Harley Quinn Cake

So I must apologize, I have abandoned my blog again but life has been very busy. I had my Birthday, which my friends made an amazing cake for me for and I also went on holday to Florida, It's going to be boyfriends 30th this year and he wanted a big holiday instead of a party, It was amazing.

This time of year is also definitely my busiest for celebration cakes, there's are so many friends birthdays and I also have a wedding to bake for on Friday, also on top of all the busyness whilst in Florida this happened.

So now I have a wedding to plan too. exciting times :), I also got a new job which I am waiting to start so everything has been all go at once.

Any way as I unfortunately don't have time to post a recipe today , and can't actually remember the last new thing I baked as things have been so hectic. I will just show you a birthday cake I made for a party last night.

The cake was for my friend Jen who loves Batman and especially Harley Quinn , here it is:

She loved it which id great and it went perfectly with her super hero and villain fancy dress party.

I have 3 more birthday cakes and a wedding cake to make in the next week... that's a whole lot of icing sugar.  But after that is the lead up to Christmas which means lots of lovely baking and mince pies. mmmm

Any way that's it for today , Ill be back soon with more celebration cakes and the beginning of Christmas baking.

Cupcake Kris

xxx

Lemon, Coconut and Raspberry Loaf.

I've recently been planting lots of lovely flowers in my garden and it's starting to look so pretty but one thing I've kind of abandoned this year is my vegetable patch. This was due to the fact that in late spring/ early summer we had such bad weather that i didn't bother planting any seedlings for fear they wouldn't survive.

Usually I'd cut the raspberry bush right back and plant a few vegetables but because this year I haven't got anything else except herbs growing I let the raspberry bush just take over. Now after a few weeks of sun I find myself with loads of raspberry's, more than I know what to do with. When that happens I quickly start scanning my cookbooks for all recipes involving raspberry's.

Any way all this reminded me of a cake I baked a while back. The cake itself started as a coconut lemon loaf however I found myself with raspberry's and thought that the flavour would suit perfectly as an addition. I really like raspberry and chocolate together but the pairing of raspberry and lemon I find so refreshing and perfect and the coconut just gives it an extra bit of flavour. 

Here it is : 

I had a slight issue with my raspberry's sinking to the bottom of the cake, however this really didn't take away from the flavour and tossing them in some flour before adding may prevent this. 

and here's how it's made: 

Lemon , Coconut and Raspberry loaf : 

for the cake: 

120g Butter 

200g Caster Sugar

2 tbsps Fresh Lemon Juice 

2 Eggs 

200g Self raising Flour.

Pinch of Salt 

120ml Semi skimmed milk

4 tbsps Desiccated Coconut 

1- 2 tsps grated Lemon Peel

a couple of handfuls of fresh Raspberry's  

For the lemon icing: 

3 Tbsps Icing Sugar 

2 - 3 Tbsps Lemon Juice 

Extra Desiccated Coconut for sprinkling. 

Pre heat the oven to 180 Deg C. Grease and line the bottom of a loaf tin.  

Cream the butter and sugar together until combined, beat in the lemon juice. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sieve the flour and salt and add this to the butter mixture alternately with the milk. stir in the desiccated coconut and lemon peel.

Toss the raspberry's in a little flour and gently stir these into the mixture. 

Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool slightly in the tin for around 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

For the topping, stir the lemon juice into the icing sugar to make a runny (but not too runny ) icing to brush 

over the cake. Sprinkle more coconut over the top, then let the icing harden before slicing to serve. 

And that's it! 

I'm off to find more ingredients with raspberry's before they take over my kitchen.

Cupcake Kris xxx

Fathers day, Baby shower cupcakes, giant cupcake wedding and a very rude hen night cake.

As ever I have been busy baking away for orders, there have been lots of events recently and even though in between I have had time to bake a few things for myself (almond and white chocolate biscotti and tea cake to name a couple) I haven't had the time to upload any of the recipes, but I promise I will blog one of those recipes this week .

In the mean time I thought I'd show you some orders I've had recently.

First I had an order for a wedding at the beginning of June that was for 100 Cupcakes and one giant cupcake. This would be the first giant cupcake I made so I had a practice a few weeks before to get the quantities and timings right but I was very pleased with the end result, here it is.

