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)

Princess Peach

'Hey' I texted my sister on Monday. 'Do you want me to bake the kids birthday cakes? Let me know!'
I didn't catch the reply until Monday evening.

'Yeah, that would be great, C wants a princess cake, I'm having a tea party for her on Wednesday'

!!!!!!

Which left me one day to bake and design an appropriately pink and pretty princess cake. yoiks!
Tuesday morning found me up an early down at the top of Grafton st in the cake shops getting pink icing, pink food colouring and basically any other pink thing I could find. I'd lain in bed that morning doing google image searches for 'pink princess' and I had decided on either Princess Aurora or Princess Peach. It would depend on how skillful I was with a tracing wheel really.

The cake baking part of the process didn't go so well, the first cake was pure dough when it cooled. The second cake worked out and the third cake (supposed to be the next layer) fell to pieces when I took it out of the pan while it was still too warm. doh! AT this point I just said fuck it, and cut the one cake I had in half to make a sandwich. It was only a small tea party for family so I didn't need a full 9 inch square.

To fill up the space on the cake board I cut out some extra daisies, and a couple of butterflies and embossed the letters of my nieces name in pink stars. As you can see I went with Princess Peach - although her lips are black as I forgot to get pink edible marker and I didn't trust my free hand painting skills.

The niece was thrilled with the cake, luckily 6 year olds are easily impressed. I didn't get any shots of the cake when it was cut, but yes of COURSE the cake was pink - the only part of the cake that wasn't pink was the buttercream in the sandwich.

Next week I have to start the prep for my nephews birthday cake. HINT: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Marshmallows!

Yes I used an exclamation mark in the title, because if you can't get excited about home-made marshmallows then you have no soul. This is another recipe I spotted on Pinterest which piqued my interest. It is not a beginners recipe as at one point there are 2 bowls and one pan of sugar syrup on the go at the same time but I'm proud to say I managed to get everything to come together properly. The only thing I kinda messed up with the 'marbleizing' technique, which looks pretty on top, but as you can see from the picture below didn't go all the way through the marshmallow. I let everything set overnight and dusted an icing sugar \ cornflour mix over the cut up pieces the next day. These are lovely, very like those 'Princess' mallows you can buy, but fluffier. This is definitely a recipe I'll try again, but next time I'll do a better job on the marbleizing.

Christmas Cards 2011

Just a quick one today - these were my Christmas cards for this year. Everything seems to have started a bit late this year as regards getting ready for Christmas, so I threw these together out of the bits and pieces I had in my crafty boxes.

Lemon Bites

Where do I start with these things? They should be easier than candy because there isn't any special temperatures or fiddly syrups that can burn. However, whether I was just doing too much I don't know, but I managed to miss the part of the recipe that said to grease a 9x9 pan and instead I threw everything into a round pizza pan. This resulted in the 'lemon bars' (because that is what they were supposed to be) cooking in half the time and turning out about half as thick as they should have been. I won't even get started on the blinding pain of lemon juice squirting in my eyes when I was squeezing enough lemons to make up 1 (american) cup of fresh lemon juice.
When the pan came out of the oven I was tempted to throw it all in the bin and try again, but it actually tasted really good, so I dumped a load of icing sugar on top and cut them into little 'bites' for finger food. Next time I'll be sure to use the correct pan size, but at least now I know that if I do mess up these little things are easy to recover and serve up.

cookie dough truffles

I found this recipe a while ago on Pinterest and it appealed to me as it was egg free because I'm always wary of raw eggs in a recipe. This one was dead simple, flour, butter and brown sugar creamed into a thickish batter \ dough. I threw in a couple handfuls of chocolate chips to give the 'batter' some texture and then chill it for a while (I left if overnight in the fridge) shape it into balls and chill it again. The recipe said for an hour or so, but I wasn't in a rush so I left it overnight again before dipping it in chocolate.

The one thing I noted and worried a bit about when making these was they tasted of raw flour when first mixed, but the ingredients combined well once they'd been left for a while.I made about 60 dough balls from the recipe and dipped 40 or so. There are still 20 in my fridge that need to be done, but as I'm still new to working with chocolate I'll do those a couple of days before Christmas so the chocolate doesn't bloom.
I served up the truffles at a small party I had last week and they were so good my sister took a bag home. Now I just need to perfect the whole dip and drain thing with the chocolate.

