and they're off!!

HI! Yesterday was my first Melbourne Cup with no big people or champagne :o) The kiddies and I made hats for fashions on the field and we had a horse race and everyone won a "Kate's Cup"!

Even though I was having a lovely day with the kids there was something constantly popping into my head, I HOPE MY CUPCAKES ARE OK!?!?! Haha I made some cupcakes (up till 12:30am, so tired!) for a friends function and had to drop them off in the morning. Normally I am in control of the cakes up until the very last minute and set them up for functions but today I had the kiddies and couldn't do it!

Anyway I needn't had worry as apparently they where a success and all went very quickly!

These are lucious lemon cake filled with tangy homemade lemon curd and iced with a sweet lemon buttercream and handmade sugar roses.

Nice side view of the pretty pink papers

And these are my new favourite! Moist Chocolate cake filled with Raspberry Chocolate ganache and topped with Raspberry Italian buttercream and handmade fondant butterflies and folwers. DELISH!

All packed and ready to go in the Cupcake Couriers

Happy Caking Everyone!

Will eating brains make you smarter?

I hope so...

Oh dear I have neglected my poor little blog...

Anyway I’m here now!

Now I’m not fond of celebrating Halloween, it’s not my kinda thing but with all this cool spooky stuff around there has been lot’s of craft project available to me for FDC. So this afternoon the boys wanted to bake, and Mark had suggested I make Halloween cupcake for him to take to work on Friday. So we set to work making Vanilla cuppies with a swirl of blood (raspberry puree) and gray matter buttercream.

I don’t wanna toot my own horn but they rock! One of the best vanilla cuppies I have made, I have been experimenting with recipes to try and get the perfect vanilla and I *think* I’m pretty close. Spence was following me around saying CAKE! CAKE! CAKE!

Also in exciting news I am finally the proud owner of 2 cupcake couriers! I can now safely carry 72 cupcake without fear, it’s so frustrating working for hours to perfect your cupcakes only to have them destroyed in transport!!! I have one pink and one blue.

11 weeks till I hit Sydney and Planet Cake BABY!!

I shall be back probably on Tuesday as I am making Melbourne Cup Cuppies, will be working all weekend on my fondant decorations.

CYA then and happy caking!

I'm too late...

to enter IronCupcake earth this month... :( I was going to do it tonight but I started cleaning and have only just stopped.

Might still whip something up tomorrow. The theme this month was music and I had decided to make a "Lady Marmalade Cupcake" I'm so annoyed with myself that I didn't get better organised, oh well there is always next month.

Happy Baking Everyone!

Soda Pop!

Hi!

Sorry haven't posted in a while! Anyway this past weekend my little sister had a rock'n'roll themed party, of course it was my job to make the cupcakes!

I decided to make some Sundae style ones and saw this recipe for Creaming Soda Cupcakes on NQN that I really wanted to try. I made a batch of IMBC (as I had baby shower cupcakes to make too) and flavoured some raspberry and some vanilla.

And here is the result...

With a cherry on top!

As mentioned I did make some baby shower cupcakes too but I left the good camera at Mum's so couldn't take any photos. They where chocolate with mint bc and vanilla with vanilla bc, baby blue buttercream with handmade blue and yellow sugarflowers.

Now for my EXCITING NEWS!!!! I am going to Sydney, to do a course at Planet Cake!!!!! I am so excited. over the moon...it is a 3 day workshop all about CUPCAKES!!! I think I have come as far as I can teaching myself so I can't wait to be shown hands on some new amazing skills!!! Sorry for all the !!!!!! but did I mention I was EXCITED ;o)

It is lovely rainy weather, perfect for baking...

Nutty!

Hi! *waving*

Well I made my hazelnut cupcakes...yummy! They don't look very spectacular but they taste great! Yet another recipe I have gotten from The Red Deer, love this blog!

Mmmmm gooey nutella centre...

I have some super exciting news, might just share it in my next post...

Take care

Sorry folks

no hazelnut cupcakes today...my little man is sick and grumpy and I'm dog tired! Maybe tomorrow....if I don't eat all the nutella first!!

Mmmm Mmmmm Cinnamon

To scratch my baking itch I made Cinnamon Cupcakes last night, they where delish and enjoyed by all who tasted! But now I really have a craving for hazelnut so I might have to experiment with that tomorrow night.


If you look closely you can see the cinnamon swirl through the baking cup.



Oh and I need to figure out my music themed cupcake for IRON CUPCAKE!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend back to the grindstone tomorrow.

Iron Cupcake!

I'm sure you all know the show "Iron Chef" (you have to say it with the funny voice!) Each week the chef get's a different ingredient (usually gross and weird!) and they have to come up with some amazing food...well there is a version for cupcakes too!

Now normally you get an ingredient but this month it's a theme - Music. Pick a food related song and create a cupcake around it. Hmmm I'm having a hard time coming up with something, of course I want it to be amazing so I can see myself wasting so much time thinking about what I'm going to do that I will run out of time to bake.

So stay tuned to see what I come up with for this months Iron Cupcake Challenge!

