More Cakes and Cupcakes From Recent Projects

Since the last post I've had a few more requests for cakes and cupcakes so here are the projects I've been doing in the last couple of weeks.

This was for a friend's 30th birthday (obviously he's a huge Star Wars fan!)

This was for my cousin who is moving to London for a new job in Office shoe store.



Vintage themed cupcakes for a 21st birthday vintage tea party.  Vanilla and red velvet cupcakes with a few different frostings - vanilla, chocolate, mint, raspberry, mango and caramel.  All edible toppers made from a selection of fondant, candy clay and candy melts.

A Manowar cake, co-worker asked me to do this for his friend's 21st birthday.

Don't forget I have a Facebook page so you can stop by and 'Like' the page.

Here are a few more projects I have been getting up to in the last month or so...

Football jersey cake for an 18th birthday

Elmo cake for a 1st birthday

Race car cake for a 3rd birthday



I have a couple more cakes and cupcakes also planned for later this month so I'll post pictures when they are all done.

Thanks for stopping by!

Martha Stewart Cookies iPad App

I got an iPad about a month ago, for the proposes of displaying my baking projects to people.  It has since been filled with cooking and baking apps, photo editing software, Netflix and a game or two (or twenty).  One of the apps I purchased was the Martha Stewart Cookies app, which I love.  From the super cute start up, to the pages of recipes, it's great.

The recipes are neatly and concisely laid out with steps and ingredients.  You can add recipes to a favourites list and add notes, create a shopping list.



There's even a unit conversion calculator on each recipe page!

The app has a search function (in a drop down menu when you tap the Martha Stewart ribbon in the top left hand corner of the screen), laid out in wheel form so you can choose from cookie ingredients or type.  There is also a keyword search.

Of course, this being a Martha Stewart app it doesn't just cover the recipes.  There is a section dedicated to homemade packaging if you wanted to give your baked goodies away as gifts.

There is also a library of videos available in the drop down menu to help you master new techniques to perfect your sweet creations.

Your app also has a very handy kitchen timer!  Thanks Martha!!

And last, but certainly not least, you can download and purchase more recipes via the cookie tab at the bottom left hand side of the screen.  Recipes are divided into categories; chocolate, kids and the newest edition: holiday!  The 'M' tab links you to other Martha Stewart apps and allows you to gift the Cookies app to your friends.

Well, that is the Martha Stewart Cookies app in a nutshell.  Available in the iTunes app store for an absolute steal at £2.99!

Just a Little Something For Fun

This was posted on the CakeSpy website and I just thought it was too cute not to share.

Enjoy!

Cake Projects Since the Last Post

I'm sorry I haven't posted an entry in so long, I did not abandon you!  I have been a busy lady doing cakes for birthdays and cupcakes and even my very first stall (and boy was that exhausting!!)

I'm just going to post the pictures of the projects I've done over the last month or so to give you an idea of what I've been up to (no pictures of the stall unfortunately, I was so tired on the day that I forgot to get some, so tired I even got the frosting on my testers mixed up, oops!!)

Anyways, first up was a JLS cake as designed by the birthday girl herself:

Then there was a Barcelona Football Club cake and I did themed cupcakes to go along with it:

I volunteer at a small movie theatre in Belfast as well and they recently had an event where the staff "hijacked" the screen and put on a movie of their choice.  The winner was the Joss Whedon film 'Serenity' so I whipped up some Serenity/ Firefly themed cupcakes for the staff who ended up having to work that night:

The most recent project I had was a One Direction birthday cake for a co-worker's granddaughter.  Instead of a fairly normal circle or square cake I was asked to make a One Direction t-shirt cake:

I hope you like the cakes, there are more to come this month like a Manchester United football shirt cake and an Elmo cake!  Next month is a race car and my friend's 30th birthday cake too.  Thanks for stopping by!

WWE Championship Belt Cake

I was asked by a co-worker to do a WWE themed cake for her son's 5th birthday.  I thought instead of a wrestling ring cake I would set myself a little challenge and attempt a WWE belt cake.

I printed a bunch of pictures off the internet and photocopied them and enlarged them so that I could make stencils for cutting out the details.  After that I just needed a can of gold lustre spray, some silver food paint and a load of black and white fondant (not to mention a couple of tubs of silver dragees!)

Here is the finished product!

More photos of it are on the facebook page.

Phishful Thinking...

I had an idea recently while devouring a tub of Ben & Jerry's Vermonster ice cream that the flavour combination of the ice cream would be amazing in the form of a cupcake.  This got me thinking about other flavour of ice cream that could be easily translated into cupcakes.  One popular suggestion was Phish Food: chocolate ice cream, marshmallow and caramel swirls with chocolate shaped fishes.

