Wednesday 3 April 2013

Fondant Iced Cupcakes

This was my first attempt at icing cupcakes with fondant. Normally I love cupcakes covered in lashings of butter cream but I've seen lots of pretty cupcakes decorated with just fondant and pretty flowers and desperately wanted to try it myself. I did worry they might be too dry but I managed to sneak a thin layer of butter cream and jam underneath the fondant which helped, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised, a nice change from the normal butter creamy swirly ones I normally do. I definitely will be trying these again with some different flower designs.

I realised as I got all my ingredients together that I hadn't actually got any white cupcake cases, so went with a red theme having got quite a few red cupcake cases left over from Christmas.





I finally got round to using the embossing mat that I bought months ago and was impressed with the lovely paisley print it gave the fondant. I also got round to using the rose mould that again, I bought months ago. It was super easy to use and produced these really cute little roses.



I hope everyone had a good Easter? I had a super busy 4 days...on the Friday morning I went to a lovely relaxing Yin Yoga class and got all blendy and blissful as our teacher, Kirsty, likes to call it for the weekend. In the afternoon I made these cupcakes, although perhaps I should have made something a bit more easter-y?! Saturday and Sunday were filled with a bit of gardening - mowing and re-seeding our lawn and DIY with Karl putting pictures up round the house and me following with the Dyson. Finally, on Monday my lovely friend Jenny and I went on a little road trip to Chester where we had a mooch around the shops and afternoon tea...I will leave you with a couple of piccies of our feast - it was all so scrummy!





Friday 22 March 2013

Orange Cake...and a bit of an update

Yet again I have been a useless blogger and not updated for a while. It has been an exciting few months since I last posted so I feel I owe you all a bit of an update. Shortly after I posted about xmas pudding cupcakes Karl and I jetted off to New York for 4 amazing days of shopping and sightseeing. Here I am at Rockefeller Centre near the biggest christmas tree I have ever seen, and yes that is a Lindt bag I am holding - I was feeling very happy about finding a Lindt shop and had just got Pick and Mix Lindors - they have loads of different flavours we dont have here- peanut butter, baileys, vanilla and more!



It was the most fantastic trip I have ever been on and was made even better by the fact Karl proposed on our last night!! Obviously I said yes and we spent the rest of December when we got home ring shopping until I eventually settled on this one...its a stunner of a ring and I absolutely love wearing it...



Apologies for the dodgy red mark on my finger - I managed to burn it on the oven shelf about 2 weeks before we went to NYC and was quite miffed at the fact I had a yucky looking finger for the proposal!

Since then my life has revolved around looking at and buying stuff for the house and hunting for a wedding venue. We have finally found a venue which is all booked now for 2015 - aaaages away but everyone assures me it will fly by. We are now on the hunt for a photographer and various other wedding-y things that need to be booked well in advance. It is all very exciting and busy!

Housewise we are still trying to get our lounge sorted with a new fire and furniture - I cannot wait until its finished. We have gotten round to finishing our bedroom - we went for a yellow and grey theme which looks lovely and spring like....



Anyway..onto baking...I have had a few days off work this week and was determined to get back into the kitchen and bake something. I decided to bake the orange cake out of the 2nd Primrose Bakery Book. I have been wanting to make this cake since I got the book and always love the recipes in the Primrose books for the layer cakes. This cake definitely did not disappoint. It was lovely and light in texture and the orange made it taste really fresh.