The Extraordinary Art of Cake

Milk & Cookies Inspired Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe

2012-01-29T20:22:00.000Z

I had been dying to try this amazing sounding cookie recipe ever since I saw the fabulous Edd Kimber make them on the first series of The Great British Bake Off.

Edd was inspired to create this cookie recipe after trying an amazing cookie in a New York bakery, (I love American cookies!) Edd also wanted to create a cookie that already had that amazing milk and cookies flavour combo built in!

In order to create that creamy, milk and cookies taste Edd uses both milk powder and white chocolate chips, this is a stroke of genius and works an absolute treat.

These Oatmeal Raisin Cookies are quite literally flawless, utterly, unbelievably scrumptious and honestly they will take your breath away. The flavour of the cookies is incredible and the chewy texture is absolutely perfect, these cookies are just wonderful. So good Mr. P. has requested another batch a mere two days after I baked the first batch!

Edd uses liquid glucose to achieve the amazing chewy texture of these cookies. I have adapted the recipe slightly, I used light corn syrup instead of liquid glucose, mainly because I had a big bottle in the cupboard and it works out far cheaper than using liquid glucose.

I also suspect that the American cookie that inspired Edd to come up with this amazing recipe probably used corn syrup as apposed to liquid glucose too (as is the way in the U.S.) but I may well be wrong. Which ever you choose to use these cookies will be awesome.

I also used my usual vanilla sugar in place of granulated sugar, other than that I changed nothing.

Also it is worth noting that although milk powder may sound like an unusual ingredient, you will almost certainly find it in your local supermarket.

I promise you if you bake these cookies they will become an instant favourite with everyone who tries one.

You will need to clear some space in the fridge to chill the cookies before baking and expect to do a few rounds of chilling and baking.

Oatmeal & Raisin Cookies

Recipe adapted from The Boy Who Bakes by Edd Kimber

Makes around 20 large cookies

175g raisins

280g plain flour

1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

30g non-fat milk powder

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125g vanilla sugar (or granulated sugar)

135g light brown sugar

60ml corn syrup (or liquid glucose)

1 large egg

40g white chocolate, chopped

95g porridge oats

Line two baking trays with parchment paper and set aside.

Place the raisins in a small bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave the raisins to soak for 10 minutes before draining the excess water. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt, and milk powder into a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, both sugars and the corn syrup (or liquid glucose) until smooth and fully combined.

Add the egg and beat well. Add the flour mixture, beating until just combined (no longer), then fold in the oats, raisins and white chocolate until evenly dispersed.

Form the dough into uniform balls, placing six on each baking tray. Chill for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan oven) gas mark 4.

Once chilled bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until the edges are golden. Cool the cookies on the baking trays for a couple of minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies remained beautifully chewy and delicious for the full two days I had them in my cookie jar, they may well keep for longer but what can I say...we ate them all.

I'm surprised they lasted that long to be honest.

x x x

Simple Valentine's Day Cupcake Ideas

2012-01-29T20:21:00.000Z

With Valentine's day coming up fast I thought I'd better do a little inspirational cupcake post.

Just a few simple, yet sublime cupcake ideas to get you in the mood for some cupcake love, so expect lots of love hearts, sprinkles and shades of pink.

It'll be love hearts galore at the bakery come valentine's day, big ones little ones, red ones, pink ones, rose bud covered ones...you name it we'll have it.

I love love heart sprinkles whether in pink or red, large or mini they always look wonderful, I particularly love the red love hearts sprinkled over creamy white buttercream.

Cupcakes make a brilliant Valentine's day gift and we are always really busy in February, our best selling Valentine's cupcake is Double Chocolate but Red Velvet and Vanilla are never far behind.

I love this little pink cupcake with pink sanding sugar sprinkles and a baby pink ribbon rose, it is truly lovely.

Mini Red Velvet Crumb Cupcakes are perfect for the most romantic day of the year and so simple to make.

The vibrant crumbs of red velvet really make them pop.

We will be making lots of mini cupcakes this Valentine's day, they have really taken off this year.

If you are thinking of making mini cupcakes you can find all my mini cupcake tips and tricks here.

I have some wonderful bespoke batches on order over the holiday that I cannot wait to get started on. I know a lot of people can't stand Valentine's day but when you spend the weeks leading up to it on the phone to various husbands, boyfriends, wives and girlfriends who have all obviously put so much thought into a totally unique and personal gift idea for their partner, it is hard not to start feeling all warm and romantic inside.

They may say romance is dead but they're wrong, romance is alive, well and ordering cupcakes.

Which ever buttercream swirl you choose to scatter your love heart sprinkles over, be sure to top with extra icing for sharing!

Obviously I will be busy working straight through Valentine's week but I'm hoping for a little romance after, there may have been mention of a weekend away....

Before I go and leave it there here are my top tips for Valentine's day Cupcakes:

1) Nothing says I love you like Chocolate

2) Whilst small packages are great when it comes to diamond rings, with cupcakes a bigger box is far better.

3) Boy's love cupcakes too!

In my experience Peanut Butter and Jelly goes down a treat with most guys. If your hubby, like mine is the most difficult person in the universe to buy a present for cooking/baking him something may be the perfect answer. Alternatively send him a link to your favourite recipe and get him in the kitchen baking you something scrumptious!

x x x

Adorable Buttercream Animal Cupcakes

2012-01-27T20:03:00.003Z

Oh yes, it had to be done!

After I fell hopelessly in love with last weeks adorable grizzly bear cupcakes...

I knew I had to make more, they were just so darn cute!

I started with an adorable little Panda. The design was very similar to the grizzly bear only this time I used half a dark chocolate button for each of the ears, piping over them with black buttercream. I also added the eyes first, after applying only a thin layer of buttercream to the cupcake, I then built up the bears face around them.

I also made fluffy white kittens, fluffy white sleeping kittens!

Oh the cuteness is killing me!

This design was a little more technical and to be honest I just went for it, I had to build up a larger area of the face for the kittens, piping extra layers of buttercream to sculpt the closed eyes, nose and cheeks. The nose on the little cat starts at the top of the cupcake, rather than beginning at the muzzle like the bears.

For both cupcakes I used fondant for the nose and the little kitten also has fondant ears.

That's all for now but I am determined to catch up on my blog posts this weekend so expect a fair few.

x x x

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

2012-01-24T20:02:00.001Z

I found this gorgeous mini cookie recipe on Two Peas & Their Pod ages and ages ago, I have been meaning to make them ever since.

Everyone loves a chocolate chip cookie and lets face it, mini really just means cuter!

These cookies came out really well, they are nice and chewy and have a lovely flavour. They also look pretty damn adorable!

I will definitely use this recipe again, these little cookies would make great cupcake toppers and yes, I have plans to make even tinier ones.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes around 3 dozen mini cookies

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup caster sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 175C.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugars together until creamy and smooth. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine.

Gradually add the flour, folding until combined. Stir in mini chocolate chips.

Roll the dough into tiny balls, around the size of a small grape and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten each ball of dough slightly with the palm of your hand and bake for 8 minutes or until cookies are golden brown and set.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the baking sheet for two minutes.

Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

I have had these little toy soldiers for ages and found them whilst hunting around for a prop that would suitably show how mini these little cookies are.

It's like cookie warfare, I love it!

Protect your cookie at all costs!

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Teddy Bear Cupcakes

2012-01-20T17:48:00.001Z

These Teddy Bear Cupcakes might just be the cutest cupcakes ever!

I realize that I probably say that a lot but come on! I mean look at his little face!

I created the teddy bears fur by piping chocolate buttercream through a small star tip, I used giant white chocolate buttons for the ears and black fondant for the nose and eyes.

I absolutely loved this technique and had so much fun making these, I can't wait to try out some other animals, Pandas, Tigers, Lions and Puppies are all top of my list.

He is almost too cute to eat!

Have a brilliant weekend everyone. x x x

Buttercream Bakery Mini Super Mario Cupcakes

2012-01-20T17:20:00.000Z

Mini Super Mario Cupcakes

Mini Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream

These tiny little toppers were so fun to make, my favourite has to be the angry little brown mushroom, he is just so cute!

I have no idea why he is so angry...?

I actually know nothing about Super Mario, or any other computer game for that matter, I'm totally out of the loop, so some research was required.

Much of my research involved asking Mr. P. who thankfully has quite a vast knowledge of such things and that combined with plenty of googling set me in good stead.

I have loads of cupcakes to post so bare with me if they come in a little thick and fast over the next week or so.

Once I'm back on track things will even out a little and since my colossal tub of egg white powder arrived this morning I will also have some jaw dropping macarons coming up in the next few weeks. X

Adorable Teddy Bear Cake Pops

2012-01-19T19:53:00.001Z

I have to be honest, I have never really got the whole cake pop phenomenon, it's not that I don't think they're cute, I really do and have often ogled the amazing work of Bakerella and Molly Bakes. It is just that they have never really caught my imagination before, that was until I made these cuties!

It was my day off and I decided it was time to give cake pops another go, (I have only made them once or twice before with mixed results). This time I decided to try out a design of my own and I'm so glad I did because I think I may now be hooked!

I love cake pops!

I need lots of practise, they're fiddly little things but I know I'm going to love playing around with ideas!

For these Teddy Bear Cake Pops I rolled/sculpted brownie/frosting mix into a basic bear head shape, minus the ears. I tried a few different things for the ears but peanut butter M&Ms worked a treat. I pushed them into place before refrigerating the brownie balls/heads and dipped the whole lot in candy melts once cooled and lollipopped.

I used light brown peanut butter flavour and dark cocoa flavour candy melts to cover my bears and used a toothpick to create the furry effect. I then added little fondant details, what can I say I'm a cake decorator at heart!

For the bitten bear above I used an M&M for the nose, so cute!

I adhered the fondant bows, hats and noses using little dabs of melted candy melts.

I need to stock up on cake pop supplies now! Like I needed another baking addiction...anyone know where to buy candy melts and lollipop sticks in bulk...?

Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti Recipe

2012-01-17T18:38:00.002Z

I was just about to start another cupcake post when I realised that it was actually high time for a recipe post instead.

In the last few weeks I have been baking biscotti almost daily at the bakery, selecting and perfecting recipes and flavours for one of my trade customers.

This Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti is one of my favourites. You can play around with the flavour, reducing the cranberries and adding some chopped white chocolate in their place. You could always omit the cranberries and pistachios all together adding chocolate and hazelnuts instead.

In fact the options for biscotti are limitless, you can add all sorts of dried fruit, nuts and spices to this recipe, just be sure to keep the quantities the same, this biscotti is packed with nuts and fruits, any more would just be overkill.

Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti

Makes around 30 biscuits

240g plain flour

175g caster sugar, plus extra for rolling the dough

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

zest of 1 orange

zest half a lemon

1 vanilla pod

2 medium eggs

100g pistachios, roughly chopped

75g dried cranberries, roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together into a large mixing bowl.

2. Split the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds, add the vanilla seeds to the flour mixture along with the orange and lemon zest. Use your fingers to rub the vanilla and zest into the flour mixture, ensuring everything is evenly distributed.

3. Make a well in the centre of the mixing bowl and add both eggs. Using your hands, work everything into a dough. Add the chopped pistachios and cranberries and mix to combine.

