Spot the dots!

I have been gone for a loooooong time fellow bloggers. Well the cupcakes never stopped, which is seriously good, if you ask me! Life has been hectic, up’s. down’s and everything in between, new job, new house, new everything…but I returned with these pretty little ones.

These spot the dots are just fabulous red velvetines,with a lekker squashy marshmallow inside. The frosting was flavoured, yellow – lemon, pink – cherry and purple – bubblegum. Mmmmm I made these for a friends sisters little girl. She celebrated her first year on earth, with a big smile and delicious cupcakes in her hand! There was a gigantic cupcake for little Izzy and many small ones for the other youngsters to enjoy!

Enjoy the pics, and remember life to short, lick the bowl!

Bright-eyed & busy-tailed!

Oh how I love colours. The rainbow is close to my heart. I could full my life with colours all day long. So you can imagine how excited I was, when a colourful kitchen tea came along and asked for ice cream cone cupcakes in bright, bold and beautiful colours, The order of the day, green, blue, purple and pink!

Then I thought, OMG, how am I gonna pull this off? These colours are extremely bright, bold and beautiful. So I got the baking book out, made some baking sums, bought some covering paper and beautiful flowing ribbons. All in all separating the colours into pairs of blue & pink and green & purple, worked perfectly. These were such a delight. Stuffed with mini coloured marshmallows in the middle, these were a real hit.

Ice cream cupcake hearts! Feel like a kid again...

Valentines day has come and gone. February the month filled with love, gifts and cupcakes has  always been my favourite. This year I thought to myself, why not try something different. So I trolled the isles and the baking shop, looking for ideas, the world wide web also lent some inspiration, naturally. Now, cupcakes is, and always will be the number one in my life, but there is another love in my life, ice cream. Be it 3 o’clock in the morning, temperatures below freezing, soaring heats and sandy beach filled days, ice cream it is.

The cogs starting turning, the batter got stirred, the hearts made, the sprinkles sprinkled. And tada, these little beauties appeared.t Ice cream cupcakes! Now they are not made outa of ice cream, I still need to figure that one out? But a delightful red velvet cupcake, baked in colourful cones, 100’s and 1000’s sprinkled like a kid and beautiful little hearts, made these cupcakes the cherry on top.

The most daunting thing was to bake this cupcake in a cone. I was very nervous, never attempting this feat  before. Reading endless other blogs on: how to make them stand while baking? how much to fill them? How long to bake them? And the last, most daunting question, transporting them. But all in all, they took about 5-10 min extra on my normal red velvet cupcake recipe, the stood fine in the oven and filling them about ¾ of the cone was perfect! The only problematic thing, transporting. So the problem was solved by just taking an old shoe box, tip it over, cover it with beautiful paper and then cut holes at the bottom, to place you beautiful cupcakes in!

So bakers, be brave, love your kitchen and most of all, keep being creative. 

LIFE IS CUPCAKES!

Champagne celebrations!

It’s been a while cupcake lovers! Things have been hectically busy, with Christmas looming around the corner...eeek! So much planning to do, so little time. And not to speak of all the red velvet I have been making. Please can this fad pass, I have red velvet coming outa my ears!

Well I have been dying to make champagne cupcakes for ions and finally got the opportunity to try. I found a lovely recipe and all I can say these are indeed scrumptious, bubbly filled cupcakes that are worth a try. I opted for white and pink champagne, going into a strawberry filled cupcake and a chocolate stuffed vanilla cupcake. The recipe calls for lots’ champagne so get your bottles ready, and I found it said you will have one glass left after all the cooking is done...mmm I had a few more, hiccup! I tried to make a strawberry chip for the top of my one cupcake, but it takes 3 hours in the oven to dry ;-(. And I had a lot of champagne and was feeling incredibly sleepy twelve o'clock at night. So mine was slightly floppy and very sticky, but still nice ;-)

Remember to always borrow a bit here, create a new cupcake and love what you do! Recipes to follow soon!

Marshmallow mumbles

Work work work has been so busy, so blogging has been left behind :-( but I'm back again and with these lovely little babies…so appropriate for a baby shower. A dear friend contacted me asked she wanted chocolate and pink, and whala, marshmallow mumbles appeared. These delectable treat is one of my trusted chocolate cupcakes recipes, stuffed in the middle with a soft and squishy marshmallow, and topped it off with lovely marshmallow flavoured meringue icing. I added a lovely pink daisy and a few pink crystals…yes it is for a beautiful little baby girl!

I made a nice pink icing as well a lighter pink icing, I actually ate a lot of icing…mmm meringue is my favourite icing in the world. 

Kid cupcakes #1

One of my friends gave me the opportunity to make some interesting kiddy cupcakes for her son. He was turning six. I was so excited, never have I even attempted kiddy cupcakes, so I put my creative 6 year old cap on and away I went into the kitchen.

And here is the end result, beautiful piggy’s and froggies. I had so much fun, playing with different sweets and biscuits. I just made a plain chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, with yummy frosting on top and all the extra little goodies. And oh don’t forget the all important glitter J

All I can say is again have some fun, let your imagination run wild and get back into that sandpit, on those monkey bars and never forget that there is a 6 year old in all of us.