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

Lots of Birthdays and a Wedding

WOW it has been over a month since I updated, I knew that would be the case in October / November as it is a very busy time for me with birthdays. A few of my good friends and also my boyfriend have had a Birthday n the last month and I've made cakes for them all as well as having another couple of cake orders on top of that including my first wedding cake.

I also had a little break away to Dublin for one of my good friends hen weekends and of course there were (very) early morning cupcakes for the flight over there. Dublin was a great city, I'd never been before but I was very impressed, it was also full of great little independent cafes with fresh food friendly staff and great coffee. I was particularly impressed by one we visited on day one called Brother Hubbard. full of brilliant fresh homemade cakes and tasty coffee. I had the flourless orange blossom and almond muffin with chocolate ganache and it was amazing. One of my friends has demanded I try to re create it myself.

Any way so I'll start with the Birthdays. The first Birthday I baked for recently was my friend Jen's who had Birthday / Halloween party. Jen is obsessed with zombies and particularly loves the walking dead so I thought I'd make her a cake in homage to that. I saw a few ideas online and ended up with this:

She was overjoyed with it and dubbed it the "best birthday cake ever" however I do think she is biased haha. I had a helper making this cake and it was brilliant, my friend Alex came round and was a brilliant helper helping make buttercream, roll out icing etc, I could get used to that!

The next cake was for an order for the next day and it was a copy of a cake I have made before just with different writing and it was chocolate inside I didn't get a picture of this but it was the same as this one


Then the other 2 birthday cakes were for the same day, these were for my boyfriend and one of my best friends Mandie, who have birthdays just a day apart and had a joint celebration meal.

For boyfriends cake I went for a Lego themed cake as he is a big kid at heart who loves Lego, here it is:

Finding something to cut the circles for the top was the hardest part but the bottom of a large piping nozzle worked.

And for Mandies cake she had requested that she didn't want " A boring normal shaped cake" so after toying with a few Ideas themed around her hobbies (one of which is indoor rock climbing) I made this cake:

She loved it and was especially grateful as she knows how much I hate making sugarpaste figures.


Ok so that was all the Birthdays, now onto the wedding. A friend asked me a while back if I would make her wedding cake for her, she only wanted a simple cake, nothing to over the top but still it was the most nerve wracking experience ever. It's such an important thing and I was a nervous wreck by the end of it! I even dreamt that a creature got in my house and ate the bottom tier (I know I'm crazy.) but both her and her husband were very happy with the finished cake and it was cut up in the evening for all the guests who seemed to enjoy it. Here it is:

 

You cant tell too much as the pictures are bright but the bottom and top layer had little pearlised dots. 

And I just can't help tweaking.


The cake was fruit layer on the bottom, carrot for the second tier and vanilla for the top tier.

and that's it for now! back to all the Christmas baking.