4. Sprinkle a clean work surface with caster sugar, turn out the dough and shape the dough into two small long logs, rolling them in the sugar. The biscotti will expand quite significantly whilst cooking.

5. Bake the logs on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper in the centre of the oven for around 25 minutes.

6. Remove the biscotti logs from the oven and turn the temperature down to 120C. Cut the logs at an angle into 1cm slices. Return the slices to the oven and bake for 10 minutes, turn all the slices over and bake for another 10 minutes on the other side. Remove the biscotti from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Store your biscotti in an airtight jar or container and it will keep for up to one month.

Right, I'm off to update my poor neglected recipe index!

Have a lovely evening everyone. x

Pretty Pictures of Yummy Cupcakes

2012-01-13T16:45:00.002Z

This post does exactly what it says on the tin...

So grab a tea, sit back and enjoy a few pretty pictures of yummy cupcakes....

Cranberry & Pistachio Topped Vanilla Cupcakes

Yum!

Simply Sprinkled Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

Pistachio & White Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes

Vanilla Chocolate Topped Mr. Men & Little Miss Cupcakes

x x x

A Year In Cupcakes & Mini Cakes by Buttercream Bakery

2012-01-08T16:58:00.001Z

Today is The Art of Being Perfect's 2nd birthday!

Every year on the 8th January (my little blog's birthday) I like to go through the last year of Buttercream Bakery cupcakes and choose my favourites to take you right through the year at my little bakery.

I normally only choose one bespoke batch to represent each month of the year but this year that was harder then ever. I have had the pleasure of making some of them most unique and wonderful cupcakes you could imagine and with the addition of mini cakes to our range I had to include a few more than usual.

I have loved every second of designing, baking and making in 2011 and this year is set to be even more incredible than the last. With mini cakes taking over the bakery and my first book finally taking shape, I am really excited about what lays ahead.

One of my favourite things about doing these round up posts is getting to see how my work has improved and my style developed over the year, I'm still learning and hopefully improving every single day and I love every single sugary second of it.

So lets start at the beginning....

A Year In Cupcakes by Buttercream Bakery

January

If someone made me a batch of cupcakes they would have to look like this. With oven gloves, rolling pins, doughnuts, pumpkin pie slices and even a cupcake recipe book, these cupcakes are quite simply adorable and perfect for the baker in your life.

February

For February it had to be Valentines day cupcakes!

I loved so many of the Valentines cupcakes we made this year it was difficult to choose!

These gorgeous rose bud love heart cupcakes were really lovely though and the batch was completed with an adorable little love mouse...

Who completely stole my heart!

I also absolutely adored these hand painted love heart cupcakes and will definitely be reviving the design this year.

March

So March rolled in and saw Buttercream Bakery take one of our first mini cake orders. This Miniature Afternoon Tea Table Cake is still one of my favourite designs of all time, I really love every little detail and making all the tiny little toppers really was a labour of love.

I have two mini cakes of this style coming up in the next month or so, can't wait!

April

For April the world went royal wedding crazy and once again I had a lot of great designs to choose from. The cake lover in me won however and I decided these Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea Party Cupcakes really were my favourites.

I love the royal blue, the little red roses and that yummy Victoria sponge atop a rather grand cake stand.

May

I love a puppy cupcake and this Shar Pei puppy was particularly cute.

He was also far easier to make than I expected, which is always good.

June

Possibly my favourite cupcakes of the year, created at the bequest of Miss Cakehead, these Will Cotton Candyland Cupcakes were so much fun to create and really inspired lots of my miniature work since.

I could never decide whether I preferred the pink and white candyland...

....or the more colourful candyland...

I think that chocolate dipped strawberry might just swing it.

July

I couldn't not have our adorable mini Katy Perry cupcakes as my number one design for July. Created once again for the fabulous Miss Cakehead and her awesome Cakey Perry High Tea.

These little cupcakes were also featured in We Love Pop Magazine during Cupcake Week.

I was over the moon when the order for these Kawaii cupcakes cake in, a design right up my street! I was really happy with these and my client absolutely loved them.

August

For August I wanted to choose a really pretty, summery batch and I think these pretty pink sandals are perfect.

I'm a lady who loves shoes and I really enjoyed making these and adding all the detail to the pretty pink heels.

September

It is funny how time changes your perception of things because in September I had a nightmare with these little Morris Minor cupcakes. I just wasn't happy and for the life of me, when I look at them now, I haven't a clue why!

I think they are the most adorable little cars ever and the gentleman I made them for absolutely adored them.

October

October rolled around and Halloween hit the bakery with an almighty bang.

Things took a terrible turn...

Not everyone made it out alive...

Our Halloween cupcakes were crazier and creepier than ever before this year and I was really proud of how horrific I managed to make things!

I know that may sound funny but when some of these orders came in I really wasn't sure I had it in me!

Apparently I do!

It wasn't all quite so horrific and there were still some pretty cute cupcakes being made...even if they were zombie ones...

November

November was a really busy month at the bakery and there were loads of orders I loved but these Pink Floyd Cupcakes take the biscuit.

November also saw mini cake orders at the bakery pick up and I had great fun making them. This Mini Pastry Chef Cake was definitely a favourite of mine.

Of course November really became Movember and I just had to include these adorable Mini Moustache Cupcakes.

December

This Christmas I designed a range of signature miniature Christmas cakes and commissions for these far overtook my cupcake orders.

I loved all of the designs in the range but I think this Mini Gingerbread House Christmas Cake was my favourite.

I love the candy covered, snow peaked little house, so cute!

Since this year for me was really all about mastering my miniature sugar craft work it felt right to end with some seriously miniature toppers.

The tiniest teddy bears I have ever made, around 1-2cm tall.

These cute mini Christmas cupcakes were all topped with a tiny Christmas topper, the sparkly mini Christmas crackers were my favourites I think.

And so with one final batch of Christmas cuppies so ends another year at Buttercream Bakery.

I honestly can't believe I have only been writing this blog for two years! I couldn't imagine not having a blog now!

God knows what I did with my spare cakey energy before. Needless to say if I didn't have you I may have gone a little mad, so a huge thank you to everyone who reads and follows my blog.

I love to read all your wonderful comments and can't thank every single one of you enough for all of your kindness and support over the last 2 years. I really enjoy writing this blog and I love that you fabulous lot actually read it and delve into cupcake madness with me. Thanks a million! x x x

Recipe Round Up - My Favourite Recipes Of 2011

2012-01-08T14:00:00.005Z

I'm a little late with my round up of my favourite bakes of 2011, in fact I'm a little late with a number of posts but as they say better late then never.

It has been a brilliant year of baking with lots of great new recipes. For this list, I have tried to choose a wide variety of recipes cakes, macarons, cupcakes, cookies, ice cream and only the very very best made my list.

The Cakes

2011 was a great year for cake, these are my absolute favourite new recipes, that I know I will be baking time and time again in the years to come.

Strawberry & Cream Ladyfinger Gateau

This stunning Ladyfinger Gateau is rather deceptive, it looks fantastic and seriously impressive but is actually very easy to make. It is a perfect summer dessert and I can't wait for the warmer weather to arrive so I can feel justified in whipping one up!

....I just had an amazing idea! Winter berry Ladyfinger Gateau!!! Stay tuned for that one!

Next up are two of my most trusted cake recipes, both are unbelievably delicious and have never ever failed me. I honestly can't recommend this wonderful Carrot Cake Recipe and Nigella's Amazing Lemon Drizzle Cake enough.

Eton Mess Cake

Another fabulous cake, a beautiful summery slab of deliciousness!

Yum!

Something more suitable for colder days now, perhaps something with a little Rum to warm your cockles?

Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum Frosting

This bundt cake is quite simply wonderful and it's one I have to remember to bake again soon.

Ah now it's time for the breakfast of champions, there is many a day when I feel I deserve a hefty slice of Double Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread before starting my day. In fact, I'd take a slice any time of day, this loaf is unbelievably delicious.

So that's my list of 2011 best cake recipes, now what about those little macarons....

Macarons

Toffee Popcorn Macarons

These Toffee Popcorn Macarons were awesome and recipes like these are the reason I love Mac Tweets so much.

Possibly my favourite macarons of the year, my epic Lemon Meringue Pie Macarons...

....and my better than a Bounty, Bounty Macarons.

Next up is something I don't make often, I don't have an ice cream maker so ice cream is not the easiest thing to make but this no ice cream maker recipe is amazing, the ice cream was incredible and one of the best I have ever tasted, very very creamy and oh so delicious.

No Ice Cream Maker - Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Everybody loves a cookie and my list wouldn't be complete without a brilliant cookie recipe. The compost cookie idea is simple, just dump a load of delicious stuff into amazing cookie dough and ta da best cookies ever!

Compost Cookies

My favourite bakes of the Christmas season were easy both this fabulous Buche de Noel from the lovely Nigella and these super easy Chocolate & Hazelnut Snowballs went down a storm with family and friends this Christmas. They will both feature at every Christmas in my house from now on.

Cupcakes

Only the very best recipes made this list and both of these glorious cupcake recipes are no exception. The S'more Cupcakes looked fantastic and I loved the combination of mallowy frosting, chocolate cake and biscuit crumbs.

Hummingbird Bakery S'more Cupcakes

I only posted these Gingerbread Latte Cupcakes last week but they are without a doubt the best cupcakes I have tried from any recipe book this year, so I had to include them in the list.

Lola's Gingerbread Latte Cupcakes

So there you have it my best bakes of 2011.

I can't wait to see what 2012 has to hold for us all!

x x x

Lola's Gingerbread Latte Cupcake Recipe

2012-01-04T13:55:00.000Z

Another recipe from one of my new Christmas books today.

Making Cupcakes With Lola is a brilliant cupcake book, probably the best I have seen in a long time.

Yes you will find all the normal cupcake recipes such as Chocolate, Vanilla, Lemon and Red Velvet but these recipes are where they belong, in the 'Always Favourites' section at the back and the rest of the book is dedicated to more inspirational recipes.

I can't wait to try the Caramel Biscotti Cupcakes, Pecan Pie Cupcakes and the Marmalade Mallow Cupcakes.

First up though Gingerbread Latte Cupcakes...

These delicious cupcakes are really really so good, the cake is incredibly moist and flavourful and although the frosting was just a little too sweet for my taste, these little beauties were very nearly perfect.

I so often find with new cupcake books the recipes are all the same, pretty bland, too dry and really just nothing special but after these gorgeous Gingerbread Latte Cupcakes I have really high hopes for all Lola's recipes.

The flavour combinations used in the book are fantastic and I already have few ideas for new cupcake recipes I want to create.

Gingerbread Latte Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from - Making Cupcakes with Lola

Makes 12

I actually ended up with 14 generous cupcakes so be careful not to overfill the cupcake cases.

I am adding Lola's US conversions too, although some seem a little off in places, for example 1 stick of butter is 113g not 135g as the cupcake recipe states, you will also notice the buttercream recipe says to use 120g grams or 1 stick of butter!

As I was using grams anyway I added 135g and 120g of butter respectively and all was fine.

For the Cupcakes:

120g / 1/2 cup golden syrup or light corn syrup

120g / 1/2 cup black treacle/dark molasses

200ml/ 3/4 cup double/heavy cream

250g/ 2 cups plain/all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp ground espresso

2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

135g / 1 stick butter, cubed and soft

125g 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 medium eggs

For the Coffee Cinnamon Buttercream:

120g/ 1 stick butter, cubed and soft

1 tsp vanilla extract

500g/ 3 2/3 cups icing sugar

3 tbsp milk

2 tsp ground espresso

and 1 tsp ground cinnamon mixed with

1/2 tsp hot water.

