Housewarming Party and Vanilla Cupcakes

This weekend just gone we attended a housewarming party. It was held by the lovely Amy from Miss Jones Talks Makeup in celebration of her moving into a gorgeous new home. Please have a look at her blog - its full of fab tips on make up and product reviews.

Well, no housewarming party is complete without a batch of cupcakes so I got baking and whipped up some vanilla cupcakes. They are decorated with baby pink vanilla butter cream, a sugar flower and white glitter. I love this little cutter...incase you didn't notice I also used it for the flowers on the Vanilla Layer Cake.

It is a recent purchase and although a tad on the pricy side was well worth it. I will be getting alot of use out of it. It came as a little set with a metal cutter and a mould to give the veining details. They had all sorts of different flowers but this is the petunia. I used white flower paste for these flowers and then used a pink dust to give them the colour and put a silver ball in the centre. Don't they just look so cute!

A good time was had by all at the party and the cupcakes seemed to go down well. Thanks Amy for a fab night!

Mother's Day Cake

I know its super early to be making a Mother's Day Cake but I don't live very close to my Mum so when she visited a few weekends ago I had to be super organised with a present and cake.

Back in September I made her a lemon layer cake out of the Primrose Bakery Cook book which she loved so this time I made the Vanilla Layer Cake for her.

She was very impressed with the recipe and said it was very moist and had a good flavour to it. It took her and my Dad a week to eat it and apparently even a week on it still tasted nice.

Sorry about the rubbish pics! I seem to be writing that alot recently on here..but I tend to always make my cakes the day that I need them so they are fresh but my time keeping is so crap that normally I only just finish the cake/s in time and am literally rushing out the door when I'm trying to take pictures.

Chocolate Box Cake

This is the final cake that I have had to make for class. It is a chocolate box cake - the teacher originally had it in mind for mothers day...however me and Karl tucked into it last night!

I had a few problems with my fondant icing this time. I really don't understand it all at...just when I think I'm getting it and the last cake went so well and then out of the blue I suddenly go back to zero skill level and can't even cover a cake!

The cake board was supposed to be covered in fondant but after many failed attempts at that I gave up and decided I quite liked silver. The lid is made from two 6 inch cake drums covered in pink fondant and decorated. The cake is a 6 inch madeira cake covered in pink fondant. To give it the dip in the centre for the chocolates I used a roll of fondant put around the cake before I iced it.

I decided to experiment with this cake and used a different recipe. I think I have said in previous posts I wasn't a huge fan of the recipe I've used in the past, so decided this time I would try another out of one of my cake decorating books. It was a huuuge improvement - it no longer had that eggy taste I didn't like and was much much softer. I will definitely be using this recipe in the future.

Spring Cake

Well spring has definitely sprung for me! Everywhere I go I'm seeing daffodils and crocus's...I love spring cos it means summer is only just around the corner. Ok ok...so its still rather cold out there but fingers crossed it will start warming up a little soon!

In celebration of spring, the next cake I had to make for class was a spring cake. The teacher showed us various models we could make - sheep and ducks etc but I decided to put a lovely little bunny on my cake. The sponge was madeira with vanilla butter cream and raspberry jam. I really do need to find myself a better cake recipe for this - although this cake was ok, it wasn't anything amazing. I used sugar paste squeezed through a garlic press to give the grass effect and made little flowers and carrots and attached them with edible glue.

This is definitely my best cake yet - the finish on the fondant was lovely and smooth and I am definitely improving at making models. The only thing I really do need to practice at is rolling my fondant out - we cut into this cake and it was about an inch thick! Karl and I love fondant so it wasn't such an issue but I'm not sure other people would be of the same opinion!

Practice makes perfect though!

Vanilla Cupcakes and Nelson's 2nd Birthday

When I got invited to Nelson the dogs 2nd birthday party my brain starting working overtime thinking of ideas for themed cupcakes to take along to the party. Of course the party was more of an excuse for everyone to get together, have a natter and eat cake than a birthday party but Nelson seemed to love all the attention from everyone!

After much pondering I decided to stick with a vanilla cupcake. I used the recipe from the Love Bakery book - I love this recipe! It is by far the best vanilla cupcake recipe I have tried! I bought a little doggy bone and a little doggy paw cutter for the sugar decorations and kept to a blue and white theme. The only slight problem I encountered was colouring the butter cream - I wanted it to match the blue of the paws and bows but it hadn't crossed my mind that butter cream is off white....I ended up with green butter cream..panic!! I added a tad more of the colour and it seemed to right itself but ended up being a slightly darker shade - no one seemed to mind though as they tucked in!

Sorry about the poor pictures - I was literally running out the door with my cake box when I realised I hadn't taken any pictures!

Victoria Sandwich Cake

My super lovely boyfriend has now moved into my flat with me ..hooray! Today we invited his mum round for a brew and a nosey round his new place.

After a few weekends in a row of baking I thought I would have the weekend off from it but I couldn't resist being tempted back into the kitchen to bake something for Karl's mum when she came round..you've gotta have a big slice of cake with a brew haven't you?!

I chose to make a Victoria sandwich cake using the Vanilla Layer Cake recipe from The Primrose Bakery book. After the success I had with their Lemon Layer Cake I was very much looking forward to tasting this recipe. It didn't disappoint. The sponge was lovely and light and fluffy with lashings of butter cream and raspberry jam.

I love a Victoria Sandwich..it brings back so many memories of childhood. This was the cake my mum always made...using her trusty Bero book! She always complains about people making it these days as alot of people call it a Victoria Sponge..she is forever telling me that a Victoria Sandwich Cake and a Sponge cake are two entirely different things; and that a sponge cake does not contain fat in the ingredients, where as a a Victoria Sandwich does! I guess mine could be frowned upon as not being a traditional Victoria Sandwich as I have decorated the top with butter cream and home made sugar flowers instead of using icing sugar...well, it did make it taste extra good!!

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Icing and Chocolate Cupcakes

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day to all my readers :) hope you all get lots of lovely treats and yummy chocs from your special someone.

I am not planning on doing much for Valentines Day this year. Last year as it was our first Valentines Day together we went all out on the presents...but this year we have just paid for our first holiday abroad together so are putting all of our money towards that instead..plus its our official 1 year anniversary next month so we have chosen to celebrate that instead.

We were going to go out for a romantic meal on saturday night to celebrate Valentines but in the end decided we were too poor to! We ended up making curry and naan breads at home and washing it all down with red wine. It was definitely the right decision to stay in...the food was luuurvely!

For a good few weeks I have been planning on making Valentines cupcakes. I couldn't make up my mind which sort to do so in the end I made two batches. The first was vanilla cupcakes topped with candy floss pink butter cream which was strawberry flavoured and then fondant red and pink hearts to decorate. The second batch was chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream and a glittery pink sugar rose to decorate.

I was unsure how the strawberry flavoured butter cream would turn out..having never used flavourings before and only being able to get my hands on supermarket brand flavouring at the last minute, I was pleasantly surprised. The strawberry butter cream combined with the vanilla sponge made a nice change to just plain vanilla butter cream.

I felt a bit let down with my chocolate cupcakes...I have made the recipe before from the Primrose Bakery book and loved it but this time it just didnt turn out the same way as before and for some reason it seemed to spread side ways rather than rise and my cupcakes looked a bit of an odd shape.

Nevermind though... I think with the decorations they do look very cute!