Baby boy cupcakes (chocolate and banana)

One of our friends said to James that I try and find any excuse to make some cakes. Well.....I'm not going to try and defend that as it's probably true. BUT I do love bringing cakes whenever I visit someone, but luckily for me there seems to be lots of 'excuses' lately.

So my friend Becky (who had the 'pink or blue' cake made for her (which has been the most popular post on my blog!?)) had a beautiful bouncing baby boy who they called Dillan Ocean. So when I went round to meet the munchkin I took these banana and chocolate cupcakes (from primrose cupcake book - amazing!) with a dark chocolate icing (Unnecessary the cupcakes would have been fine naked. However it did mean I could experiment with my icing decorating skills and play with my new butterfly plunger?! :p )

Piña colada cupcakes

Yay more alcoholic cupcakes - just what everyone wants :p So these were the perfect cupcakes for Tim and Hannah's 'tropical/Hawaiian' themed party. Complete with cocktail umbrellas no less.

So I put too much white rum into the cake and as a result the mixture wasn't perfect in fact it dried out. The frosting helped out as it was cream cheese with dessicated coconut and finely chopped up crystallised pineapple (in the penny sale at Holland and Barrett's!) I tried to put too much into the cake batter as it had white rum, coconut milk as well as fresh pineapple. If I were to do these again I would do just coconut cupcakes with a pineapple frosting (put fresh and crystallised pineapple in the cream cheese icing). So if these ever get requested again that's what I'll do. ANYWAY they went down well at the party and that's all that matters. Who's going to over analyse cupcakes after a few glasses of tropical punch??

Scary picture of me looking proud/slightly special and a pic of the birthday boy and girl.

Pimms o'cupcake

Ok it's summer, the sun is shining, well occasionally anyway so we all know what time it is!?! Pimm's o'clock of course, but in this time pimms o'cupcake.

These were the perfect dessert at our family BBQ and my first stab at 'mass' catering. (if 24 cupcakes could be considered mass :p). The cake batter had 300ml of pimms in and the icing was the usual butter icing which I do but divided into three parts: 1) had cucumber mashed into it 2)had a strawberry syrup that i made by heating and mashing strawberries with grenadine and 3) had lemon juice and zest. these three icings were put into the same icing bag and piped on together. I then made some mint sugar (caster sugar and fresh mint bashed together) which was sprinkled over. Then adorned with a slice of lemon, strawberry, cucumber and mint leaf. I thought of 'pimms cupcakes' and after researching stumbled across a few things that inspired me! So can't take all the credit. No such thing as an original idea ey?

Home is where the cake is

I said this to a work mate when she was talking about the sheer volume of cakes I make and she replied 'well yes, maybe in your household'. What, not every house has cakes baked in them at least twice a week?? :p

So here's the last couple of weeks worth:

Lemon drizzle cake - for Helen













So this was for Helen, I had to try this as not only is lemon drizzle her favourite but this Jamie Oliver recipe had poppy seeds and as poppy seeds is an in joke between us (don't ask) this recipe was perfect.
Admittedly I wasn't that struck on it! it tasted really healthy/wholesome because of the poppy seeds but Helen loved it (she is pretty healthy so maybe this is why she liked it)

Snickers & peanut butter muffins













Naughty but oh so nice! thanks to the domestic goddess herself this may be a new favourite of mine. A great Saturday brekkie with a cup of tea. 'Nuff said.





Chocolate ginger cupcakes
















From the Green & Blacks book - really nice, at first when I tried the icing i though 'omg this is going to be too rich for me' but i was wrong. This is a lovely spicey/warm cake. A great contender for Jack & Kat's wedding cupcakes. This has qualified for the 'taster box'.




Peanut butter cupcakes


















Just realised this blog entry is peanut butter-tastic but this was a lovely cupcake. Quite dense and almost sticky texture but was lovely (like the peanut m&m as a topping?) Helen and Mark (my chief taste testers along with James) thought that this would be lovely with custard like a sticky toffee pudding type cake. So this has inspired me to make the mixture and then steam them until cooked - on the 'to try list'!

Vanilla cupcakes













Pure and simple. this was a receipe from lorraine Pascal's book. Firstly - i think she's either really heavy handed when frosting icing or there were spelling errors in this recipe. I think she listed about 400g of butter and 700g of icing usgar - something crazy like that. Luckily I've been makeing so any cupcakes recently i knew that was an obscene amount so stuck to the usual quota of 150g butter and 400g icing sugar depending on recipe. These were lovely though, i liked the vanilla syrup. it made a lot of batter though to the cakes were quite huge and challenging to eat? To make them extra pretty i used a mint colour icing colouring (just a tiny dab of holly green food colouring paste) with some pink sugar.

Rose, strawberry and white chocolate cupcakes / Selen's engagement cakes

TBC - Haven't tried them yet, have just made them!:p

Going potty for Harry Potter Cupcakes

See what I did there? To celebrate the release of the latest and last Harry Potter, I celebrated in the only way I know how - by making themed cupcakes. Now I don't take credit for the idea as Harry potter cupcakes have been done but I did however dream up the golden snitch one and feel quite proud about them :p















The recipe was from the 'Eat me' book where she made chocolate aster cupcakes - I used the recipe, as my mother in law was staying I replaced the flour with gluten free self raising flour. Then decorated with icing that I had crafted.