Gingerbread Men Sprinkles - to decorate

Muffin pan lined with 12 large cupcake cases (muffin sized).

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, ground espresso, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl.

Put the golden syrup or corn syrup , treacle/molasses and cream in a saucepan and heat gently until just melted and well mixed. Do not allow to boil.

Put the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the syrup mixture to the egg mixture in thirds, alternating with the flour mixture.

Divide the mixture between the prepared muffin cases.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until well risen and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow the cupcakes to cool in the tray for a minute or two until removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

To Make the Buttercream:

While the cupcakes are cooling down, make the coffee cinnamon buttercream.

Put the butter in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until very soft, smooth and lighter in colour. Stir in the vanilla.

Sift half of the icing sugar into the bowl, beating until fully incorporated.

Add the second half of the sugar and beat on a low speed. gradually add the milk, beating continuously. Once combined turn the speed up to high and beat for a further 3 minutes.

Add the espresso-cinnamon paste and beat to combine.

Once the cupcakes are completely cool, spread, spoon or pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes and top with gingerbread men sprinkles.

x x x

Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti Recipe

2011-12-30T16:16:00.002Z

I hope you have all had a wonderfully festive Christmas! I refuse to let Christmas end until the full 12 days are up and so I am enjoying a little time off before I'm back to work on the 3rd, ready to start a brand new year of baking!

This gorgeous biscotti recipe is from one of my new cookbooks Tea with Bea - Recipes from Bea's of Bloomsbury. The book itself is beautiful, each recipe is accompanied by a stunning photograph and out of all my new Christmas cookbooks this is one of the best books for home bakers.

There is no shortage of recipes I can't wait to try, Doughnut Muffins, Sea Salt Caramels, Espresso Bourbon Cake and Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Cheesecake just to name a few.

This biscotti is gorgeous, so packed full of flavour and although crisp and crumbly as biscotti should be you won't have to worry about breaking your teeth on it!

I didn't have too many issues whilst making my biscotti, although I didn't do the best job of encasing the peanut butter in the biscotti dough and had little bits poking out. Also the biscotti was crumbling and cracking quite a lot as I sliced it, this could be for a number of reasons:

1) The biscotti dough may have been a too dry, not enough liquid added.

2) I may have over baked the biscotti on the first baking. Recipe recommends baking the biscotti log for 25-40 minutes, I baked for around 35 minutes, I may reduce this a little.

3) The cracking problem could also be the length of time the biscotti is left to cool before slicing (after the first bake) the recipe recommends 30 minutes but I think 15 minutes cooling may be sufficient.

I will play around and make some changes next time, a few crumbled biscotti is par for the course but out of 30 around 10 of my biscotti cracked whilst cutting. I was worried the biscotti was over baked but it did not seem to be, I hear this cracking tends happens most often with chocolate biscotti.

Update: The lovely Bea has was kind enough to comment on this post with tips for cutting the Biscotti.

Bea says....

'So glad you liked the book! I realized I forgot to put a step in the book. What I do when cutting is with a serrated knife, you sharply cut downward, with the tip of the knife on the board like a pivot (Imagine a paper cutter that you swing the handle down). Sawing like a serrated knife doesn't work because of the way the biscotti expands with the crack on the top of the log and the texture which you want to keep. Adding more moisture will result in a kind of limp crumb/bready bite to it even after twice baked. So glad you like the book! I will mark this for future reprints! Sincerely Bea'.

Although I did try using a serrated knife, I did not use Bea's technique so I will certainly try this next time. I can't thank Bea enough for taking the time to comment on the post and give us tips on Biscotti cutting! Such a star!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti

Recipe adapted from - Tea with Bea

Makes around 30

300g / 2 cups plain/all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

40g / 2 tbsp natural cocoa powder

100g / 1/2 cup light brown soft sugar

40g / 2 tbsp golden syrup

- (you can probably substitute this for corn syrup if you're in the U.S.)

3 tbsp sunflower oil

2 medium eggs

2 tsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

80g / 2/3 cup shelled whole peanuts (unsalted or honey roasted)

80g / 3 oz. high quality dark/semi sweet chocolate, chopped into pea-sized pieces

caster/superfine sugar, for sprinkling

70g / 1/2 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)

baking sheet lined with parchment paper

Sift together the flour, baking powder salt and cocoa into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and mix until well combined. Set aside.

In a new, medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together the golden syrup, oil, eggs, water and vanilla extract until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture until just combined and no trace of flour remains.

Add the peanuts and chocolate and mix until evenly distributed.

Bring the dough together in a ball, wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour before proceeding.

Preheat the oven to 145 C (290 C) Gas 3.

Lay a large sheet of parchment paper onto a clear work surface and sprinkle liberally with caster sugar. Transfer the dough to the sugar sprinkled surface and flatten roughly with your hands. Dot spoonfuls of peanut butter all over the dough and lightly roll the dough into a log about 6cm / 2 1/2 inches wide and 2cm / 1 inch high, it will spread whilst baking. Try to encase the peanut butter inside the log, as it can burn if exposed to direct heat in the oven.

Place the log on the prepared baking sheet (you may have to cut it in half) and bake it in the preheated oven for 25-40 minutes until the top is completely hardened, and when tapped, feels sturdy and not squishy inside. Remove from the oven and let cool for 30 minutes (I may reduce this to 15 minutes, see my notes above).

Turn the oven temperature down to 135 C (265 F) Gas 2.

Slice the cooled log, diagonally, into 1-cm / 1/2 inch wide batons.

Lay all the batons flat on the same baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes until nice and dry, turn all the biscotti over bake for another 10-15 on that side.

Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 1 minute.

Transfer the biscotti to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Store in an airtight container.

The biscotti will keep for up to 1 month.

x x x

Last Minute Christmas Baking Ideas: Chocolate & Hazelnut Snowballs Recipe

2011-12-22T19:45:00.001Z

Can you believe it is 2 days, 4 hours 3 minutes and 15 seconds until Christmas!

Every year no matter how early I try to prepare or how soon I get my Christmas shopping done, the big day always seems to sneak up on me.

I have been baking non stop this December, at the bakery, at home, you name it I've made it. I have also made about 70% of my gifts this year so have had a lot to do but I really have enjoyed every second of it and will definitely be making presents next year too.

Today I thought I would post a seriously delicious, super easy, last minute Christmas recipe. Not the mini Bûche de Noël obviously, I thought I'd just post those for fun and you can find that recipe here.

I made the Bûche de Noël in exactly the same way as before, only cutting the chocolate sponge into three after trimming. I rolled starting from the shorter edge rather than the longest side of each third as before, in order to create small fat little logs.

I decided to decorate them all differently, the first I simply decorated with sugar Holly and Berries, the one above I scattered with chopped hazelnuts and decorated with little toadstools. Below is probably my favourite little log, I added a branch to the top of the log rather than the side and sat an adorable little snow man on top.

That's enough about my Mini Yule Logs though, lets talk Chocolate & Hazelnut Snowballs.

These delicious little rice krispie treats could not be easier to make and I guarantee they will go down a storm with adults and children alike.

Chocolate & Hazelnut Snowballs

(Recipe adapted from Food Network Magazine)

1/2 cup icing sugar

3/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

1 cup crisp rice cereal

1/2 cup chocolate hazelnut spread

Sift the icing sugar onto a plate and set aside.

Mix together all the remaining ingredients by hand until well combined.

Shape the mixture into balls.

Do not try and squish or roll the mixture into balls, this will not work and makes a terrible mess, rather, gently pat the mixture into a roughly spherical shape.

Transfer to the prepared plate of icing sugar. Gently roll the ball in the icing sugar to coat and set aside on a sheet of greaseproof paper to set.

There you have it delicious chocolatey, nutty snowballs.

I probably won't be posting again until after Christmas so a huge Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you all have a wonderful time with your friends and family.

Enjoy it and try not to stress out!

Merry Christmas!

Lots of Love

Astral

x x x

Christmas Baking: Bûche de Noël or Chocolate Yule Log Recipe

2011-12-16T20:18:00.007Z

This gorgeous Bûche de Noël or Chocolate Yule Log is by far my favourite home-bake of the Christmas season, so far at least. Not only does the finished log look absolutely beautiful but it tastes like a dream!

I have decided that I personally would much rather have one of these as the centerpiece of my Christmas dessert table than a traditional Christmas cake and I'm sure most of my family would agree. The flour-less sponge is beautifully light and the buttercream is just wonderful.

Mr. P. called the cake epic and I have been running around delivering little bits of chocolate log to friends and family, all of them have raved about it.

I love this recipe so much I think I'm going to make a few mini chocolate logs before Christmas!

Don't feel daunted by the rolling of the cake and decorating, it really is actually pretty easy, I was so pleased with my roll, not a single crack!

Don't worry if your cake does crack a little, the icing will cover all sorts of little issues. The bark effect is a breeze, trust me and you will have so much fun making and decorating this cake.

Bûche de Noël or Chocolate Yule Log

Recipe adapted from Nigella's Christmas

For the chocolate yule log:

6 eggs (separated)

150 g caster sugar

50 g cocoa

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate buttercream:

175 g dark chocolate
250 g icing sugar

225 unsalted butter

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Line a Swiss roll tin or shallow baking tin with baking parchment.

Preheat the oven to 180° C

In a medium bowl whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, still whisking gradually add 50g of caster sugar, continue to whisk until the peaks are stiff but not dry. Set aside

In a separate larger bowl, whisk the egg yolks with 100g of caster sugar until they are thick, light and airy and pale in colour.

Add the vanilla extract and sieve the cocoa powder onto the yolk mixture, gently fold them in. Add a dollop or two of egg white to the yolk mixture to lighten it and gently fold to combine. Gradually, and gently, fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Pour the mix into the prepared Swiss roll tin or shallow baking tin. Bake for 20 minutes. Allow the cake to cool a little before turning out onto a clean sheet of baking parchment. Trim the edges of the cake with a sharp knife.

To make the chocolate buttercream:

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl placed over a pan of barely simmering water, remove from the heat and set the bowl aside to cool.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and icing sugar for around 3 minutes. Add the chocolate and vanilla extract to the buttercream and beat for a further 2 minutes.

To Assemble:

Spread the cooled cake with a thin layer of chocolate buttercream.

With the long side of the cake facing you, gently roll the cake away from you, the the baking parchment to help you curl the end under and put pressure on the log as you roll it, this will help insure a tight roll. Don't worry if the sponge cracks a little, the buttercream will hide a multitude of sins.

Cut the ends at an angle, and save the pieces you have removed to create a branch or two later.

Cover the yule log with the chocolate buttercream, using a palette knife or the back of a spoon to create a rough finish. Place the pieces of cake you removed earlier on the side of the log to create branches and ice these with buttercream in the same way.

Use a wooden skewer or similar instrument to mark lines in the buttercream, creating the bark pattern, don't forget the wriggly round markings at the end of the log.