I was made up with the mould once I'd ironed out a few kinks and quantity stresses. I usually do not like working with silicone moulds, however I think me and silicone have put our differences aside now I can finally confidently produce a cake that comes out cleanly and cooks evenly (after google helped.) Any way the mould was a bargain, reduced to just £1 at a local discount store.

I covered the bottom of the cake in roll out fondant and then iced the top with rose swirls, then filling in any gaps.

Then there was fathers day, my orders for this were much more straight forward:

I had to borrow this photo, as I forgot to take one of the cakes set up.

I also had an order for some baby shower cupcakes in both pink and blue:

For these I made little sugar paste feet, bibs, bottles and Baby signs. I really like the feet and they're super easy to make too.

And lastly I had a very interesting order for a hen night, I actually watched a tutorial of how to shape this cake in the break room in work and got some interesting looks from nosey people trying to see what I was watching. Any way, any children look away now:

I'm not sure I'd be thrilled on receiving such a cake however the  hen party were glad and it was exactly what they wanted. The "hair" is piped with a multi holed nozzle for that real look. It was definitely one of the most interesting orders I've had and everyone I told about it actually couldn't wait to see the finished errr......piece

Any way on that note I think I'll leave it at that and update with new recipes later in the week

until then, bye for now

Cupcake Kris
xxx

Dark Chocolate and Amaretto Cake

So, I have an ever growing list of cakes I've baked recently, not for orders but just for fun that I plan to post on the blog along with the recipe and what I thought of the bake. Some of these cakes I made quite a while ago, some recently however sometimes these get pushed to the back of the list for even more recent cakes I've made, this is the case today.

The reason for this is I got a new cake book and after a brief browse and 1 bake I can already tell that it's going to be a firm favorite. The book people came to my work last week and even though I had made a promise to myself not to purchase any more cookery books I couldn't help myself and came away with a copy of The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook. The recipes in the book are from different members in all the different factions of the club all over the UK  and some abroad. and after reading about the club it sounds so much fun and a really great concept. I mean any club based on cake is a great concept right?

 I'm so glad I broke my own promise to myself though as it is a beautiful book filled with inspiring recipes and I think I want to bake them all. Boyfriend and one of my best friends have already had a look through and picked about 7 or 8 cakes between them for me to bake next haha.

There were so many cakes in the book I wanted to bake first however my choice was based on the fact I had a big bag of Amaretti biscuits that needed using as well as most of the other ingredients required so I decided on the Dark chocolate and Amaretto cake which was a recipe from Carmella Hayes, part of the Northampton and district CCC. The recipe itself was really well written and the cake came out perfect and full of flavour. Here it is :

I apologise for the terrible photo, I was a tad rushed as boyfriend really wanted a piece before it had even finished cooling.

Dark Chocolate and Amaretto Cake:

This cake is best mixed by hand to retain the best texture.

4 large eggs
50 g Caster Sugar
200g Self raising flour
100g Ground Almonds
1 Sachet of pane degli angeli ( An Italian vanilla flavored raising agent) or 1tsp baking powder with 2tsp Vanilla extract.
200g Butter, Melted
200g Good quality dark chocolate, chopped
200g Amaretti Biscuits  crushed
2 tbsp Amaretto liqueur

Pre heat the oven to 180 deg C and grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.

In a large bowl beat the eggs and sugar using a wooden spoon. Add the flour, almonds, baking powder and vanilla (or Pane degli angeli) and melted butter and mix well. Stir in the chocolate, Ammaretti biscuits and Amaretto liqueur, mixing well.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 45 - 50 minutes until the top is firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes, the transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Any way that's all for now, I'm off to plan my next bake

Kris xx

Mothers day cupcakes, a Very Leopard Print Birthday and Easter Basket Cupcakes

I have been very busy with cupcake orders recently. We've had valentines day which I thought was busy but then Mothers day came and I found myself having to make 92 cupcakes and a two tier Birthday cake over a weekend.

Here are just a couple of the Mothers day cakes I made

Both of these where Lemon flavour cupcakes with the bottom set decorated with hand made Lillies. These were my first attempt at flowers like this and I definitely want to get better and develop a wider range.

