Easter Cupcakes

Luckily for me, I've been off work this week so I've had time to relax and do things I love that I may not have time to do normally.  This isn't at all cake related (and I like to gush about things I love in general) but I have watched four cycles of America's Next Top Model and loved it.  It always raises my spirits and I like the process of witnessing the models improve and blossom. It's interesting to watch if you have a love of fashion photography as you see how to move/place your body and play with the light to achieve the best results.  I do have the biggest girl crush on Tyra Banks though, she's inspirational and absolutely stunning and I think it's important to have positive role models.

Anyway, back to cake... ! I've had time to really sit down and play with the cake toys I've accumulated and found it very therapeutic.  I have OCD (obsessive cupcake disorder!) so I typically buy a lot of cake tools, some of which will take a lot of practise to master, but I like to aim high! My confidence has grown since starting the cake decorating and sugar craft course, so I dip my toe in the water that bit more as it grows. America's Next Top Model and Bruce Springsteen's new album Wrecking Ball have been my soundtrack this week whilst baking and creating my Easter cupcakes.  I think it's made me more creative!  I ended up making three different designs.

Design 1:

The rabbit family

I think these are incredibly sweet and capture the essence of how I characterise Easter - spring time, flowers, Easter bunnies, family.

I embossed the letters with the typewriter effect set from Pretty Witty Cakes.

Design 2:

 Chocolate nests

 The humble Shredded Wheat nest! - a staple to all Easter baking.  

Nestled on top of a french swirl achieved by the Wilton 8B nozzle

 Design 3:

Easter egg hunt

 I adore the idea of an Easter egg hunt out in the country and the eternal child in me would love to take part in one - I tried to embody this by creating a garden, with a mystical toadstool, daisies and the beautifully domineering petunias.

Miss Cakeholic branches out into B2B and charity

It’s been a very busy few weeks for me recently and only had chance to write about it now (Mental note: New Year's Resolution – blog more).

Luckily all my Christmas shopping is all done, so I can really kick back, enjoy the festivities and bake. Having said that, I’m still making frantic visits to Meadowhall... I must be mental! Most of my shopping was done in November... It’s all about spreading the costs – you know it makes sense!

So, at the end of November I had an order for 84 cupcakes for a corporate event for I Am Learning, based in Doncaster. I Am Learning is a games based revision aid for schools and home learning. They took my cupcakes to the event and used them as a ‘pull’ (or sugary bribe?) to the stand for teachers to buy the product and drum up interest.

From tweets, it sounded like my cupcakes pulled in an audience. People were actually tweeting about how gorgeous they were and to get over to the I Am Learning stand for one! How cool is that? Here’s the tweet that made my day:

Visit the @I_AM_LEARNING stand to get these awesome cupcakes #nc11

So anyway, the subject of charity. My friend asked me if I would be kind enough to donate a batch of cupcakes for the Mencap and Gateway’s Christmas raffle. I happily obliged. I made a batch of Raspberry Fluff and White Chocolate. Everyone loved the look of them as they’re bright pink (what's not to love about pink?) and the guys were grateful of the donation. I would definitely like to do more donations for charity. So if anyone has a charity event they’d like some delicious home baked cupcakes for, I’m happy to be contacted.

ooooOOOOooooOO it's Halloween!

On Halloween, all I want to do is bake, eat yummy food and watch horror movies.
The last thing I wanted to do was stress over a spooky outfit and where to go clubbing. I think I must be growing up!

Halloween in the early 90’s was a great time… it all seems so different now. Children have elaborate outfits and high expectations. My outfits consisted of an oversized coat, a scary 99p mask from the corner shop and if I was lucky, a bit of change and a chocolate bar! Oh so humble.

I’ve had an amazing day today. I had my stall at work and sold around 100 cupcakes in two hours. I was so flattered that these people wanted to spend their hard earned cash on my cupcakes. The feedback I was received was incredible and I can’t wait for my next event at Christmas.

Here are a few pictures

I baked Toffee Apple, Jurassic Parkin, Blood Red Velvet, The Malt Teaser, Chocolate Orange and Coffee Caramel.

Chocolate Orange and The Malt Teaser were the fastest sellers again and I'll definitely be baking large quanties of these for the Christmas event.

Find me on Facebook

I am now available on Facebook!

Just search Miss Cakeaholic and 'like' me for updates.

Happy bank holiday fellow cakeaholics!

Presenting the Tortaccino cupcake

Coffee isn’t my favourite hot beverage; I prefer Chai or Lady Grey. But when caramel meets coffee, then that’s one hell of a party! I absolutely love Frappuccinos as the flavours work exquisitely, especially if you’re like me who loves sweet things. God bless Starbucks for allowing me to experience the greatness.

So, I love coffee flavoured cake. I love Frappuccinos. So I decided to amalgamate coffee and caramel in my cupcakes.

I piped a rose swirl, rather than a classic swirl as it’s more the Tortaccino’s style!

A decadent coffee sponge, sticky caramel centre, topped with coffee buttercream and a segment of Cadbury’s Caramel.

I love Mr Hershey

I don’t know how anyone else feels about this, but the most amazing flavour is peanut butter and chocolate. I discovered this taste sensation when I went on holiday to Vancouver in 2005. I’ve been hooked ever since. I have no idea why it works so well, but it does – it’s what I like to call ‘a sheer stroke of genius’. It’s even amazing on crumpets - slap on a bit of peanut butter and chocolate spread and let it melt into the toasty crumpet. It’s my favourite Sunday treat. Anyway enough salivating, back on topic!

So in light of the long term relationship I’ve been in with peanut butter and chocolate, I baked the ultimate tribute.

Chocolate sponge with a peanut butter and chocolate centre, topped with chocolate buttercream and chocolate peanuts.

Fallen in lust with lustre spray

About a month ago, my relationship with cupcakes stepped up a level... and I won't look back. I discovered the epitome of cupcake decoration: lustre spray. It's the equivalent of make up for cupcakes... maybe a lipgloss or Dior shimmer powder. It transforms ordinary looking cupcakes into classy, multi dimensional, and versatile high fashion cupcakes. It's literally a subtly coloured spray (which smells and tastes of vanilla which is nice) with shimmer in it. Not glitter because that's misleading.... but shimmer. For the ladies reading this, I am sure you'll know what I mean by shimmer if you're fond of make up.

I have lustre sprays in pearl, silver and bronze. I've used the bronze spray on my chocolate orange cupcakes so far and intend to use on my Cake-a-cola flavour as well. The pearl has a lovely pink tint to it and used them on vanilla and strawberry, Amaretto and coke, Chai tea and cinnamon. Silver is incredible to just give them that bit of oomph to take them from ordinary to awesome easily.

I would say, like most things with cupcake decoration, it has to be appropriate to what flavours you've made and what image you want to portray with them. I wouldn't use my lustre spray on the more fun flavours I make, for example Nutella and banana.

I will definitely purchase more colours (by more, I mean ALL other colours I don't have!) Let's face it, I am well and truly in lust.


Chocolate orange

Almond and coke

Strawberry and vanilla

Chai tea and cinnamon