How you decorate is up to you, I kept my log pretty traditional with sugar mushrooms and a dusting of snowy icing sugar. I even added a little dusting of cocoa powder to the board and mushrooms to add to the woodland effect. You could add little sugar Holly leaves, Christmas bows, little woodland creatures, a little gingerbread house and a few white chocolate decorations would look gorgeous too.

I have been busy making loads of gorgeous edible Christmas gifts that I cannot wait to post but I might have to wait until after Christmas for fear the lucky recipients might see something they shouldn't

. I hope you're all enjoying the lead up to Christmas, have a brilliant weekend. x

Christmas Baking Ideas

2011-12-10T23:11:00.003Z

The tree is up, the lights are twinkling and the Christmas baking is well underway. With the big day just around the corner I thought I'd better do a massive, hopefully highly inspirational Christmas baking post for you all to get you in the mood.

It is going to be a big one, with lots of ideas, both old and new, so grab a cuppa and enjoy!

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookie Tree Decorations

I made these adorable cookie decorations for a fabulous event recently, I also made a few extra to decorate my tree.

For these I have made these cookies in Chocolate (above) and Gingerbread (below), all the decorations are handmade using sugar paste icing.

I love Santa!

I also painted some of the cookies with an edible glitter glaze for added magic.

Gingerbread is fantastically versatile, you can find my favourite recipe here and with that recipe you can make all sorts of goodies, here are just a few gingerbread goodies I have made recently.

Mini Gingerbread Houses

These are so cute and easier to make than you may think, you just need to make yourself a few little templates, the pain is cutting the shapes out of gingerbread, it takes ages!

The result is well worth it though, I didn't get precious with the decorating, opting for a messy look with crushed candy canes and chopped toffee to top.

Gingerbread Melting Snowmen

I also love love love these melting snowman gingerbread cookies....

Too cute for words and again pretty easy to make, just make a wiggly template in your desired cookies size and cut the shapes out of your rolled gingerbread cookie dough.

Once baked and cooled, ice using either fondant or royal icing (if using fondant use the same template you used for the cookies). Add arms and buttons in black fondant or piped royal icing, a ball of white fondant for the head, not forgetting the carrot nose and coal eyes of course.

I think they are so effective and kids, including grown up ones like my hubby will love them.

Other Cookie Ideas

If you are looking for something more traditional to leave out for Santa, I highly recommend either these Chewy Oatmeal & Raisin Cookies....

....these awesome Peanut Butter Cookies or one of my Christmas favourites gorgeous Forgotten Cookies.

There is something so magical about putting dollops meringue in the oven, turning it off and leaving them overnight, to come back to glorious snowy white meringue cookies in the morning.

Christmas Cupcakes

For me Christmas wouldn't be complete without cupcakes, to decorate I like to keep things pretty traditional, with lots of candy canes, Christmas trees, Santa hats, Christmas puddings and of course Christmas sprinkles.

However you decorate your cupcakes here are a few recipes I think will go down a treat:

Unbelievably delicious French Toast Cupcakes

Scrumptious Gingerbread Cupcakes

Gorgeous S'more Cupcakes

Amazing St Louis Gooey Butter Cupcakes

All of these cupcake recipes are seriously delicious and not too heavy after a huge Christmas dinner.

Mini Cupcakes are also a great idea, especially if you have a lot of people coming over.

Almost all cupcake recipes can be made into mini cupcakes. Mini cupcake pans hold around a third of the amount of batter as regular cupcake pans, so if you have a recipe that yields 12 full sized cupcakes, you’ll get around 36 mini cupcakes from that batter.

Christmas Macarons

This Christmas I will mainly be making My Favourite Ferrero Rocher Macarons...

...and Yummy Mince Pie Macarons.

Chocolate Macarons are a good choice, they are always a winner and you can decorate them to look like Christmas puddings using just a little melted white chocolate and fondant Holly leaves and berries.

I also recommend trying these yummy Chocolate Orange Macarons

Christmas Cakes

When it comes to traditional Christmas Cake I love Nigella's Recipe and Delia's Recipe but if you're looking for something slightly different and maybe a little less rich, here are a few ideas:

Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake With Caramel Rum Frosting

Pistachio Loaf Cake

Nigella's Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake

I'm making one of these Spruced-Up Vanilla Cakes to slice and toast for breakfast on Christmas morning, seriously yummy!

Christmas Breakfast

Speaking of breakfast, I like to start the day as I mean to go on and with that in mind why not try some of these glorious breakfast teats:

Double Chocolate Loaf With Peanut Cream Cheese Spread

Waffles

Doughnut French Toast

Christmas Chocolates

Rather than buying truffles this Christmas why not have a go at making some.

I love these dusted Mocha Truffle Kisses.

You can also try White Chocolate Vanilla Bean Truffles & Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles both are wonderful.

Instead of dusting the truffles with cocoa powder, icing sugar or rolling in crushed nuts, you can also dip the truffles in melted chocolate.

Honourable mentions must go to the following recipes:

Beautiful Old Fashioned Sticky Gingerbread

Sweet & Salty Crunch Nut Bars - These went down a storm at my house last Christmas.

Apricot Peach- & Vanilla Jam - which would make a wonderful Christmas gift, as would A gorgeous jar of Vanilla Sugar or some little jars of Homemade Spice Blends.

I will leave it there for now but stay tuned because I will of course have more Christmas baking ideas coming up very soon. I have Peach Pomegranate & Vanilla Bean Vodka steeping in the kitchen as I type. x

Christmas Baking: Nigella's Spruced - Up Vanilla Cake Recipe

2011-12-06T19:27:00.001Z

I have put the Nordic Ware Holiday Bundt Tree Pan on my Christmas list for three years in a row and still year after year nobody got it for me! I understand that people feel that giving me a cake tin would be a bit like giving a child a dictionary for Christmas but the truth is I really only dream of cake related goods.

Finally this year after realising that once again I was almost certain not to get the much coveted Christmas tree bunt pan I decided to buy it for myself. I knew exactly what recipe I was planning to use too, Nigella's Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake.

The cake is exactly as the tile suggests and is spruced-up not only in appearance but also in taste and texture. The cake is unbelievably rich, dense and eggy. It is lovely but I personally tend to prefer a lighter cake, my mum on the other hand would knock me sideways to get at this bad boy.

The day after making this cake I toasted a slice as suggested by Nigella and oh my God!!!!

Heaven is a slice of Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake toasted! I will now definitely be making another one of these to slice up and toast for Christmas breakfast, well you may as well start as you mean to go on.

Nigella's Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake

Recipe adapted from Nigella's Christmas

225g/8oz soft butter, plus extra for greasing

300g/10½oz caster sugar

6 large free-range eggs

350g/10½oz plain flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

250ml/9oz low-fat natural yoghurt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp vanilla paste

1-2 tbsp icing sugar, to taste

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Place a baking tray into the oven to heat.

Grease a 2.5 litre/4 pint 8fl oz bundt tin (fir tree-shaped, if possible) very liberally with butter or spray with a non-stick baking spray such as Wilton Bake Non-Stick Spray.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer or wooden spoon until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking each one in with a tablespoon of the flour. Carefully fold in the remaining flour using a large metal spoon, then fold in the yoghurt and vanilla extract until well combined.

.Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and spread until level. Knock the base of the tin against the counter a few times to knock out any air bubbles and place the tin on the preheated baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 45-60 minutes, until well risen and golden-brown. After 45 minutes, push a metal skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked.

Remove the cake from the oven and place onto a wire rack, without removing it from the tin. Leave to cool for 15 minutes.

Gently pull away the edges of the cake from the tin with your fingers, then carefully turn out the cake onto the wire rack. Leave to cool completely.

Once cool, sieve the icing sugar over the cake and serve.

It is definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas at my house.

x x x

A Right Royal Christmas Tea Party With The Countess

2011-12-06T18:31:00.001Z

When The Countess of Brighton & Hackney called the bakery and asked us to cater for her up-coming Christmas Tea Party, we couldn't believe our luck!

Baking for royalty?! Yes please!

The Countess of Brighton & Hackney is a much loved local celebrity and she had decided it was high time she reward all her loyal subjects with a party and of course the honour of her company for an afternoon.

The lovely Countess

I made all-sorts of goodies for the Countess and her guests to enjoy and admire.

The gorgeous venue H Bar in Hove was adorned with Gingerbread Cookie decorations...

...and I used candy flavourings to coat the entrance so guests were immediately greeted by a glorious sweet smell.

I made both Ferrero Rocher and Mince Pie Macarons for the event.

Even the cake stands were suitably dressed for Christmas, with little Santa hats on top...

...and I scattered sugar snowflakes and sweets across all the tables.

All the cupcakes were Christmas themed, with Christmas sprinkles, bows, bears, Santa hats, Christmas puddings, you name it the Countess had it.

I made Mini Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache & Chocolate Cupcakes with Hazelnut Ganache.

The Countess and her adoring public had a fantastic time at her party and absolutely adored all the cakes and bakes. Which I was very thankful for since I have heard that if you upset the Countess you make get beheaded! Or even worse dumped in slurry!

I have some more detailed pictures of the cupcakes and cookie decorations but I will post those separately. I may even save them for the mega Christmas Baking post I'm planning...

x x x

Christmas Baking - Mince Pie Macaron Recipe

2011-12-03T19:43:00.004Z

I am so glad it is finally December and I can break out all the Christmas bakes! I have been think about these Mince Pie Macarons since September when I first got my hands on some Buttery Sweet Dough flavouring. The ability to make a macaron taste like sweet pastry was just to exciting to bare quite frankly.

Mince Pies are the epitome of Christmas for me, hubby and I both love them and look forward to them every year. I also love a variation on the traditional mince pie and these macarons are no exception they taste so much like a mince pie, even a mince pie itself wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I am adding these gorgeous macarons to this months Mac Tweets, I love a seasonal Mac Attack and I have sadly missed a few lately so I'm glad to be back to it.

These Macarons are really simple, the shells are of course flavoured with Buttery Sweet Dough emulsion (which you can source from NY Cake) and mixed spice.

The filling is a very simple buttercream with glorious Mincemeat stirred through, you can use any type of mincemeat you like sore bought or home made will both be great.

Mince Pie Macarons

170g icing sugar

160g ground almonds

1/2 tsp mixed spice

4 medium egg whites, separated into two equal batches

160g vanilla sugar or caster sugar

1 tsp Buttery Sweet Dough flavouring emulsion (optional)

For the filling:

50g butter, softened

100g icing sugar

1 tbsp milk

100g mincemeat

To Serve:

1 tbsp icing sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

To Make The Macarons:

Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sieve together the icing sugar, ground almonds & mixed spice into a large mixing bowl. Add the first batch of egg whites (unbeaten) and mix to form a thick paste. Set aside.

Tip the second batch of egg whites into a heatproof bowl and have an electric whisk at the ready. Place 50ml water and the caster sugar into a small saucepan on a medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook until the syrup registers 110C, using a sugar thermometer, at which time start beating the egg whites on a high speed. Once the syrup has reached 118C pour it slowly down the side of the mixer bowl, avoiding the whisk. Add the flavouring emulsion if using and continue to whisk on high until the mixture has cooled slightly and you have a shiny peaked meringue mixture - the bowl should no longer be hot to the touch, but still warm.

Tip the meringue onto the almond mixture and gently fold together. It is important not to over-mix the batter - it should fall in a thick ribbon from the spatula. The ribbon should fade back into the batter within about 30 seconds - if it does not, fold a few more times.

