Cupcakes, Conecakes and the attack of the giant gummy bear!

So I haven't made anything new this week because at the weekend I had my first order for party cupcakes. I was asked to make 12 cupcakes and 20 Ice cream cone cakes for a joint birthday of two of my sisters friends children.
So come Sunday morning my kitchen was enveloped in a cloud of icing sugar! I went for Vanilla cupcakes with a blue vanilla butter icing and chocolate conecakes with a vanilla icing and chocolate wafers. Then as my sister turned up earlier than expected I let her do the sprinkles (allot of which she ate hehehe)
Here they are:  - Not the best photos as they were all packed up and ready to go

 I love the little star sprinkles so cute! And the two cakes with sugar paste C's on them were for the Birthday boys, Callum and Connor.

Being in cones, these are a nightmare to transport without them wobbling about hence the tissue paper packing them in.

So that's what I did this weekend (as well as baking a ton of bread too). As well as that I've been trying to find a cake decorating evening class for me to sign up for and I'm still on the lookout for a good one.

Finally look at this!

 It's a giant monster gummi bear! It was a gift for my birthday and isn't it just awesome! That's my little cousin who was given the great honour of taking the first bite! (That's also my crazy dog in the background eyeing it up) It's super tasty too.

Any ways that's it for today, sorry there's no recipe but hopefully in the next few days as there so much tasty stuff I want to make  - I'm just having trouble deciding what to make next.

So I'm off to the kitchen to brainstorm and scour the cookbooks
Bye for now
Cupcake Kris

Lemon meringue cupcakes.

I've been wanting to try this recipe for Lemon meringue cupcakes for a while now but I've been a little busy recently. I've actually bought the lemon required for this recipe 3 times now before finally getting round to making them. The first lemon was sacrificed to the god of gin, the second was left in the fruit bowl to long as I didn't have time to bake and the third, lucky lemon got to fulfil it's destiny to be part of this recipe.

And here they are:

I love the colour of toasted meringue

 And here's how they're made!  - Recipe ala the BBC website.

Makes 8

100g Butter
100g Caster Sugar 
Few drops of vanilla extract
2 large eggs
100g Self raising flour
1 Lemon  - Zest only
75g ready made lemon curd

For the meringue topping:
2 egg whites
100g caster sugar

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together in a bowl until pale and fluffy.
Crack and beat the eggs in one at a time until combined.
Fold in the flour and lemon zest.
Place cupcake cases into a tray and spoon in mixture. Add a teaspoon of lemon curd to the top each cake.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until a pale golden colour on top. The lemon curd will sink to make a yummy gooey centre.

For the meringue topping: whisk the egg whites with an electric whisk until soft peaks are formed. Gradually add the sugar whisking continuously until stiff peaks form and the mixture is thick and glossy. (If your brave you can even try the test of holding the bowl upside down briefly to make sure the mixture doesn't budge)
Spoon the mixture on top of the cupcakes and make peaks in the topping with your spoon. Put the cakes under the grill for 2-3 minutes each until the topping is golden brown.

And there you go Lemon meringue cupcakes with a really gooey lemony centre. 

This was my first one and could have done with a bit less topping and a few more minutes under the grill (But i didn't take any other cut in half pics of the others)

So that's it! They're really easy to make and so tasty and as a person that usually always goes for chocolate its nice to have a change and with lemon being a fruit i can even try to convince myself that its kind of healthy, hehehe.

Before I go for today, just look at my new charm I got. I saw it and just couldn't help it as I'm obsessed with anything cupcake. 

Cute huh?

Anyway bye for now, have fun and keep baking.

Cupcake Kris

Cake Poppin!

So one of my favourite all time baking blogs and one that was a big inspiration to me to start my own blog is www.bakerella.com. And for a while now I've wanted to try Bakerella's most famous invention: Cake Pops!

They're basically little cake's that look like lollipops and they're so cute! Bakerella decorates hers in so many different and creative ways but I thought for my first attempt I'd just go plain until I get used to the dipping and getting the right shape.

So here they are! I had to use some polystyrene to stand them in

And how it's done!

