a m y m c c r a c k e n

My job is to put together DVD releases and I had our first release of ‘Ace of Cakes’ to present to the sales team. If you haven’t watched this show – you should, it’s based around ‘Charm City Cakes’ a bakery in Baltimore where they can make any type of cake that you can imagine (and it’s way better than ‘Cake Boss’). I had come up with a really cool package for our first release – that includes a PIPING SET!! (partially because I wanted one). Check it out…

We have monthly meetings to present our product to the sales team – so to get them just as excited as I was, I decided to bake something out of the ordinary to bring out when it was time to present it. I chose to go with the BURGER cupcakes from the ‘Zombie Ate My Cupcake’ book (see my post about Megans Vegan Brains!)

What you need is

• two batches of vanilla cupcakes
• one batch of chocolate cupcakes
• one batch of icing
• fondant
• red, yellow & green food colouring
• toothpicks

vanilla cupcakes

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• ½ C caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 C plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼ C milk
• ½ C sugar syrup
• ⅓ C sesame seeds

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C
2. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
4. Sift flour and baking powder together
5. Fold into creamed mixture
6. Stir in milk
7. Spoon mixture evenly into a greased muffin pan
8. Bake for 15 mins or until cakes spring back when lightly touched
9. Transfer to a wire tack. Brush on sugar syrup and sprinkle on sesame seeds
10. Leave to cool down

chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• ½ C caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• ¾  C plain flour
• ¼ C cocoa powder
• ¼ C choc chips
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼ C milk
• 1 tsp food colouring

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C
2. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
4. Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder together
5. Fold into creamed mixture
6. Stir in milk and choc chips
7. Spoon mixture evenly into a greased muffin pan
8. Bake for 15 mins or until cakes spring back when lightly touched
9. Transfer to a wire tack to cool down

frosting

Ingredients

• 1 T butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• ½ tsp food colouring
• ½ C icing sugar, sifted

Beat all of the above ingredients together until smooth. Divide mixture between two bowls.

 burger elements

• Burger Buns   Cut the vanilla cupcakes in half
• Burger Patties   Cut the tops off the chocolate cupcakes and disregard (it seems a waste to throw them away so I kept mine to snack on!), then slice the base into half
• Sauce   Divide mixture between two bowls. Colour one half with red food colouring and the other with yellow lettuce
• Lettuce   Roughly kneed a few drops of green food colouring into a ball of fondant (approx. 1 cup). Don’t completely kneed the colour through – leave so it’s marbled. Feed coloured fondant through the widest setting of a pasta machine, continue feeding through decreasing one notch at a time till you get to the thinnest setting (or the thickness you desire). Rip the sheet of fondant into ‘lettuce’ pieces

Note: I made my ‘lettuce’ the night before, so the it could hardened before assembly.

assembly

1. Get a base of the vanilla cupcake then place a slice of chocolate cupcake on top
2. Pipe on the yellow, then red icing (zig zag right to the edges so you can see the sauce when completely assembled)
3. Place a burger pattie on top of the sauce
4. Arrange lettuce on top of the pattie
5. Place the vanilla cupcake on top, then hold everything into place by putting a long toothpick through the top

Ta Da!!! Now you have Burger Cupcakes!!

Regan got me the most amazing cupcake book ever for my birthday called ‘A Zombie Ate My Cupcake’

All of the cupakes in this book look incredible so I tried out the BRAINS for Megan’s birthday. Megan’s a vegan so I needed to use a different recipe but the decoration was still the same.

vegan red velvet cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 C soy milk
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 ¼ C flour
• 1 C sugar
• 2 T cocoa powder
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1/3 C canola oil
• 2 T red food colouring
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp chocolate essence

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175°C and line a cupcake tin
2. In a medium size bowl, combine the soy milk and set aside to curdle*
3. In another bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt then set aside
4. Add the oil, food colouring and extracts to the curdled soy milk and whisk well to combine
5. Sift the dry ingredients into the wet and fold to combine, mixing until the large lumps disappear
6. Pour mixture into the prepared pan then bake for 20 mins

 * This is to imitate buttermilk. It is an important step because the vinegar gives the baking soda something that it can react to!
 
 

vegan cream cheese frosting

Ingredients

• ¼ C tofutti cream cheese
• ¼ C margarine, softened
• 2 C icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Red food colouring

Cream together the margarine and cream cheese just until combined. Sift in the icing sugar in ½ cup batches, whipping thoroughly combined after each addition. Add the vanilla and as much red food colouring a needed until you get the desired colour and whip until light and fluffy.

To decorate, pipe the icing onto the cupcake. I did half a side at a time, zig-zagging from the center to the edge of the cupcake (but not too perfect so it could be brain like) then I repeated for a second layer. The ‘Zombie Ate My Cupcake’ book had a recipe for a cherry sauce that could be the brain blood just for some extra gore, I made it and it tasted yum but I didn’t think it looked that great, so instead I just dripped extra bits of food colouring randomly around the brain.

NOM!!

We went out for dinner and they went down a treat for dessert – I’m def keen to make them again!