update: halloween cupcakes

yeah, yeah, only 3 months later. But I actually found some pics of the finished Red Velvet cupcakes I made for halloween. Here they are in all their finished gory (glory)

Daisy Cupcakes

I got bored a couple of weeks ago, there was no one around and nothing to do and it was a crappy horrible rainy day out so I decided to do some baking. Nothing too exciting after all it was only me going to be eating whatever I produced and unless I want to turn into a telly tubby I didn't want to be eating a dozen buttercream topped cakes all by myself. So I went for these simple little cuties. I tried a different (easier) vanilla sponge recipe, still with the gluten-free flour blend which mixed and baked faster than previous attempts and topped it off with a lemon icing glaze and some daisies cut from leftover navy and yellow fondant.

Red Velvet Halloween

The sister offered to make dinner for the halloween\bank holiday \ it's not your birthday weekend. I wasn't planning on making any cakes because you know, birthday girl bringing her own cake smacks of patheticness. But once again I got bored and I had some spare fondant in the cupboard AND I'd been messing around on Pinterest and saw a couple of people had pinned wee little halloween models that would be fun to try and make my own versions of that. Well it was either that or drink myself into a depressive anti-birthday stupor. So I got out my food colouring and made up some wee pumpkins (with tiny green stems!) and then using my navy food colouring I kneaded up some more for tiny little witches hats. Then since I was still bored I made up some tiny ghosts, it took me a couple of goes to get good faces, but a toothpick dipped in navy food colouring sorted that out.

Of course all these cute little halloweenies demanded to be put on top of some cakes and since it was halloween I thought I'd try a recipe with blood red sponge, and what is better than a red velvet cake? Since I knew mum was going to be eating the cakes I made them with gluten-free flour and dyed the buttercream frosting orange. The models looked cute on top of the buttercream but I'm not sure the orange buttercream went well with the lovely deep colour of the red velvet. Oh, and also I forgot to take any photos of the final product, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like.

Blue Stars

My friends and I all love cake - it's like crack to us. So when I and D announced they were having a welcome party for their new baby it was a perfect opportunity for some baking and messing around with buttercreams. I didn't have time to get down to the shops so really the only food colour I had in the house was a couple of bottles of Squires Kitchen, one navy and one yellow. Which was handy as I had some navy and yellow cupcake papers.
I made up a batch of vanilla sponge - although I was a bit apprehensive about the recipe because I was using a gluten-free flour blend that I hadn't used before. But beginners luck or whatever it was the cupcakes baked beautifully soft and light. I'd made up the buttercream a couple of days previous and let it sit in the fridge to amalgamate or whatever - buttercream always seems to work better when it's been in the fridge overnight or for a couple of days. Piped onto the cakes it actually worked well, previous to this I'd used a syringe for piping and that always just results in the frosting spilling over the top of the syringe and all over my clothes. This time I tried a piping bag which was stiff and a pain in the arse to clean but it was easier to control. I dyed some fondant navy, cut out some stars from and waalaa some lovely cupcakes fit for a welcoming party for a little boy.

Chocolate Butterflies

It was my mothers birthday this week and as it fell on a weekday we gathered on the weekend to wish her a happy birthday. I made some gluten-free cupcakes - twice. The first batch I baked on Saturday night turned out like rubber, the tops burnt black and the bottom was overcooked rubber eggs. It was the second time I'd tried this recipe and the first time the cakes were fantastic, I don't know what happened this time round. So Sunday morning found me awake at 8 and running down to the shop to get more eggs to try again. I made the chocolate butterflies and the buttercream during the week so that was all ready to go. The butterflies took a bit of work as my piping skills aren't the best, but I think they worked out ok. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so only got some shots of the finished product with my iphone.

I coloured the buttercream purple - or at least it was supposed to be purple. I'd bought some Squires Kitchen 'bluebell' liquid colour as I wanted a good deep colour but when I opened the bottle it exploded all over my hands - it's still sitting on my sink where it is leaking slowly down the drain. Because of the food colouring disaster I ended up mixing some blue and red 'Dr. Oetker' colouring I had in the cupboard, which mixed to a sort of pale lilac colour

instead. For the butterflies I created a 'butterfly wing' template and traced it onto wax paper, then piped the melted chocolate around the pattern. As a note to anyone who wants to try this, it's best to wait for the chocolate to cool a little as if it is too hot it will just drip from the piping bag like water. But they do say the best way to learn is to try, try and try again.

I put the cakes together when I got to my mums, rather than decorating them at home and hoping they wouldn't get banged around on Dublin Bus. Despite being a first attempt and with questionable piping skills the cakes went down a bomb. My niece and nephew spied them the minute they came in the door,. although when they did finally get their hands on them they licked off the icing and left the cake. Kids eh, I could've served them up the rubber cakes and they'd not have known the difference!