Heat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/ gas 3-4. Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle. Pipe rounds onto the prepared baking sheets, knock the air out of the macarons by giving the bottom of the tray a whack on the kitchen counter and leave to rest for 30 minutes on the, or until the macarons have developed a skin.

Bake the macarons for 14 minutes. Once out of the oven immediately slide the parchment onto a work surface and cool for a few minutes before gently peeling off the paper.

Pair up your macaron shells.

To Make The Filling:

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until significantly whiter in colour around 1-2 minutes.

Sift the icing sugar and gradually add half to the butter, continuing to beat the entire time, add the milk and finally the remaining icing sugar. Beat the mixture for a further 3 minutes.

Stir in the mincemeat using a rubber spatula.

Spoon a teaspoon of filling onto the flat side of one macaron in each pair and sandwich the two shells together.

To Serve:

Sieve the icing sugar and cinnamon together.

Pile the macarons high on a cake stand or serving plate and sieve the cinnamon sugar mixture over the plate of macarons to dust.

I cannot wait to fill the house with the smells and sounds of Christmas!

I have been so busy at the bakery, where it has been pretty darn Christmasy, that I'm a little behind at home this year but we are getting our tree tomorrow and I cannot wait!

I'm making lots of foodie gifts for people this year and I really looking forward to putting on the Christmas music and getting the goodies underway, the best bit of Christmas is definitely the baking.

x x x

A Naughty Little Monster In Japan

2011-11-28T20:08:00.004Z

Earlier this year, whilst travelling to Paris I discovered a naughty little stow away in my luggage.

A naughty little sprinkle stealing monster had decided he wanted to see Paris and so he climbed in my bag and hid. After my initial surprise at the discovery of the little monster, I was quite glad to have his company and very much enjoyed our little trip together. With him in tow we joyously ate our way across Paris and it was all rather wonderful.

Upon our return I took him back to the bakery to reunite him with all of his naughty little sprinkle stealing family, or as it has now become clear, most of his naughty little sprinkle stealing family. You see, another member of his naughty little clan had already left!

Stealing away into the night in Rebella's handbag, naughty little monster Mochi managed to travel all the way to Japan!

Mochi and Rebella's Adventures in Japan

A Little Monster In A Big City

Little Mochi decided almost immediately that Japan was definitely the place for him.

He very much enjoyed travelling and loved the hustle and bustle of the big city.

After settling in at home and being made to feel most welcome by Rebella's kind family the pair decided to travel from Osaka to Kyoto...

Mochi very much enjoyed the view on the train.

Once they reached Kyoto they visited the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, where little Mochi quickly found some friends.

The temple was beautiful and very grand, Mochi and Rebella had a wonderful day but as we know, naughty little monsters cannot bare to be with out food for long and so it was time to eat.

And boy did Mochi eat!

Feasts, Friends and Fame

Mochi loved rice so much he would dive into the rice bowls devouring every last morsel in rather a hurry, for fear someone else may want some.

Nothing was safe, he simply had to try it all!

Sake was the drink of choice and little Mochi apparently climbed into every bamboo tumbler on the table to ensure every last drop had been enjoyed.

Little Mochi had to be careful though, being so small and what with his darting about the table and diving into bowls during dinner, he was very nearly gobbled up himself!

Quite by accident of course.

Mochi's favourite food is of course Green Tea Mochi, he couldn't get enough of the stuff and therefore Rebella and I have decided to name him after his favourite treat. Purely for our own benefit of course, as I'm quite sure he has a name all of his very own.

Rebella had to restrain Mochi on more than one occasion for fear he may drown himself in a bowl of Tofu!

Which of course he loved.

In fact Mochi ate so much at dinner he had to lie down!

Yes Mochi had fallen in love with Japan but it seems Japan had also fallen in love with Mochi!

He caused quite a stir everywhere he went, particularly in restaurants where he always insisted on meeting the chef.

I hear Mochi was such a hit that often Rebella wasn't the only person taking his picture, Mochi it seems is quite the little super star!

The Magical Miniature Kingdom

Mochi had been so well behaved that Rebella decided he deserved a treat...

Rebella took him to miniature land, a world where everything was miniature and perfectly fit for a tiny little monster such as himself.

He couldn't believe his eyes!

He was particularly fond of the little cups of green tea and Rebella kindly let him choose a little present to take home.

Mochi chose a watermelon, which came in a little basket for him to carry.

I have noticed little Mochi seems particularly fond of green foods.

A Journey's End

Mochi had made so many friends...

He wasn't sure he was ready to leave but he couldn't wait to tell his naughty little family back at the bakery, all about his adventures and so Rebella and Mochi came home.

Little Mochi would never forget his time in Japan and Rebella promised to take him back one day but for now he is back at Buttercream Bakery, stealing sprinkles and causing chaos.

Only two of Buttercream Bakery's little monsters have been on holiday thus far and I feel a little bad for the others who have only heard wonderful tales of the great world outside.

I know many of the naughty little monsters are desperate for adventure and friends to discover new places with so if you are going on an exciting journey and think you could cope with a very naughty, highly excitable, incredibly hungry travelling companion please do let me know.

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Cupcake Catch Up

2011-11-27T22:42:00.002Z

My blog has been somewhat lacking in cupcakes the last few weeks. I have of course still been whipping up cupcakes day and night at the bakery, I just haven't had time to post any!

To be honest I have a huge back log of post to get through and since I'm losing track of them all I decided it was best I get my butt into gear and start posting.

There have been also sorts of cupcakes on order in the last couple of weeks, decedent chocolate cupcakes, graduation cupcakes, cocktail cupcakes, voodoo cupcakes and even some Pink Floyd cupcakes!

Cocktail cupcakes are awesome and these Mojito cupcakes are particularly glorious, I do love a Mojito.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Creamy Vanilla Frosting and Oreos.

I can literally hear these cupcakes screaming 'Eat Me!' through the computer screen.

We love mini cupcakes at Buttercream Bakery and for some reason I find these ones particularly adorable.

Perfectly darling little wedding favours.

I made these Red Velvet Graduation Cupcakes for a gorgeous friend who just graduated with a swanky degree in Fashion Photography no less!

I'm very proud! Her gown was purple so I added purple ribbon to the little scrolls, with cute little gold tassels.

Next up something a little darker, Voodoo cupcakes.

I am ridiculously in love with this little voodoo doll!

I don't think voodoo dolls are supposed to be this cute but I love his little pudgy belly and cute button eye.

The Voodoo batch also included scary voodoo skulls...

...and voodoo spells...

The symbols I have used were taken from a voodoo conjure box.

Next up Pink Floyd Cupcakes!

These are so cool! A selection of Pink Floyd album covers for a serious fan's birthday. The toppers frustrated me a little at times but I was really happy with them in the end, great theme!

Something simpler but oh so yummy...

Classic Chocolate Cupcakes

and Glorious Chocolate Chocolate Bar Cupcakes with lashings of chocolate drizzle....

Yum!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Caramel Chocolate Bar Chunk.

More cocktail cupcakes, delicious Margarita cupcake with sugared lime.

Looking at this cupcake makes me thirsty!

I will leave it there for now, I hope you have all had a brilliant weekend, I have been manically making gingerbread cookie decorations for the amazing Christmas Tea Party at H Bar next Friday afternoon. I will also be filling the gorgeous venue with an unbelievable array of goodies so get there if you can!

Now I have to sleep, my eyes and fingers hurt like hell! You will understand when you see the gingerbread cookie decorations, they're crazy!

x x x

Movember Baking: Gingerbread Gentlemen

2011-11-23T19:51:00.007Z

With Movember rapidly coming to a close I decided I simply had to fit one more Movember bake in.

Moustached Gingerbread Gentlemen just seemed so fitting and I have to say I absolutely love the little guys!

I love making gingerbread, it is so simple and enjoyable to make and fills the house with such a wonderful Christmasy aroma. I always make mine by hand, this makes me feel much more Martha-esq but this recipe is easily made in a food processor if you prefer.

My moustaches are made of sugar paste and affixed to the gingerbread men with just a tiny little dab of simple icing sugar glaze. I gave some currant eyes and left others without so the moustaches could take centre stage, I even gave one a monocle! They are gentlemen after all.

Gingerbread Biscuits Recipe

Makes around 20 gingerbread men

350g plain flour, plus more to dust

4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp mixed spice

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

125g butter, fridge cold

1 large egg yolk

75g dark muscovado sugar

75g light brown sugar

3 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp black treacle

100g currants, to decorate, optional

Sift the flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl and add the butter, cut into small chunks. Gently rub together with your fingertips - or pulse in a food processor - until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg yolk, both sugars, syrup, and treacle and mix together until you have a firm dough. If it’s too sticky, mix in a little more flour.

Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C/170C fan/350F/gas mark 4.

Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 4mm thick, and cut out your gingerbread men. Remove the excess dough and repeat this process until all of the dough is used up. Transfer the gingerbread men to the lined baking sheets (if using, add currant eyes before baking), bake for 10–15 minutes. The gingerbreads will have darkened a little.

Remove from the oven and leave to firm up a little for a few minutes, then gently transfer to a wire rack to cool. They will become crisper as they cool.

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Mini Yogi Bear & Boo Boo Cake

2011-11-20T16:18:00.003Z

Time for another cute mini cake.

Yogi Bear and Boo Boo this time, snoozing in the afternoon sun, enjoying a delicious picnic.

This lovely little mini cake is delicious Vanilla Sponge iced with gorgeous Vanilla Bean Italian Meringue Buttercream and covered with grass green vanilla sugar paste. The cake is our usual perfectly individually sized 10cm square. The design is pretty simple, Yogi and Boo Boo take centre stage of course, with yummy sugared doughnuts, strawberries, croissants and a cute layer cake for them to feast on.

I love Yogi Bear's tie, I don't know why but I think it's cute, I also love the little croissants, they are a new addition the the repertoire for me but I can see them popping up again in the near future.

Rest assured there has still been lots of cupcakes being made at the bakery, I have a bit of a back log of posts so I'll probably save them for a big cupcake catch up at some point.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend, I'm making the most of a lazy Sunday afternoon after a manic weekend of baking and will be eating a giant bowl of Ragù with my lovely hubby in front of the T.V.

x x x

Movember Baking - Moustache Chocolate Cookies

2011-11-20T15:46:00.000Z

I have become slightly obsessed with Movember baking, I loved the mini Movember moustache cupcakes I made at the bakery so much I decided to feature them in an awesome Christmas tea party I'm catering for next month. I'm rather tempted to include these awesome chocolate moustache cookies too!

The moustache cookie cutters/stamps are awesome! You can find them here. They worked beautifully with just a light dusting of cocoa powder on the stamp before pressing it into the cookie.

The set comes with 5 different, rather fetching moustache cutters that also double up as cookie stamps.

This chocolate cookie recipe I have used is perfect for shaped cookies, it holds it's shape beautifully once baked, spreading very little, if at all and the imprint came out really well. These are relatively plain cookies, one I would generally ice but I added a tsp of caramel popcorn seasoning to spice them up a little and they turned out to be rather tasty and perfect for dunking in a cuppa.

Rolled Chocolate Cookies

Recipe adapted from Cookie Craft by Valerie Peterson & Janice Fryer

Makes:

around 30 - 2 1/2 inch cookies

around 16 - 3 1/2 inch cookies

around 12 - 4 1/2 inch cookies

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup vanilla sugar or caster sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla paste

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

Using your mixer, cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla paste and mix well.