Apple Cider Caramels

This was my first attempt at making caramels and I messed it up. The recipe said to keep the sugar syrup on medium high heat, but the candy thermometer wasn't going anywhere near the required temperature. After some thought a bit of googling (all while the syrup was bubbling away) I crossed my fingers and whacked the heat up to high. Finally the thermometer started to creep up to the proper temperature, but it took a good 30 minutes of boiling to get there.

Once the syrup had cooled enough to hold its shape I took a knife to it and started cutting it into bars which made it MUCH easier to cut into squares once it had cooled completly. What makes these caramels a little different from other caramels is the apple cider that was reduced down from 2 cups to 1/3 cup before I even started making the syrup. I'd like to try this with a good cider or apple juice to increase the apple flavour.

Once I got the caramels cut into squares, which actually involved leaning heavily on a knife and waiting for the caramel to break, I wrapped them in wax paper twists. These things are really good but you need to suck them a bit to soften them up - during which time as some friends of mine found out - you won't be able to speak for a few minutes.

Christmas Cards

A couple of years ago around Christmas time I got terribly creative and decided that instead of buying a box of manufactured Christmas cards I would make my own. I'm a half decent photographer and I'd decorated the house up a bit with christmas stuff, so a couple of cute pictures of Christmas gnomes and lights on a card would be much more personal than a packet of cards from Tesco right?

Well it was, but it was also a lot more work. Because I just couldn't get the photo I wanted the way I wanted it, which of course meant spending an evening shooting a string of red Christmas lights in bokeh with various Christmassy type decorations in the foreground. Using my macro lens I got the shots I wanted, nice bokeh with

a cute gnome to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Then it was a matter of going through the photos, editing and printing. I trimmed the edges with the 'fancy' setting on the guillotine and stick them onto the cards.

I think they turned out pretty, but half the people who got them didn't realise they were 'handmade' by me. *sigh*
The following year I didn't bother sending any cards.

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.

Chocolate Robots

Ahh chocolate how I love you. But first to make some fondant. I looked up recipes online and they all seemed pretty simple, water, sugar and corn syrup brought to a rolling boil of about 125 degrees. But when I looked at comments under these 'simple' recipes it seemed to be all doom and gloom. 'I ruined my pot' said one. 'The sugar syrup destroyed my pans' cried another. So when I did it I made sure to follow the recipe to the letter. I also dumped the pot in boiling hot soapy water once I'd poured it onto the metal tray to cool to ensure I didn't 'destroy my pans!'.

As it turned out the fondant was really dead easy. I let the syrup cool on a cookie sheet and then started the slow folding movement that turned the syrup from sticky and clear to stiff bright white. Then I dumped it onto a table with some icing sugar and kneaded it until it was smooth although it

was still hot, so I had to stop every couple of minutes to be sure not to burn my hands. Once I had it shaped I wrapped it in wax paper, stuck it in a ziploc and left it to 'ripen' for a couple of days.

I wasn't sure how long the chocolates would last and as I wanted them for a party on Saturday I made them up on Thursday evening. Using a makeshift bain marie out of my 'does everything' pot and a ceramic bowl I melted half the chocolate and half filled the molds. Then I melted a lump of fondant down adding some lemon juice for flavour and stirring constantly. The fondant melted down to a smooth cream which I spooned into the molds and then filled the rest of the way with the chocolate.

I've read a lot about tempering chocolate and it all says that you shouldn't refrigerate it to save it from 'blooming' but I wasn't thinking straight (high on chocolate fumes) and I only had one mold and enough chocolate for 2 dozen so I put it into the fridge for about 20 minutes before I could make the next batch. The chocolates turned out lovely and shiny, thanks be to the silicone molds which are dead handy for popping out chocolates. The lemon juice took a bit of the sweetness from the fondant which meant they weren't too cloying and the robots went down a treat at the party.

HandmAidCraft Day

Back in September I helped out at HandmAidCraft day - well ok I say 'helped out' but in reality I wandered around with my camera taking pictures of all the really creative stuff and people that showed up on the day. Because seriously there are some very talented knitters and crafters in Dublin these days. Anyone who knows me knows my wojus attempts at crocheting and knitting, I'm really good at making long, long, long scarves, so ye know.

But the crafters of Dublin were out in force that Saturday and showing off their talents and produce. It was a really brilliant day with lots of classes, crafts, cakes (of course!) and cups and cups of coffee. At the end of it all over 5,000 euro had been raised for Oxfam Ireland to go towards helping the victims of the famine in Somalia.

All of the photos from the day can be found over at the main HandmAid Craft website.

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!