As i said earlier I also made a two tier Birthday cake over Mothers day weekend too. This was for my friend Alex. Last year I made her the pink princess birthday cake topped with feathers that can be seen in this post
and this year I wanted to make something even bigger and better. My friend is renowned for loving anything leopard print as well as anything with a bit of sparkle so I came up with this :

To get the leopard effect I used icing sheets round the side and a disc cut for the top and then I covered the joins on the top with piped icing. The sheets gave a really great effect and were easy enough to work with.
The lettering around the cake reads "Happy Birthday Lady Alex" as me and a friend also bought her a Lady ship title as a gift (hehe)  Any way she loved it and didn't even want to cut the leopard print tier at first.

Lastly today I have been getting ready this week for another busy cupcake making weekend with lots of Easter orders to be made. This week I have been practicing some designs ready and I think these ones are really cute:

The cupcakes are vanilla and I used vanilla frosting dyed green and piped using a multi holed nozzle to create a grass effect (this was harder on my hands than expected) I then used a strawberry licorice straw for a handle and decorated with tiny chocolate eggs. I'm now gearing up to decorate many more of these and a few other designs this weekend for Easter orders.

Any way that's all for today, no recipe this time but lots of pictures that I hope will inspire you.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris xxx

Red Velvet Cake and another Wedding.

One of my best friends recently tied the knot and as well as being a bridesmaid I was also tasked with making her cake, this consisted of 130 vanilla cupcakes with both pink and white icing and butterfly decorations and then a top cake of Red Velvet cake filled with Cream Cheese frosting and covered in a white roll out fondant.
Jen and her Husband Chris both love superheroes so they also wanted to incorporate this into the topper on the cake as well as with other elements of the wedding such as the table names and the sweet cart. Any way Jen loves Harley Quinn from Batman and she saw a perfect topper idea on the Internet then found a lady who would replicate it in clay resin (I think that's what they're made of right?)

Any way here's the cake.

As you can see some small crafty fingers had already taken a couple of cakes.
And here's the topper:

As there were more cakes than the stand would hold the rest could be stored under the table to top up as guests helped themselves.

Any way as it's almost Valentines and I have have a few orders for red velvet cupcakes as well as a few people asking me about red velvet I thought I'd post the recipe I used for the top cake. As well as for this adorable cup cake (decorated with Red Velvet cake crumbs)

And here's how they're made: (Recipe via Hummingbird cake days)

Makes about 18 large cupcakes (can be easily halved)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

120g Unsalted Butter
300g Caster Sugar
2 large eggs
20g Cocoa Powder
40ml Red food colouring  Note: avoid natural red colourings as this will produce a duller and browner red. I use Silverspoon artificial Red food colour sold in sainsburys or Dr Oetker Red (not natural)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
300g Plain Flour
1tsp salt
240ml Buttermilk
1tbsp White Wine Vinegar
1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda


Pre heat the oven to 190 degC.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy and then add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until thoroughly mixed.

In a separate bowl, stir together the cocoa powder, food colouring and vanilla to form a paste. Add the paste to the batter and mix until fully incorporated.

Sift together the flour and salt and then add this to the batter in  two batches, alternating with the buttermilk and mixing after each addition.

Finally in another bowl, mix together the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and mix this into the cake batter.

Line a muffin tin with paper cases and fill. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed. allow to cool before frosting.

For the icing


100g Unsalted Butter, softened
600g Icing Sugar (I actually used a bit less for a softer icing, more like 400g)
250g Cream cheese (Again I used more like 200g)


Beat the butter and icing sugar with an electric whisk or mixer until you have a sandy consistency. Add the cream cheese and mix until everything is incorporated and the frosting is smooth and fluffy.

Decorate as desired.

For the big top tier of the wedding cake I used this recipe for each layer of the cake (The cake was 2 8" layers and quite deep, so for a smaller cake you may need to use less or divide between shallower tins) with a layer of cream cheese frosting in the centre. As this cake was in the oven for longer I double lined my cake tin both sides and bottom to ensure the sides didn't brown to much and stayed a nice red.

Any way that's all for now, I have quite a few of these cupcake for valentines day orders so I best start my shopping list for ingredients. Let me know if you make these for a loved one!

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris
xx