After I got a chocolate mould on eBay in the shape of fishes and researched a recipe for marshmallow frosting I was off!

The cupcake would be made up of a chocolate cupcake, marshmallow frosting, drizzled with caramel sauce and topped with a chocolate fish.  Cute, right?

So I baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes and made some of the marshmallow frosting.

Marshmallow Frosting (Recipe from Martha Stewart )

Ingredients:

8 large egg whites

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Place egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar into a glass bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water.  Whisk constantly until sugar has dissolved and egg whites are warm to the touch (approximately 3-4 minutes).  Transfer to a larger bowl and whisk with electric mixer.  Start on a low speed and gradually increase to high until stiff and glossy peaks are formed (approximately 5-7 minutes).  Add the vanilla extract and mix until it is combined.  Use immediately.

The recipe says for 2 dozen, but I easily had enough to do 4 dozen.

To pipe it onto my cupcakes I used a large round tip, then drizzled some caramel sauce over the top.  I just bought mine in the supermarket, but if you have a recipe homemade is always better.  This was topped with one of my little chocolate fishies.

After tasting the cupcake I decided that the next time I make them I think I'm going to do a caramel filling rather than drizzled on top, the caramel flavour a bit lost in the mix.  They were still pretty darn good!  The marshmallow frosting is so light and sticky (I ended up with it all over my face!) and I imagine it would only be better toasted with a kitchen blowtorch.  Oh how I would love one of those to play with!  Anyways, here are a couple of close ups of the cupcake.

From the side

From the top

Hope you enjoy making these!  They're pretty fun little cupcakes.

Bake A Cake In A Mug In Your Microwave: Cinnamon Roll Edition

I loved the recipe I found a while back for the microwave chocolate cake in a mug, I have had it numerous times and some of my friends have tried it and enjoyed it too.  Since becoming addicted to Pinterest I have found a few more recipes I wanted to try out and wouldn't you know it?  I found a new mug cake recipe!  Cinnamon Roll Mug Cake!!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp applesauce (if there are apple pieces you'll want to blend it smooth)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp buttermilk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup PLUS 1 tbsp plain flour

2 1/2 tbsp soft brown sugar

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Put all your ingredients into a mug (this one is smaller than the last recipe, so a normal sized mug is perfect) and mix with a fork.  Make sure you get your fork right into the bottom to mix thoroughly.  As you can see from my ingredients picture I substituted a couple of ingredients, instead of buttermilk I used normal skimmed and instead of vegetable oil I used corn oil and it worked great.  Previously I had used buttermilk (which I only really have in my fridge when I'm making red velvet) and instead of brown sugar I used golden caster sugar.  Again, it was still yummy, so there is a little flexibility for you if you don't have everything at your disposal.

Once you have mixed all the ingredients together, get that mug into the microwave!  Mine took around 2 and a half minutes to cook properly, but it depends on your microwave, so have a tooth pick or cake tester ready to check it!

This recipe also included frosting for the mug cake!  Yummy cream cheese frosting!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp cream cheese

2 tbsp icing sugar

1 tsp milk

I just put all the ingredients into a sandwich bag and mixed them together by hand.  This is great because when you're done you can just snip off a wee corner and pipe the frosting onto your cake!  Easy!!

And might I add..... YUMMY!

30th Birthday Cake

Whilst I was off galavanting in Vancouver earlier this month, I missed my good friend's 30th birthday.  I really wanted to make him a cake so I got around to it this weekend (after numerous searches on Google images).  He is a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse.... Basically anything Joss Whedon related, so I used the logo from Mutant Enemy Productions, who are the company behind all of them and made a stencil for the cake (I may not be very artistic, but I am one hell of a tracer!)

 And here is the Mutant Enemy monster in action...

Mother's Day Cupcakes

It was Mother's Day here in the UK today so I was trying to find cupcakes that I could bake for my mom to mark the occasion.  I consulted my good friend, Google Images for some inspiration.  It seems that bouquet cupcakes are pretty popular so I went with the idea.

Basically, like a normal bouquet, you can make them with any flowers you wish, in any colour you can imagine.  I have little bits of fondant left over from other projects so I had pink and red and green.  I made a few fondant roses and used my cutters to make some leaves.  Each cupcake had 3 roses and 3 leaves.