With the mixer on low, add the flour to the butter mixture gradually, until the two are thoroughly blended.

Turn the dough onto the work surface and divide it into two or three equal portions.

Working with one portion at a time roll the dough out between two sheets of greaseproof paper dusted lightly with cocoa powder. Roll the dough to roughly 1/4 thickness before stamping out your cookies and removing the excess dough.

Emboss cookies if necessary, remembering to dust the embosser lightly with cocoa powder before each use. Repeat the rolling and stamping process until all of your dough is used up.

Place the unbaked cookies onto greaseproof lined baking sheets and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 170 C.

Bake the cookies in the centre of your oven for 10-16 minutes depending on their size. The cookies should still seam quite soft but the edges will have darkened somewhat. Remove the cookies from the oven and leave them to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes before removing with a palette knife and placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

I can now highly recommend moustache cookie cutters, they are so fun and although they are totally novelty I actually think I will use them quite often.

Also Cookie Craft is still in my opinion the best sugar cookie book on the market and if your interested in making gorgeous iced cookies then this is the book for you. Even if like me your are no cookie master the recipes and tips in this book make any sugar cookies project seem much less daunting, I may even make some iced sugar cookie moustaches next...

Cookie Craft a great book for the Christmas list and I even think there is a Christmas Cookie version...

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Miniature Winter Wonderland Christmas Cakes

2011-11-14T21:29:00.001Z

It is no secret that I absolutely love Christmas and designing this years range of Christmas cakes was pure joy for me.

Buttercream Bakery's signature Christmas cake range was inspired by dolls house miniatures, which I am slightly obsessed with and beautiful winter wonderland scenes.

14cm Miniature Gingerbread House Christmas Cake.

The tiny gingerbread house is as detailed as any fairytale gingerbread house you ever read about in story books. The windows have wooden shutters, the snow covered roof is dotted with chocolate bars, candy canes, Christmas puddings, lollipops, Holly leaves and wrapped sweets.

The house is entirely surrounded by candy too, it's like a Christmas dream! ; )

Next up is a favourite of mine...

10cm Miniature Bears In The Wood Christmas Cake

Three little bears walking in the woods, on their way to post a letter to Santa, stop to throw snow balls among the snowy peaked Christmas trees. Ah isn't it the sweetest!

This one really is my miniature masterpiece, each bear is around 1-2cm tall and the entire cake is a perfectly individually sized 10cm.

At Buttercream Bakery our tiny bears are just as detailed as our cupcake bears, these little guys even have cute Santa hats.

14cm Christmas Dessert Table Christmas Cake

Finally our adorable miniature Christmas dessert table cakes come complete will all of your favourite Christmas desserts, Christmas Pudding, Christmas Cake, Christmas Cupcakes and a Chocolate Log.

The table is decorated with bows, Christmas crackers & candy canes.

I hope looking at our Christmas cakes makes you all feel as Christmasy as I do right now! I literally cannot wait and already have some Christmas bakes to post. x

Buttercream Bakery Mini Pastry Chef Cake

2011-11-14T20:46:00.000Z

I have been making more and more mini cakes at the bakery recently.

This year I have launched a range of signature miniature Christmas Cakes (pictures coming soon) & I have been taking orders for mini cakes for a few months now. I'm really enjoying diversifying from our usual cupcakes and I have had some awesome orders!

I love this little pastry chef cake in particular but then I would, it is a cake for a cupcake baker after all.

At Buttercream Bakery our miniature cakes come in two sizes, 14cm square and 10cm square, I have given myself slightly more space to work on than with a cupcake topper but not too much. As you have probably noticed I am all about the miniature and I don't like to make things to easy for myself.

This adorable mini pastry chef cake is 14cm square and the rather dashing, moustached pastry chef is only 7cm tall.

I have a few more mini cakes to post, including our Christmas range, which I cannot wait to show you!

I love a boy who bakes, particularly a boy who bakes cupcakes, so huge birthday love from Buttercream Bakery to the uber cool recipient of this cake.

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Movember Mini Moustache Cupcakes

2011-11-11T14:52:00.001Z

Movember, the month formerly known as November, is a charity run month long event during which men all over the world grown rather fetching moustaches in an effort to raise awareness about men's health specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

Guys can register on Movember 1st, with a clean-shave face and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Mo Sistas are the women who register to support the men in their lives, raising funds by seeking sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

You can find out more at Movember U.K.

Movember this year appears to be bigger than ever before and I am hearing about it everywhere I go, this of course is fantastic and raising awareness for men's health in such a fun way is quite frankly genius.

I was delighted to have Buttercream Bakery's very first Movember cupcakes on order at the beginning of the month and I have to say I absolutely adore them!

Each Mini Chocolate Cupcake is topped with a tiny, rather dashing little moustache.

Buttercream Bakery is delighted to be baking for an amazing Christmas tea party on the 2nd of December and I think I may have to include these little moustache cupcakes.

I'm hoping to see lots of Movember bakes about and I have a little something else up my sleeve too.

x x x

Candy Bacon & Eggs

2011-11-09T12:36:00.000Z

I made these super easy and seriously cute candy bacon and eggs for my little brother as a birthday treat.

I think they look adorable and actually rather realistic but Mr. P. totally disagreed. His only comment was, 'that doesn't look like bacon'.

Mr. P. is such a meanie and obviously has no imagination what so ever! He is very lucky I still love him so.

Candy Bacon & Eggs couldn't be easier to make and kids will love getting involved, my family loved them.

My brilliant mum thought they were great, saying that they were delicious and had a slight nutty flavour...er yeah mum, that would be the peanut M&M...

To make your own Candy Bacon & Eggs you will need:

White Chocolate, melted

Yellow M&Ms

Pretzels Sticks

You will need around two teaspoons of melted chocolate per egg.

Spoon melted chocolate onto greaseproof paper with a teaspoon. Using the back of the teaspoon shape the melted chocolate to look like a fried egg, you don't want the chocolate too thin so be generous. Pop a yellow M&M into the centre of the chocolate and two pretzel sticks on the side.

Leave the chocolate to set at room temperature before removing each egg from the greaseproof paper using a palette knife.

My eggs were actually rather robust and despite trekking through a torrential rain storm with them, there was not a single breakage.

I started Christmas baking last week, is it too early for Christmas bakes? I think not but I'm Christmas mad. I have however held off posting them for fear you may judge me harshly, I was listening to all my favourite Christmas songs, whilst baking Christmas Macarons, it was pretty magical.

Also lovely Mr. P. gave me a copy of Pierre Herme's Macarons for my birthday, it is everything I dreamed it would be and more, the recipes are epic and so inspirational, it is also absolutely stunning and I cannot wait to dive in!

x x x

Rupert's Sticky Situation Pie: Peanut Butter Salted Caramel Pie Filling Recipe

2011-11-04T12:58:00.004Z

Oh dear! Rupert the Bear seems to have landed himself in another sticky situation.

For my gorgeous little baby brother's 18th birthday I decided to make him these Peanut Butter Salted Caramel Pretzel Pudding Pies. His name is of course Rupert and despite his ever increasing age and size we still call him Rupert the Bear. He also absolutely loves peanut butter and is a big fan of my peanut butter cookies.

These delicious pies are so quick to make and use store cupboard basics I tend to have hanging around. For the pasty you can either use your favourite sweet pie dough recipe, a high quality store bought sweet pastry, ready made pastry cases or even, in a pinch, standard shortcrust rolled out on icing sugar and perhaps brushed with melted white chocolate post baking and pre filling.

Blind bake your cases and cool before filling.

The filling is unbelievably delicious, sweet and beautifully smooth with just the perfect hint of chew once chilled. The saltiness of the crushed pretzel topping really amps up the salted caramel and the flavours blend beautifully.

Both Rupert and my little sister absolutely loved the pies and Rupert said they were much better than a birthday cake so I was happy. These weren't his only edible birthday treat but more on that later...

Peanut Butter Salted Caramel Pie Filling

Makes enough to fill 15 mini pie cases or one large pie case.

1/2 cup muscovado sugar

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup double cream

1 cup smooth peanut butter

pinch fine sea salt

1/2 tsp vanilla paste

Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan and set over a medium heat. Stir gently until the sugar has dissolved.

Once the sugar has completely dissolved, stop stirring and raise the heat. Bring the syrup to the boil and continue heating until the mixture reaches 170C.

Remove from the heat and carefully add the cream and peanut butter, stir the mixture with a rubber spatula until smooth.

Return the pan to the boil and boil the mixture for a further 1-2 minutes. Be careful not to burn the mixture at this point.

Remove from the heat. Add the salt and vanilla paste and stir to incorporate.

Leave the mixture to cool for 30 minutes before filling your baked pie cases. Once filled you can sprinkle your pies with crushed pretzels if you wish. Place your pies in the fridge to firm up.

Happy Birthday Ru Bear, we love you loads. x

Bounty Macaron Recipe

2011-11-03T12:12:00.002Z

Never has the difference between Macaron and Macaroon been more relevant than today, you see these are Coconut Macarons, certainly not to be confused with Coconut Macaroons, an entirely different thing all together.

If you are not familiar with a Bounty, it is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, it has a coconut filling enrobed with milk chocolate and is sold in a blue wrapper. They have a special place in my heart as a Bounty was always my Mums chocolate bar of choice when I was little.

My Bounty Macaron shells are flavoured with coconut essence, sandwiched together with milk chocolate ganache and sprinkled liberally with desiccated coconut.

My Bounty Macarons certainly didn't disappoint, they taste just like a Bounty, maybe even better!

Mr. P's sister has decide that these are her favourite ever macarons, they managed to overtake both chocolate and Ferrero Rocher macarons in her affections and Mr. P. who first refused to try one, insisting that he hated coconut, ate on the next day and exclaimed, 'those Bounty macarons are amazing'! Yes Mr. P. they certainly are.

Chocolate & Coconut 'Bounty' Macarons

200g (7oz) icing sugar

190g (7oz) ground almonds

80ml (2 3/4 fl oz) water

200g caster sugar

2 x 80g (2 3/4 oz) egg whites

1/4 tsp coconut essence

For the Chocolate Ganache:

90ml double cream

150 grams milk chocolate, chopped

45 grams unsalted butter

For the glaze:

3 tbsp confectioners' sugar

1-2 tsp water

To Decorate:

100g desiccated coconut

To make the macarons:

Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Sieve together the icing sugar and almonds into a large bowl. Mix 80g of the egg whites (unbeaten) with the sieved icing sugar and almond mixture until you have a thick paste.

In a clean bowl whip the remaining 80g of egg whites until they form soft peaks.

In a saucepan, bring the water and the caster sugar to the boil. Use a thermometer to ensure that the temperature of the syrup does not exceed 110C (230F). This is very important.

Whisking constantly at a slow speed, pour the sugar syrup over the egg whites in a thin stream. Be sure to avoid the whisk.

Add the coconut essence and continue whisking until the mixture has cooled and the meringue is thick and glossy.