6 Reasons why I should be fatter

Forgive me blogspot, for I have sinned. It's definitely been a fatty week - that's for sure. Let's have a closer look at my sins...



 

Chocolate devil's food cupcakes

Like the link from confession to the devil?! Ahem, anyway. These were LOVELY and very CHOCOLATEY. Great sponge and the icing was basically a chocolate ganache - altogether very nice, I was sad not to be able to 'pipe' on the icing as I really enjoy that now :p From the 'Eat me' book by the cookie girl (Xanthe Milton). I've read she does cake decorating classes and I may sign up for them! :)







Cherry pies

 Altogether now - "she's my cherry pie!" As thats what I had in my head the whole time I was making these little beauties. Thanks and big up to my work friend Fishwick for picking his cherries for me. Doesn't that sound rude? :p Aren't they lovely -I'm used to the dark red cherries we buy in supermarkets but these were peachy/pink and sweet as anything. The pies were delicate and sweet served with custard. More please Fishwick before the season ends!









Chocolate fudge biscuit brownies

'Mmmm - where were these brownies made - heaven? No, Brighton.' (That's a little joke for any Apprentice fans out there :p) These have the best texture a brownie could ask for. If a brownie could talk. Not goey which i hate, (knowing how many eggs/egg yolks go into brownies) and not a cake texture (otherwise you could just make chocolate cake?) Lovely - this recipe is from Lorraine Pascal's latest book where she used Oreo's. I have tried this recipe with them but Oreo's are too expensive to buy for non-special occasions so I opted for the good ole english classic - bourbon biscuits which are A LOT cheaper. And I think these work just as well. My work friend Helen's hubby said that these, and i quote were  'the best brownies he has ever tasted' - an accolade indeed!




Coffee cupcakes

Ok a little bit of cheating here - this isn't a new recipe - its Nigella's cappuccino cupcakes with her coffee icing from her 'coffee ad walnut cake' both tried and tested here on my blog. But they looked, smelt and tasted wonderful. Lovely at Kat's girlie gathering.




















Strawberry scones

 After our visit to the PYO Roundstone farm i couldn't resist making scones with the fresh and fragrant strawberries. I just melted a bit of strawberry jam and stirred the sliced strawberries into it. Whipped some double cream with vanilla pods and voilà - the perfect scone. ~Drools~














 Lemon drizzle cupcakes for Helen

Helen's bday is coming up and I asked what her favourite cake is - Lemon drizzle apparently! Why should I have to wait for her actual birthday though - so I'm making them now for her, as a treat. I followed my aunt Heather's recipe she used for my wedding cakes! (Heather - you were right about the icing, I put a few drops of food colouring and it messed with the consistency - oh well next time). But I did make the lemon syrup and poured that over the cakes when first out of the oven for the 'drizzle' affect. They were summery and refreshing. Decorations were lemon peel cut out in hearts and yellow sugar (made not bought).

Hungover hummingbird cupcakes

So what would you be doing after travelling back home for hours on a Sunday after a long boozey wedding on the Saturday?? Why bake some cupcakes of course?!

So this is from my 'Eat me' book which to be honest I've found pretty hit and miss so far.















In regards to this recipe:

Pro's: had amazing flavours and were unusual (banana, pineapple, pecan, vanilla and cinnamon
Con's: The batter was so watery - I cooked for an extra 15 mins but still thought the sponge was too soft (although others thought fine), i don't think these cakes needed the soft cheese/butter icing that it had listed as the sponge was so moist (like a carrot or banana cake) it would only need a thin layer if any.

However it gave me the opportunity to play with a new nozzle! Introducing the shell one from the icing bag set I got from HoF. And experimenting with new techniques with my wilton :)

Cupcake frenzy!

 

As the title suggests - there's been a bit of a cupcake frenzy in the McCarthy household over the last week. Mainly due to the delivery of my Wilton 1m star nozzle. This gives the classic cupcake icing look and it's really simple - I just seem to run out of icing after the first two and then the rest of the batch looks a bit pathetic and neglected.

So this technique was used on the chocolate, cappuccino and rainbow cupcakes. The rainbow cupcakes were inspired from Becky's baby shower cake. Although by the time you keep separating the batter to mix different colours the batter reduces so next time - double the mixture. These were for Kat's bday and she loved them (can't believe the popcorn cupcakes were a year ago!) The cappuccino cupcakes were lovely - so nice. the icing was white chocolate and this has become James's favourite cupcake! Recipe from Nigella's 'how to be a domestic goddess': http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/cappuccino-cupcakes

Today I experimented with another nozzle - a leaf one which I used for the pink petalled cupcake - followed this tutorial on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbnfgOJ9VXc&feature=related).

Chocolate cupcakes

Cappuccino cupcakes

Rainbow cupcakes

Pink petalled cupcakes