To mix it up a bit I made 2 cupcakes with message toppers, which were fondant cut out with "We <3 Mom" written on them with writing gel and a heart shaped sprinkle.  I was proud of how they turned out, I thought they were pretty cute.

They were red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  The roses are still a little dusty from the cornflour I used to roll them out but over all I'm happy and, more importantly my wee mom loved them.

Here is a video I have used to learn how to make quick fondant roses, fab for when you're pressed for time or don't have petal cutters.

St Patrick's Day Cake Pops

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Thought this year I'd do something festive (and green).  Considered a cake, but since I'm still recovering from jetlag after getting home from Vancouver on Tuesday I figured that'd be a tall order, so I went for cake pops!

I got some white candy melts and shamrock shaped sprinkles on the internet and I had seen a post Bakerella did a while back for green velvet cake balls so I thought I'd adapt it slightly.

I made vanilla cupcakes and coloured them green, crumbled the life out of them and added frosting to make the cake balls, then put them in the freezer to firm up.  I melted the candy in the microwave, then got my cake balls, lollipop sticks and went to it.  I definitely need to invest in a styrofoam block to stick cake pops in to dry, I hadn't really comsidered what I was going to do with them after they had been coated.  I finished them off with the shamrock sprinkles and I have to say I'm quite happy with my first attempt at cake pops!

Here is a video from YouTube by Bakerella to teach you the cake pop basics.

                                      

Have fun!



I Did It All For The Cookie Now On Pinterest

I'm really getting into these social networking sites.  My current addiction is Pinterest.  It's like having an online bulletin board where you can share all the interesting stuff you find online.  Love it.

I Did It All For The Cookie Now On Facebook

Hey there, I finally got around to creating a Facebook page for the blog!

Stop by and 'Like' the page if you feel so inclined.  Thanks for reading!

I Did It All For The Cookie

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake

It was my godson's second birthday this week and I was asked to make his cake.  Last year he got a 3D teddy bear cake (he was named Henry and we felt very bad about cutting into him when the time came, sorry little guy!).  So this year I turned to my good friend, Google image search to find inspiration for his cake.  He is a big fan of the Very Hungry Caterpillar book so it was my first search, and after scrolling for pages and pages I finally found one that would fit the bill.

The actual cake is pretty straight forward: 2 tiers (any kind of cake you want, this one was red velvet and vanilla with green vanilla buttercream), white fondant covering.  It's the bits after that you get to have fun with and use your imagination for the finishing touches.

 

You can use fondant to make a caterpillar for the front of the cake (I use edible glue to stick all the decor on, but if you use a paintbrush to dab water onto the fondant it will stick too).  Around the back and sides I used fondant in a variety of colours to make fruits lollipops to decorate.  I invested in a collection of writing gels as well which is what I used for all the detail on the fruit and to draw on the lollipop stick, and the face on the butterfly.

For the topper, I bought sugar balloons on wires from a cake decorating store, as well as a number 2, which was white, but I used edible paint to colour it green to tie it in with the caterpillar.  Using my writing gels I also spelled the birthday boy's name out on individual balloons.

The tiers are finished off with Skittles candies which are glued in place with the edible glue.  You don't have to use Skittles though, Smarties, M&Ms, jelly beans would all do the trick too.

Tiffany's Box Birthday Cake

Who doesn't love the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's?  It's a classic, right?  Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard are totally cute in that movie.  My friend also loves this film so I was trying to find a way to incorporate that into her birthday cake.  At first I was looking into Audrey cake or cupcake toppers but decided to go with a simpler approach and have the cake look like a box from Tiffany's instead.

What you need for the cake:

Cake of your choice

Frosting of your choice

Duck egg blue fondant

White fondant

Pearl lustre spray

Once you have your cake(s) baked leave them to cool completely then trim them into the shape you want (I did square).  Frost the cake on the top and sides, and in between layers if applilcable.  My cake was four cakes high, I just really wanted some height to it.

Next, roll out your duck egg blue fondant, then cover your cake, trim and smooth.  Roll out more of the blue and add another layer to the top to form a lid for your box.  Use a scapel to get a good sharp edge on the lid.

Roll out your white fondant and cut out your ribbon for the box.  This is where I used the lustre spray to add a satin ribbon effect to the fondant.  Allow to dry before lifting the ribbon otherwise you'll get fingerprints in the lustre and also your fingers will look like you've manhandled Tinkerbell. 

You can leave the cake like this, it looks pretty.  Your can also go a step further and make a bow out of fondant (and lustre spray) to top the cake.  I had no clue how to do this so I took to Youtube to find a video to learn how.

And this was my finished product...