Chocolate cupcakes to match

I made these cupcakes to match the birthday cake that I made for my sister. I adore the little red cupcake papers - they look so effective against the chocolate colours and I know they would be brilliant for Christmas and winter cupcakes!
I hand grated all the chcolate shavings using a cheese grater, it was messy but lots of fun! The cakes are chocolate with chocolate buttercream and then chocolate shavings quickly sprinkled on!
My camera has been broken for some time now but i'm pleased to report that I have just purchased a new one so worry not, I can keep baking and taking photos! I took part in the London Triathlon at the weekend - i entered as a team with work and did the running part dressed as a toilet! It was so much fun! That's it now though for my sporting achievements for this year! I've done the Crisis 6k, Race for Life 5k and LT 5k - what with all this running, I deserve a cake or two! I'm looking forward to spending long Sunday afternoons baking in the kitchen again rather than out running or worrying about my lack of training! Give me baking cakes anyday! x

Lemon Cupcakes

I've been trying to perfect the perfect swirl on a cupcake for ages now and I'm finally happy with my end result! I've been practising with all kinds of tubes big and small! This is going to be my signature swirl (when I one day am able to sell them!).
I've been making loads of cupcakes recently and selling them at work as part of my fundraising so it's been really easy to practice! I made orange cupcakes last week and lemon cupcakes the week before and they were both delicious!
Lemon is the perfect flavour for summer and I can't get enough of it. I love lemon drizzle cake, home made lemonade, lemon sweets, lemon yogurt, slices of lemon in my drinks - the fresh tangy taste is just delicious and I love the strong yellow colour as they brighten up my dark kitchen!
I think this is a good amount of buttercream on a cake, it looks real pretty without being a mountain, some of the cakes I see in London have more buttercream than cake and I think it's important to have a good balance of them both without it being too sickly! I'll be back next week with the lemon drizzle cake recipe!

More Spring cupcakes

I bought these cute iced ducks from Lakeland and they are so sweet for Easter/Spring cupcakes!

Cupcakes for spring

I am so excited about the arrival of Spring and I love the weather at the moment, it's such a lovely time of year. These are some pictures of the cupcakes I have made in the last few weeks to celebrate the arrival of lighter nights, warmer weather and all things spring like!



I went to the Country Living Spring fair and had a great time, there was some lovely exhibits and people's creativity was just gorgeous. There are so many things I want to buy!

Vanilla cupcakes with pretty flowers

Here are my latest cupcakes I made - they are vanilla flavour with white icing and sugarpaste flowers. Aren't they just the cutest things?

Mini cupcakes

I am a little behind in posting all my recent yummy cakes and bakes so here are lots of pictures of some very mini fairy cakes I made a few weeks ago! They are vanilla sponge covered with white icing and then decorated with different sugarpaste creations! I made buttons, roses, flowers, mushrooms and a little pig! Enjoy!

More cupcakes

I thought I would post up the rest of my cupcakes for you to look at. I made these when I made the flower ones below. These i decorated with silver balls and home-made icing flowers. I've been practising with my piping bag lots recently and I made them by simply using a flower nozzle tube and leaving them to dry over night. They are so easy to make! The difficulty is removing them from the grease-proof paper without breaking them as you can imagine they are extremely delicate!

I just can't express my joy at finally getting the intenet, i've been wanting it for so long now and it's makes life so much simpler and easy. I can log-in whenever I like now! It does mean that i'm slowly getting addicted to facebook but oh well!

I also sprinkled some coloured sugar on them too to add extra effect. Yum yum! I just can't resist a nice cupcake! Pure childish bliss!

Cupcakes for a princess

I'm so happy because as of this morning I now have the internet! Which means I can keep up to date with my blog more and read everyone's blogs that I so love on a daily basis! Woo-hoo! Since I moved here I've beeen going to the library to use the internet (we live next door to one!) but this is so much better! We've even got a brand new spanking desk to work from too so I'm very happy today! Ages ago I bought this beautiful cupcake book called 'The Crabapple bakery cupcake book' but once I had got it home I realized that all the measurements were indeed in Austrailian cups. So I thougt I couldn't use it but now I have a cup I finally got around to trying it out. The recipes are not very simple but I have got the hang of it now! And I've learnt two really great tips for cake baking! One is that is your butter is too hard (i.e. you forgot to take it out of the fridge!) then put it in the microwave for 5 seconds at a time to warm it up. Secondly, if the recipe requires milk (which it did) warm that up in the microwave too as cold milk will cause the mixture to shrink and may result in a tough cake!

I've also been busy trying out the art of sugarcraft. I have found some great sugarcraft books in charity shops and made the roses for the cupcakes using pink sugarpaste. I will try and put a step by step guide on how to make them on my blog soon!

It's market day!

I have to say that one of the best things about living in London is the markets at the weekend! I love borough market, it's amazing! And brick lane market on a sunday morning! Well this morning on my way to Waitrose there was a little street market on Whitecross street with about 15 stalls selling everything from fresh meat and olive oils to cakes and cheese! Some of the stalls sell the most beautiful food, i love looking at all the cake stalls and the cupcakes they make are stunning! I really like the way the country is turning back round to home cooked food and fresh and organic produce! One day this summer I might try baking loads and cakes and having my own stall for the day, it would be so much fun! Well, i'm off to Nottinghill, i've never been there before (and yes i have lived in London for 7 months now!) and there is suppose to be this little shop that sells every cookbook available! Wow! Sounds like heaven to me....

Christmas Cupcakes

You all know how much I love baking cupcakes, well i couldn't resist the urge to make christmas cupcakes. My sister in law bought me these amazing christmas red, white and green sprinkles. Some are shaped like mini candy canes and the other ones are snowflakes! I love the red and green colour against the clean crisp white of the icing, the contrast is great! I used a normal victoria sponge recipe for the sponge (see previous post) and vanilla icing. While the icing was still wet I dipped them into the sprinkles that I had poured onto different plates. I'm thinking of trying to make mini fruit cake cupcakes next week but with all these christmas partys and nights out will have the time?! I'm of to make mince pies now, yum!

Pink Cupcakes

My sexy sister-in-law and boyfriend came to stay with us (they just got engaged! woo-hoo!) so I made some pink cupcakes to celebrate! I used pink buttercream and silver edible balls to decorate them with and used to a knife to give the buttercream a frosted effect! Check out the pictures below!

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Happy thanksgivings to everyone in America, I do hope you all have a lovely time and eat lots of tasty food!

I have been so busy over the past month it's been hard to keep up with my blog but worry not dear friends as I am back and ready to bake! :) On sunday evening I made some more cupcakes, I love baking cupcakes it reminds me of being a kid again, this time I made orange flavoured ones with orange flavoured icing, mmm I love the freashness and clean taste of oranges, it added a lovely taste to the sponge! I decorated them using sprinkles and coloured sugar that I bought in America when I was over there, I used a leaf shaped cutter and sprinkled orange sugar over it to make the shape of a leaf!

Halloween Cupcakes

On saturday afternoon I made some delicious cupcakes for some friends that were coming over to dinner. I used the same recipe as I did for the victoria sponge cake and then covered then in yellow icing and dipped them in sprinkles. A good tip for using colouring with icing is to use a cocktail stick and dip that into the bottle of colouring and add it slowly to the icing. This means that you get the colour you require rather than a really deep yellow! Another good idea for treats on Halloween don't you think?! Check out the pictures below-Do you like my autumn themed cupcake cases?!