Fold the meringue into the almond paste mixture using a rubber spatula. The batter is ready when it falls from the spatula in a ribbon, this ribbon should disappear back into the batter after about 30 seconds. Use a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip to pipe rounds onto the prepared baking sheets. Lightly tap the bottom of the tray on the work surface to remove any small air bubbles. Put the tray aside for between 30 minutes and 1 hour to allow the macarons to dry, you should be able to touch the macaron and come away with a clean finger, the macarons will be noticeably firmer.

Preheat oven to 145C (125F).

Bake the macaron shells for between 13 - 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately slide the greaseproof paper onto a clean work surface. Leave to cool completely before removing from the sheets

To Make the Chocolate Ganache:

Melt all the ingredients for the ganache together in a small saucepan. When the chocolate has fully melted remove from the heat and whisk until thick. When cool spread or pipe on the underside of one macaron and sandwich it with another.

To Decorate:

Mix together the confectioners' sugar and water together to make a glaze.

Using a teaspoon or piping bag spoon a small amount of glaze onto the top of each macaron and sprinkle with desiccated coconut. Once dry if you wish turn the macarons over and repeat the process.

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Halloween Cupcake Round Up

2011-11-01T15:29:00.001Z

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween weekend. I was rushed off my feet but loved every gruesome minute of our Halloween cupcake chaos.

I thought I would round up all the creepy cupcakes, excluding the ones you have already seen of course and do one big Halloween post, be warned almost all of these cupcakes are horrendous! Awful, scary, rather disgusting and of course totally awesome, enjoy!

Dead Doll Face Cupcakes

I know, I know, it is just wrong!

You just have to go all out for Halloween and what is more scary then face flesh?!

Not much I'd say.

Skull Cupcakes

I loved this batch the green sprinkles really bring the cupcake to life, no dodgy pun intended and I love that they look all neon and radioactive in colour.

White Chocolate Skull Cupcakes

You have seen these skulls before I think, I'm really happy with the detail and they're Halloween-ey without being too gory.

Oh yes it must be time for more face flesh...

'Slab of Flesh' Cakes

Once again they are hideous I know. These cakes are quite literally slabs of cake, iced with Buttercream and fondant flesh.

That seriously gross, fatty, bloody, yucky bit took me ages to master but oh boy did I master it.

I did make one batch of cute Halloween cupcakes...

....but that was it.

I can breath a little sigh of relief now that Halloween is over. It is my birthday on Sunday and I'm actually quite excited, even if I am getting old at an astonishing rate. The lovely Mr. P. is whisking me away to London to explore the Christmas departments and as if that wasn't fabulous enough he is getting me a new camera!!!! A proper, swanky, look at me I'm a photographer type of camera and I cannot wait! It certainly makes being a year older slightly sweeter.

x x x

Halloween Treats: Zombie Marshmallows

2011-10-28T20:30:00.001+01:00

Who knew Marshmallows could be so awesome!

Zombie Marshmallows make a brilliantly simple Halloween treat, all you need is a bag of your favourite marshmallows and either edible food pens or edible food colouring pastes and a paint brush.

I used food colouring paste in black and red and a very small paintbrush to create my little zombies. The marshmallows I used are the seriously squidgy kind, I much prefer these but they are slightly harder to draw/paint on so you may prefer to use the smoother kind.

They are honestly ridiculously fun to make and I am no word of a lie actually seriously excited about Zombie Marshmallows in my Hot Chocolate!

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Mini Halloween Cupcakes

2011-10-28T17:29:00.000+01:00

Halloween weekend is finally upon us & Buttercream Bakery is in full scary cupcake mode.

I thought I would start the Halloween weekend off with something quite tame, it's probably best to start you of gently as the horror that is to come may well leave you shaken to the very core.

Ah yes, nothing says Halloween like a mini Zombie cupcake.

Zombies aren't so scary, they move far to slowly to be a real concern and if you ask me these Zombie cupcakes are actually bloomin' adorable!

As part of the same order we also made these gruesomely gorgeous mini blood splattered cupcakes.

I am rather partial to a bit of yummy sugary blood which is lucky because I have been playing with a lot of it in recent weeks.

I have a big soft spot for Halloween, my Mum made a big thing of it when I was little, she would get us all out the house for the day and when we returned the door would be smeared with blood, the house would be dark, various evil family friends would hide in the dark spraying my siblings and I with water pistols and shuffling about, grabbing at you through the blackness. There was always a petrifying sound track and lots of screaming from us.

My mum also invents the best horror stories, absolutely terrifying! 'The Babysitter In The Fridge' will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I won't be doing much but baking cupcakes this Halloween, it is probably for the best, I actually hate being scared these days. I blame my mum, all that terror must have had some sort of lasting effect.

I have managed to avoid watching a horror movie for about six years now, I absolutely hate them! As I explained to Mr. P. the other night (for the hundredth time I might add), I won't sleep for a week, I will more than likely cry, embarrassing I know and I will point blank refuse to enter any room alone for at least a month. Just not worth it.

The last scary movie I watched was one of the early Saw films, it was awful, just awful, never again!

Mr. P. and I both agree Texas Chainsaw Massacre is by far the scariest movie ever, what do you think?

What ever you are up to this Halloween have an amazing time and I will be back next week with a full run down of all the crazy Halloween cupcakes I have made over the holiday.

x x x

Pistachio Macaron Recipe

2011-10-23T17:21:00.004+01:00

It is highly possible that heaven is indeed a pistachio macaron.

I honestly struggle to find words to explain how I feel about pistachio macarons, they are certainly among my favourite sweet treats and I absolutely adore this recipe. The macarons themselves are honestly breathtakingly delicious and the buttercream....oh my....

I adapted the amazing buttercream recipe form I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita, which is a brilliant French Buttercream recipe.

This seems like a great time for a little buttercream study session....

All About Buttercream

American Buttercream (probably the most commonly used Buttercream) is made by creaming together butter and confectioners' sugar and beating to the desired consistency and lightness.

Italian Meringue Buttercream is prepared by adding sugar syrup to egg whites whipped to soft peaks. The syrup and egg white mixture is then whipped until it has cooled to around 100 °F.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream is made by cooking the egg whites and sugar together in a bowl placed on a pot of boiling water.

French Meringue Buttercream is prepared by whipping egg whites, cream of tartar, and caster sugar until stiff, glossy peaks are formed.

Finally French Buttercream (the Buttercream I am using here) is made in the same way as Italian meringue-based buttercream, except with egg yolks or whole eggs instead of egg whites-- hot sugar syrup, which has been heated to soft-ball stage is beaten into the egg yolks or whole eggs which have been beaten until they are thick and pale yellow.

Anyway back to the macarons....

You will more than likely have to make your own ground pistachios, this is very easy and I use my food processor. Sieve them twice and weigh them once ground.

I used Sugarflair food colouring paste in Mint Green to colour my macarons.

Pistachio Macarons

(Makes around 25 -30 Macarons)

160g icing sugar

100g ground almonds

60g ground pistachios

4 medium egg whites, separated into two equal batches -

160g caster sugar

green food colouring paste

For the Pistachio Buttercream

Recipe adapted from I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita

100g unsalted butter, very soft

3 tbsp water

3 tbsp vanilla sugar (or caster sugar)

1 egg

50g ground pistachios

Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sieve together the icing sugar, ground almonds and ground pistachios into a large mixing bowl. Add the first batch of egg whites (unbeaten) and the food colouring paste to the almond mix to form a thick paste. Make the mixture darker than you would like at this point, as the addition of the beaten egg whites later on will significantly lighten the colour. Set aside.

Tip the second batch of egg whites into a heatproof bowl and have an electric whisk at the ready. Place 50ml water and the caster sugar into a small saucepan on a medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook until the syrup registers 110C, using a sugar thermometer, at which time start beating the egg whites on a high speed. Once the syrup has reached 118C pour it in a thin stream into the mixing bowl, avoiding the whisk. Continue to whisk on high until the mixture has cooled slightly and you have a shiny peaked meringue mixture - the bowl should no longer be hot to the touch, but still warm.

Heat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/ gas 3-4. Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle. Pipe rounds onto the prepared baking sheets, leave to rest for 30 minutes on the kitchen counter, or until the macarons have developed a skin.

Bake the macarons for 14 minutes. Once out of the oven immediately slide the parchment onto a work surface and cool for a few minutes before gently peeling off the paper.

Pair up your macaron shells.

To make the Pistachio Buttercream:

In the bowl of an electric mixer or using a handheld mixer beat the butter until very soft, about 3 minutes.

Place the egg into the clean bowl of your mixer ready to beat.

Place the water and sugar into a small saucepan and place over a medium heat.

After a minute or two start beating the egg.

The syrup is ready when it reaches soft ball stage. To check for soft ball stage scoop some of the syrup out of the pan with a spoon and drop into a small amount of cold water, then try and scoop it out of the water and squish it into a ball using your fingers. If you can do this the syrup is ready.

Pour the syrup in a thin stream into the beaten egg, avoid the whisk and the sides of the bowl. Continue to beat the meringue mixture until the bottom of the bowl is no longer hot and the mixture becomes white and heavy.

Add the butter prepared earlier in three parts to the meringue mixture, beating after each addition. While beating the butter and meringue mixture it may appear to separate . It will look curdled and you will definitely think you have made a mistake, even though I am saying this you will still think you have made a mistake. I promise you haven't just continue beating on a high speed until the mixture becomes creamy. Add the pistachios and mix well.

Fill a piping bag, fitted with a plain round nozzle, with Pistachio French Buttercream and pipe onto the flat side of one macaron in each pair, sandwich the macarons pairs together and devour.

Next week Halloween baking will be in full effect and I can't wait, I also have some glorious Autumnal cakes coming up.

I'm also really excited because my amazing friend is back home, she has been away studying but is back for half term and I cannot wait to see her! I'm going to take her some macarons, a little reward for working so hard.

x x x

Buttercream Bakery 'Dead Ted' Halloween Cupcakes

2011-10-19T20:59:00.001+01:00

Finally it is that time of year again, it is getting colder, the pumpkins are coming out and the evil cupcaking has begun.

I love Halloween and for a cake decorator who is best known for her seriously cute and oh so sweet cupcake designs, Halloween is a brilliant time to exercise my dark side.

I am adamant that all of the cupcakes I make at Buttercream Bakery are 100% original and I tend to struggle with this most at Halloween, I hate to see the same old cupcakes sold at every bakery, with the same old colours, toppers and sprinkles.

There are also amazing books like 'A Zombie Ate My Cupcake!' by Lily Vanilli on the market and these designs although phenomenal are now, in my mind at least unusable, even a variation of one of these fabulously gruesome cupcakes would, to me at least seem like copying and although at home I can play around with all sorts at the bakery everything has to be totally unique.

I have spent a lot of time coming up with this years Halloween range and these 'Dead Ted' Cupcakes are just a little taster. I hope you will agree they are definitely unique.

I love Zombie Ted!

I have also been perfecting my fondant flesh (yuck!) for a while now, a popular choice this year it seems (my clients are so cool), so prepare yourselves for lots of seriously gross cupcakes this Halloween.

Rest assured the nice cute teddy bears will be back but not until November, which is probably for the best since the Dead Teds have taken over the bakery and I don't think they play nice.

x x x

Halloween Baking: Meringue Ghosts Recipe

2011-10-17T18:25:00.004+01:00

I love it when all the Halloween bakes come out.

