butter cream.

To make the butterflies:

1.  Make your cupcakes and then leave to cool on a tray.

2.  Melt the white chocolate and dark chocolate in separate bowls, above a boiling pan of water, adding three drops of vanilla extract to each and pink colouring to the white chocolate. When completely melted take off the boil and put on the side.  Wait 10 minutes for the chocolate to cool before placing into piping bags.  

3. Whilst the chocolate is cooling, cut out enough grease proof paper to cover two baking trays and tape the remaining paper on the underside of the tray.  Then draw with a pencil, the shape of your butterfly.  Make sure that you space the drawings fairly far apart from each other so that when you are icing it doesn't stick together.

4.  Place the chocolate into separate piping bags and make a small incision at the end of the bag for the chocolate to come through with a pair of scissors.  You do not need a nozzle for this.  Follow your designs on the paper using the dark on the outline and the pink in the middle, add any sprinkles to the wings and then place in the fridge.

5.  Whilst the butterflies are in the fridge make your vanilla butter cream and pipe on to your cupcakes using a nozzled piping bag.  Then take the butterflies out of the fridge and place on top of the butter cream icing.

NB: make sure you do all of this in a cool ish room, you don't want the chocolate or the butter cream to melt, not even slightly because this means it will be more difficult for the butterflies to sit on the cupcake.

I hope that if you make these that they are successful, they always add something different to your cupcakes for a party, afternoon tea or even if you just feel like making them.  You can also use these instructions to make letters, dinosaurs and insects to stick on top of your cupcakes.

ENJOY :)

Chilled and filled lemon cupcakes

These chilled and filled lemon cupcakes were inspired by the lovely weather that we are seeing more often these days, and I thought that a citrussy but also refrigerated cake would be more refreshing than say chocolate!

This is just a standard cupcake with a hint of vanilla to banish that doughy/flour taste, it also has a lemon curd center and then  a lemon butter cream frosting on top.  I got the lemon butter cream frosting recipe from my Hummingbird Bakery Book but the recipe turned out to be a dud which used artificial lemon flavourings, doesn't produce enough frosting for the 12 cakes it said it did, and it also takes a decade to set (I learnt this from some other cupcakes I made)! So, I altered it slightly to make a more natural tasting frosting with subtle lemon undertones rather than an over powering artificial flavour. 

Ingredients for lemon butter cream:
350g Icing Sugar
100g Lurpak Butter
Juice of half a medium sized lemon - remember to get rid of the pips!
2/3 cap fulls of semi-skimmed milk

Method:
1. Bake the cupcakes.  This is only a plain cupcake so any recipe that you prefer will do just fine and only add one or two drops of vanilla extract.  Bake, and leave to cool on a tray.
2. Whilst they are cooling make your butter cream, using the ingredients above.  Simply add all the ingredients in to a bowl or food processor and mix.
3. When the cakes have cooled it is time to fill them.  Using a piping bag filled with 2 tbsps of lemon curd, plant the pipe in to the center of the cupcake (as far down as you like) and squeeze the lemon curd in to the center, slowly pulling the pipe up and out of the cake as you go.
4. Ice the cupcakes with the butter cream as you see fit.  Add chopped or grated lemon on top for decoration.
5. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes and then eat :)

After Eight

These are my 'After Eight' cupcakes, I've been meaning to blog about these for a while but I just kept forgetting!  This is just a basic chocolate cake - do not use the Nigella recipe, I personally find her cakes quite dry - use the recipe I use which is on the previous blog. 

To make the cupcakes and the butter cream I used dark chocolate which I then melted.  I find that using proper chocolate keeps the texture quite moist, unlike cocoa powder.  So, for the butter cream I used a standard recipe but with 50g less butter, I replaced that with 150g of dark chocolate that I then melted and added to the mixture.  After this has been added and whisked in add a tbsp of peppermint flavouring.

This is the flavouring I used for this recipe because it does not have as many preservatives or strange chemicals in it as Dr.Oetker.  Please do not mix this flavouring with Betty Crocker ready-made butter cream, it will not taste nice at all.  Cutting corners with baking may sometimes seem like a good idea but honestly if you want great tasting and great looking food with as few preservatives, E-numbers etc in as possible then bake from scratch.  

Baking Adventures - Allergies.

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Everyone learnt to bake cupcakes at primary or with their mums using the most simple recipe ever:

50g Self-Raising Flour

50g Caster Sugar

50g Butter 

1 egg

Ever since then I have been mucking around with the recipe and altering it to make fluffy, soft moist cakes that can withstand life outside a container for more than a day; mainly because my pet hate is dry cake.  I will assume there is a large portion of the world who are meticulous with their food and share my emotional inclinations towards cake.  

In recent months, I have been experimenting with cupcake toppings, I'm sure most of you know that there are very many frostings to choose from and that you can use any colours, and any flavourings in them.  My favourites are ganache, butter cream, royal icing, chocolate frosting and cream frosting.  Last week when I made cupcakes I wanted pink vanilla butter cream to top them, but I was cautioned by my mum as she is allergic to cochineal.  This next tip is handy if you want to make colourful cupcakes or topping but have friends and family with allergies.

I ended up using our coffee/cocktail syrup which is the 'Monin Organic Syrup'.  As an alternative to pink colouring I used grenadine syrup which is more commonly used in a 'Shirley Temple'.  The product is quite thick so it does not particularly alter the texture of the icing or frosting that you are making and you only need to use a cap full.  If you want to use the syrup as a flavouring as well as a colouring just keep adding cap fulls of the syrup until you can just about taste the flavour.  I say 'just about' because this is a syrup and too much of it will make for one sickly topping.  After the topping has been spread, piped or whatever you guys do to get your topping on to your cakes, add some sprinkles, slices of fruit, sweets or just simply dust some icing sugar on top for that classic cupcake look.  I went for sprinkles and some glace cherries.

I hope this was a handy tip for anyone who bakes. 

Natasha.