Another Christening...

1oo cupcakes for a little boy called Oscar. All vanilla, 50 with white buttercream and blue Os and 50 with blue buttercream and white Os.

The blue didn't come out too badly but it wasn't as pale as I wanted it to be. I must remeber that butter is yellow and adding blue to yellow just makes green. Hmmm... must keep practicing

Red birthday

I have red hands. Last night I baked a 13th birthday cake with cupcakes to match. I was really nervous about it. I don't make big cakes - there's too much to go wrong. Like getting the red dye all over my hands! Well I'll have to see how the birthday boy likes it. Fingers crossed! Haziq did ask for a Liverpool Football Club cake but red and white is the closest I could get. I tried to get a Steven Gerrard football figure yesterday to put on the cake but I came up with a blank. It's hard to buy Liverpool themed stuff in Manchester!

It's vanilla sponge with white chocolate chips, a layer of vanilla and white chocolate frosting in the middle and red frosting on the top and sides. The cupcakes are either vanilla or chocolate with white chocolate chips and red or white vanilla frosting.




The smaller cupcakes with the yellow cases are lemon diabetic cupcakes. Wish I could get hold of some diabetic/artificial icing sugar. Then I could make better frosting. I used Candarel for the sugar substitute in the cake and frosting, I found it quite weird to cook with - I use the same recipe for all my cupcakes but the texture came out different, slightly heavier. This is the second batch of diabetic cupcakes - the first were a bit scone like. I think I'll try Splenda as a sugar substitute next time and see how that goes.

Bought to you today by the letter C...

Sunny days, sweeping our cares away,
On our way to where the air is clear,
Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street?

There comes a time in every bakers life when they have to do character cakes.
It's not a chore but seems to be a rite of passage!
Well so far we've got:

Cookie monster - check out the googly eyes!

Elmo loves you!

They look a little strange. I mean you can recognise the characters but they look like muppet imposters. I'm going to try this again. I ideally wanted to use choc-chip cookies but I thought the oreos would look ok. I really hope the young child that I made them for likes them.

There's a national cupcake week?

National cupcake week is the holiday that I want to celebrate the most. A whole week devoted to cupcakes, it's too good to be true! Cupcake week this year begins on the 14th September - seven days of cupcake fun.

During cupcake week a box of nine cupcakes will cost £10.00 and each individual cupcake will cost £1.50. Please contact me if you would like to make an order. Oh! and by the way each box/individual cupcake sold will include a donation to charity.

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla and chocolate frosting with red and white icing roses and glitter.

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and Reese's Pieces.

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter frosting with M &Ms.

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter cupcakes and slices of Snickers.

Congratulations! to Nadia and Andy Gubba

So remember all those un-iced cakes? Well...

Chocolate and vanilla cakes with contrasting buttercream. The roses were supplied by Richard's Cakes in Urmston. The mini cupcakes are the same but they have contrasting colour M & Ms on. Check out the American M & Ms website for different colours.




Check out the glitter on these bad boys!

The day of many cakes...

This is a small fraction of the cakes for my friend's wedding.
Four double quantities of buttercream and 246 cupcakes.

Butterfly cakes

Here is my nephew Jack on his 1st birthday.

Plain old butterfly cakes, actually they're a family favourite. Vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream and a little something extra in the middle.

I don't think Jack is emjoying that as much as we thought. Jack was the only one to get a plain one.

The filling is black cherry conserve.
I also made some with rhubarb and ginger jam, lime curd and then Nutella in the middle.