I remember when I was little how excited I would get to see how our local bakery had decorated their gingerbread that week. It was always Santa at Christmas, love hearts on Valentines, even football strips during the world cup and of course bats, pumpkins and even skeletons for Halloween.

These days I love holiday baking even more than I did back then and the fact that I can now join in with all the fun just makes each holiday better and better.

Meringue ghosts are not a new thing and I have seen them all over the place for years but I have never really had the urge to make any. That was until I saw them on Bake For Happy Kids.

Zoe's meringue ghost had something special, I can't quite put my finger on what it was or why but they spoke to me and I just had to have a go.

I love all the different faces Zoe gave her ghosts and I followed suit, painting on the faces was in fact particularly enjoyable and I love all their different expressions. I decided to use edible black paint but you could also use black food colouring paste or an edible black pen. You can also push chocolate chips, small sweets or sprinkles into the meringues before baking to create eyes if you prefer.

Meringue Ghosts

(Meringue recipe adapted from Rachel Allen's Bake)

Makes around 20 meringue ghosts

4 egg whites

1 pinches salt

300 g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

You will also need either:

Edible black paint and a paintbrush, black food colouring paste and a paintbrush, or an edible black pen.

Preheat the oven to 140C/gas 1. Line two baking trays with parchment paper.

Put the egg whites into a large spotlessly clean bowl with a pinch of salt. Whisk until soft peaks form. Gradually add the caster sugar one tablespoon at a time, whisking between each addition, until it has all been added and the meringue is satiny and forms stiff peaks when the whisk is lifted from the mixture.

Fold in the vanilla extract with a large metal spoon.

Using a piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm plain round tip, pipe the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets into small swirls.

(Size is really up to you but my ghosts were around 7cm tall and 5cm wide)

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Test one by lifting and gently pressing on the base of a meringue – it should be crisp but give way with a bit of pressure – they will crisp more when cooling. Turn off the oven, and leave to cool in the oven with the oven door slightly ajar for best results. If possible, let them cool completely in the oven.

Once completely cool you can paint or draw on the faces, you should definitely visit Bake For Happy Kids for some extra inspiration.

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Adorable Baby Bottle Cake Topper Tutorial

2011-10-12T12:56:00.002+01:00

The lovely Qing over at Coolest Baby Shower Idea.com recently asked me to be a judge for the baby shower ideas contest they are currently running, asked if I would like to create a baby shower themed post to go up on the site. I was of course happy to oblige.

Cupcakes are perfect for baby showers, adorable, bite size, wonderfully customisable and oh scrumptious they are perfect baby shower treats.

Today I thought I would show you how to create your very own beautiful little baby bottle cupcake toppers. They are sure to impress at your next baby shower and are much simpler to make then you may think.

To make each baby bottle cupcake topper you will need:

12g white sugar paste or gum paste per bottle

0.5g light brown sugar paste or gum paste per bottle

artists scalpel or small sharp knife

toothpicks

0.5g pink sugar paste, per bottle

Small paintbrush

To make your baby bottle:

Take a 12g ball of white sugar paste and shape into a cylinder. Lay the cylinder down and place your index finger in the centre, roll into an hourglass shape. Neaten up the edges, flattening the top and base and ensure the shape is even.

Take 2/3 of your light brown sugar paste and flatten into a plump disk.

Using the blade of a scalpel or a sharp knife, mark vertical indentations along the edges of the disk and affix to the centre of the top of your bottle with a damp finger or paintbrush.

Take the remaining light brown sugar paste and roll into a small cylinder. Roll a toothpick cross the centre of the cylinder, shaping it into an hourglass shape, just as you did with your finger to the body of the bottle.

Affix with a damp paintbrush to the centre of the light brown disk to create the bottles teat.

Your bottle is now finished!

You may now choose to customise your bottle, you can do this in a number of ways but I love adorable little bows, baby pink, baby blue and pale yellow are of course the colours of choice.

To make your bow take a small piece of baby pink sugar paste, around 0.5g and shape it into a small rectangle. Using a toothpick make an indent in the centre of both the longest edges of the rectangle. Take your scalpel or sharp knife and make two small vertical indents connecting the indents made with the toothpick to create the cinched part of your bow, be careful not to cut through the bow, press gently.

Finally to create the rouches of the bow, push the end of your toothpick gently into the sugar paste from the centre outwards, creating two or three indentations.

Affix the bow to the top of your bottle using a damp paintbrush and allow to dry.

Happy Cupcaking

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Turns Shoe Designer

2011-10-12T12:25:00.003+01:00

I can honestly say I never thought I would be designing shoes but when the fabulous curators of Guerrilla Fashion, who had already been in touch about cupcakes for the event, asked if I would design a pair of shoes for the fashion show, I just couldn't say no.

Photograph by Diana Frangi

The Guerrilla Fashion show featured some amazing work from local designers, there was a brilliant recycled, reclaimed edge with lace and latex galore. You can see some pictures from the show here.

Photograph by Diana Frangi

The Buttercream Bakery Shoes are covered heel to toe in goodies, cakes, candy, chocolate, ice creams and teddy bears, all the little details are hand made by yours truly using Fimo clay.

The show was absolutely fantastic and it was a real pleasure to be involved. I have already been asked to get involved with the sure to be phenomenal Valentines lingerie fashion show and pop up shop taking place in February.

Loving the idea of lingerie cupcakes! Roll on Valentines.

x x x

Lots of Scrumptious Cupcakes

2011-10-11T21:26:00.002+01:00

First up I thought I would start with a bespoke batch, adorable baby shower cupcakes with bespoke baby girl bottles.

I have a tutorial for these adorable baby bottles on the way, they are my most popular baby shower cupcake topper and so simple to make.

Oh chocolate chips how I love thee....has there ever been a more glorious cupcake topping?

Ooh perhaps there has....

This colossal cupcake is topped with baby pink chocolate love hearts, straight from Paris and pink and white mini marshmallows, the dark chocolate glaze takes it to heavenly proportions.

Pistachios have been in abundance at the bakery, mainly because I ordered such a massive quantity but also because I adore the colour.

Pistachio cupcakes are nothing short of glorious.

More Oreos of course but on big cupcakes this time...

Everyone seems to be Oreo crazy and these are really popular, I crush a lot of Oreos.

I'm crazy for this beautiful sprinkle mix....

I make it up myself in huge batches, I adore the combination of chocolate chips, pink love hearts and chocolate curls. I'll replace the pink hearts with red come the Valentines season.

Last but by no means least we have a gloriously nutty chocolate pecan cupcake...

Simply delicious.

x x x

A Few Top Tips & Tricks For Making Mini Cupcakes

2011-09-30T17:55:00.001+01:00

I make a lot of mini cupcakes and recently I seem to be making more than ever before. Today rather than doing a normal cupcake post with a lot of images and a few little comments along the way, I thought I would share a few of my top tips for making mini cupcakes and add a few pictures of the mini cuppies I have been making this week, to give you a little inspiration.

Making mini cupcakes is of course basically exactly the same as making regular sized cupcakes but there are a few tips and tricks to making perfect mini cupcakes.

Know the batter you are working with, our chocolate cupcakes for instance rise more than our vanilla cupcakes when baked, so I only fill the cases until half full with this particular batter. Normally you will want to fill the mini cupcake cases until 2/3 full as with regular cupcakes but be careful, it is very easy to over fill mini cupcake cases.

I recommend starting with the original recipe and making a large batch of mini cupcakes, rather than cutting down the recipe. Some recipes do not scale down well.

Mini cupcake pans can be a pain to fill, it can take a long time, especially if you are making hundreds of mini cupcakes at a time and as we know cake batter does not like to wait. At the bakery we always pipe our cake batter into mini cupcake cases/trays.

I use a large disposable piping bag fitted with a 2cm round piping tip for this. It is much quicker and far easier to make all the cupcakes uniform in size by piping the batter into the cases, rather than scooping and spooning.

Mini cupcakes will bake in around half the time of regular sized cupcakes.

Around 10-16 minutes for mini cupcakes and 20-25 for regular sized cupcakes. It is really easy to over bake mini cupcakes so keep a close eye on them and check to see if they are ready after 10 minutes.

If you choose to add anything to the cupcake batter, chocolate chips, nuts or fruit for example, be sure to crush or chop them into very small pieces, it is very easy to overwhelm a mini cupcake.

It is also very easy to make a mini cupcake look too top heavy, small toppings work best, sprinkles, crushed nuts, biscuits, coconut and small chocolates or sweets work much better than large fondant toppers.

So there you have it, my top tips for mini cupcakes, I hope you find them useful.

Have a brilliant weekend everyone. x

Pistachio Loaf Cake Recipe

2011-09-29T19:47:00.003+01:00

Another day and another delicious loaf cake.

I am crazy about this cake, the glorious green of the pistachio sprinkle against the white of the glaze, the generously pistachio studded cake, which is gloriously moist and incredibly moreish. This is definitely a two slice cake and by that I mean that nobody will be having just one.

This is a king among loaf cakes.

There is definitely something distinctly Christmasy about this cake and I can see myself whipping up a few, over the festive season. The cake itself is a breeze to make, but if you can't find ground, chopped or shelled pistachios be prepared to de-shell a fair few.

Although I'm sure the cake would still taste wonderful without the glaze, I think just that little touch of sweetness takes this cake to a whole new level and I can't encourage you to glaze this bad boy enough.

Pistachio Loaf Cake

Recipe adapted from - Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days Recipes

190g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

190g caster sugar

3 large eggs

190g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla paste

100g shelled pistachios, roughly chopped

For the glaze

125g icing sugar

40g ground pistachios

To make the pistachio loaf cake:

Preheat the oven to 170°C then grease and line a 8.5cm x 17.5cm loaf tin.

Using a hand-held electric whisk or a freestanding electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients are properly mixed together.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, then add to the creamed mixture in two batches and mix on a low speed until just incorporated. Add the buttermilk and vanilla paste, then stir in the chopped pistachios by hand.

Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared tin, then place in the oven and bake for 50 – 60 minutes or until the sponge feels firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean, with no uncooked batter sticking to it.

Allow the loaf to cool a little in the tin, then turn out on a wire rack to cool down fully before adding the glaze.

To make the glaze:

Place the icing sugar in a bowl, add 2 tablespoons of water and mix together. This will form a fairly runny paste; if the glaze seems too thick, add a little more water to thin it – 1/4 teaspoon at a time. Pour the glaze over the cooled loaf and sprinkle with the ground pistachios.

Enjoy

x x x

Buttercream Bakery Loves Pop

2011-09-27T13:24:00.002+01:00

There are few things as wonderful for a cake decorator as seeing your work in print.

Needless to say I love that We Love Pop decided to publish one of my adorable mini Katy Perry cupcakes.

The magazine priced them as large cupcakes but these little beauties are really mini cupcakes and are a very affordable £1 each.

I originally designed these cupcakes for the fabulous Cakey Perry event at the request of Miss Cakehead. You can keep up to date with all Miss Cakehead's fabulous cakey events on her blog cakeheadlovesevil.

I love the EAT IT! bit and the fact that Miss Perry herself is on the same page! I also think the little write up is great and it is brilliant that National Cupcake week is having the desired effect.

Buttercream Bakery does indeed love pop.

You can find out all about the awesome Cakey Perry event in my previous posts:

Cakey Perry Cupcakes

Cakey Perry Part 1

Cakey Perry Part 2 - Press Night