God I need to bake this weekend, it's like a itch I NEED to scratch...but there are so many recipes I want to try that I can't decide...actually I have a craving for coconut...but hazelnut would be good...actually coconut lime...but I saw a donut cupcake recipe too...ohh but there is that caramel one...wait the rocky road one...mint?....oh oh I know I need to trial gingerbread cupcake for christmas...oh the decisions I need to make!

(Mind you if MJ reads this he will be telling me I need to do my BAS instead of bake, but whats the fun in that?)

Happy weekend and happy cuppycaking everyone!!

Heaven in a Cupcake!

Oh. My. God.

This cupcake is to die for! I have been asked to make quite a few cupcakes lately but they are all chocolate and vanilla...BORING (but still yummy!) Anyway I did a 21st birthday order and had a few chocolate cupcakes leftover, on that same day I also discoved this amazing blog The Red Deer and a recipe for Snickers Cupcakes.

Do yourself a favour and try these! You can use any chocolate cake recipe you like, and if you have time boil the caramel for the centre. I also added top and fill to the buttercream instead of the caramel topping but either would be fine. YUM YUM YUM

Recipe from The Red Deer

Devil's Food Cake from The Australian Women's Weekly - Classic Cakes
Made 20 cupcakes

180g unsalted butter, softened
385g caster sugar
3 eggs
225g self-raising flour
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda
70g cocoa powder
3 tsps instant coffee granules
125ml water
125ml milk
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line 2 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake cases.
Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in the eggs one at a time.
Fold in sifted flours, soda and cocoa with combined coffee, water and milk, in two batches.
Spoon mixture into cupcake cases and bake for 30 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Set aside to cool.

Snickers Cupcake Filling

1 cup peanuts
1 tin of Top'n'Fill Caramel (or boiled condensed milk)

Mix together the peanuts and caramel.
Once the cupcakes have cooled cut a well out of each cupcake, fill with the Snickers filling and then replace the piece of cupcake that was cut out.

Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream

4 large egg whites
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
250g butter (I actually used more like 400g)
3 tablespoons caramel topping or top'n'fill

Combine the egg whites and sugar into a heatproof bowl and whisk over a saucepan of simmering water until sugar is dissolved and the mixture is as hot as you can get it without the egg whites cooking. Make sure all sugar is dissolved

With the whisk attachment on your mixer whisk the egg white and sugar mixture on high speed until a stiff meringue is formed and the mix has cooled down to room temperature.

Now put the paddle attachment on your mixer and with the mixer on a low speed add a tablespoon or two of butter at a time. Once all the butter is incorporated turn the mixer up to medium speed and mix until the mixture is light and fluffy again.

Add the caramel and mix on medium speed until the SMBC is a good piping texture.

Topping and Assembly

First off you need to make your topping so you will need the following...

1 cup milk chocolate melts

1/4 cup peanuts, roughly chopped

2 Snickers bars, roughly chopped

Top each cupcake with a swirl of caramel swiss meringue buttercream.

Sprinkle each cupcake with the combined peanuts and Snickers bar.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring between intervals.

Drizzle each cupcake with chocolate.

Devour...

My ratings 10/10 so so so good, I am so thankful to The Red Deer and have many more recipes from there to try!

NRL final cupcakes

Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla American buttercream for the NRL final yesterday.

Just a quickie...

Just wanted to post the cupcakes I made for a 21st on Friday. All I was told was she liked green and chocolate, so I made chocolate cakes with mint American buttercream. They didn't turn out as I had pictured in my head but the birthday girl liked them so that's all that matters to me!

All presented in a lovely box!

So I'm off to make footy final cupcakes, happy caking!!!

It's still September...and so another birthday!

Sunday 27th was my cousin Liam's 17th birthday, I still can't get over that he is 17! Making cupcakes for boys can be hard, butterflies and flowers don't cut it. I had ordered some black fondant and gold luster dust for Riley's pirate skulls but it did not arrive on time. What on earth will I do with all that black? I had black cupcake papers left over from the AFL cupcakes so I decided on chocolate cake with chocolate Italian buttercream (STILL left over from the wedding!, I really need to work on my quantities) in black papers with a black and gold star on top. Very masculine I thought, perfect for a manly 17 year old! :o)

Check out my fancy photography skills *jokes* I am trying to improve my skills, do you like my attempt at a background?

In other news I have just finished cutting out all the flags for the NRL final cuppies! Now to glue them all together! and I also have a request for 21st birthday cupcakes this Friday, my brief was they had to be green...stay tuned :o)

AFL Cupcakes

I was asked to make 100 cupcakes for an AFL function on Saturday...50 for each team. They where all chocolate with vanilla buttercream.

Again I had to make red buttercream, but now I know the trick it's so much eaiser! I made little flags for each team. St Kilda had red American buttercream with gold edible glitter and flag.

And Geelong was blue American buttercream with a silver cachous on top, with a flag.

All set up for the function, got to use dad's stand again which was good!

Next weekend NRL! I'm just bummed I don't get to make Brocnos ones.

Kate