You need:
Cake
Frosting
Candy melts or chocolate
Lollipop sticks
Something to stand them in - Box with punched holes/ polystyrene etc




First you need some pre baked cakes, I used Chocolate - The chocolate cupcake recipe from earlier in the blog!

2 of these made about 6 pops! the rest I just filled with toffee sauce and iced so I had 2 desserts in one cake tin!

Once the cakes are cooled you need to break them up and mix together in a bowl with some frosting  - I used Vanilla (The vanilla frosting used in the chocolate cupcake recipe) as I didn't want chocolate overload. You need to use about a table spoon of frosting for each cake. Then blend the two together until really well combined.

 Frosting and cake ready to be smooshed together!

After  Smooshing together you need to roll your cake balls

Then put these in the freezer to chill for a few minutes. While they are chilling take your candy melts - I used Vanilla (Or you could use chocolate - however candy melts are best) and melt them in a bowl over a pan of water.

Dip the top of each lolly stick  into the melted candy melts then insert into the middle of each cake ball and put these back in the freezer for a couple more minutes. This helps the lolly stick hold itself on the cake ball easier.  After a minute or two its then time to dip!

Dip and swirl each cake pop in the candy melts, then tap off any excess and stand each one up using something like a box with holes or polystyrene.

At this point you can sprinkle with hundreds and thousands if you want. Then place in the pops in the fridge to set. Then it's time to bite into them.

And there you go, my first attempt at cake pops. 

Once they're set they can be decorated with edible pens, fondant etc which I think I will try next!
And again I have to mention my good friend Russ to say thank you for sending me the candy melts. I love them, I even frosted a cupcake in the left over melted candy to make a hard topped, "cracking cupcake" (sorry about the cheesy name, I can't help it hehe)

Any ways that's it for now I have 10 cupcakes to ice!

Keep baking!

Cupcake Kris

Peanut Butter and Chocolate chip Cookies.

It seems like it's been forever since I posted on here, in fact it's only been just over a week which isn't to long but here I am back again!

This week I've made more bread as well as boyfriends favourite  - Peanut Butter Cookies! He's been asking me for weeks to make him some and I finally gave in.

Also this week I've discovered I really need a good cooling rack, a better piping bag, a proper mixing bowl and a big cookie sheet. So I think I'll be investing in those soon. One thing I did buy though was a cupcake charm, I just couldn't help myself even though I haven't even got a bracelet for it to go on.

Any ways so on to the Peanut Butter Cookies, Here they are:

And all wrapped up ready to take to work, in my cute new biscuit tin.

I love these cookies, which Is odd as i don't like peanut butter on its own but hey mix it with sugar and butter and I love it!

So here's how they're made:

Makes 24

225g Unsalted Butter
200g Caster Sugar
200g Soft Brown Sugar
2 eggs
1/2 Tsp Vanilla extract
240g Peanut butter  - Crunchy style is best for a good texture
340g Plain flour
2 tsps Bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
175 g Plain chocolate chopped into chunks.

Baking trays lined with greaseproof paper.

Preheat oven to 170 degC / 325 F

Put the butter and sugars in a bowl and cream with an electric whisk or by hand until light, fluffy and well combined. Add the eggs one at a time mixing well. Then stir in the vanilla and peanut butter.

Add the flour, Bicarbonate of soda, salt and chocolate chunks and mix well until a smooth dough is formed and the chocolate is evenly dispersed.

Roll small balls of cookie dough (The whole batter makes 24 cookies) and place onto prepared baking trays and press down ever so slightly. You do not need to flatten the dough into cookie shape as they will spread out on their own. Make sure you space the dough enough apart to allow for spreading. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until golden round the edges . If you like me and don't have very big baking trays you may need to bake in quite a few batches. Here's some of mine cooking away in the oven:

See how small they are to start!

Leave the cookies to cool slightly on the tray first before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.

And that's it!

Well that's all for today but first I'd like to say a big hi and welcome to the world of baking to my friend Russ who followed the easy bread recipe and made his first loaf, which according to him tasted like bread, thereby making it a success.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris