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

Occasion: Athina’s birthday

Recipe: custard velvet cupcakes with custardy cream cheese icing

Teeny is as obsessed with owls as I am with cats so when I discovered this vintage wise owl card on etsy I knew it would be perfect for her!

Occasion: Erin Tremewen’s high tea baby shower

Recipe: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Decoration: coloured icing, edible glitter and white buttons

Erin & Paul welcomed Richmond Bob Tremewen on Christmas Eve

Occasion: first annual Halloween party at Steve & Amy’s

Recipe: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Decoration: shattered candy glass stabbed into a cupcake with red food colouring dripping down

My costume was a zombie going to the races – I even made my own fascinator with a bat hanging off it (which I wore again on Melbourne cup day)

Occasion: Emma BrenBren’s B’day

Recipe: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Genna from work has a friend that absolutely LOVES pirates and asked me to make her some cupcakes for her birthday – fun!

She let me choose the flavour so I used my amended red velvet recipe again (with the cocoa swapped with custard powder & no food colouring) with little pirate themed fondant decorations on top.

custard cupcakes

ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 2 x 15ml T custard powder, sifted
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g soft unsalted butter
• 200g castor sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 175ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp cider vinegar or other vinegar

method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C and line a muffin tray with paper cases
2. Combine the flour, custard powder, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl
3. In another bowl, cream the butter, and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Beat in the vanilla extract
5. While still beating, add one spoonful of dried ingredients, then one egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients
6. Beat together the buttermilk and vinegar
7. Fold into creamed mixture
8. Spoon the batter evenly into the cases
9. Bake for 20 mins or until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched
10. Transfer to a wire tack to cool down completely before decorating

buttery cream cheese icing

ingredients

• 400g icing sugar, sifted
• 125g cream cheese
• 125g soft unsalted butter
• ½ tsp caramel essence

Beat all of the above ingredients together until smooth then pipe onto the cupcakes.

decoration

To create pirate themed decorations to go on the top of each cupcake I rolled out coloured fondant and used some miniature shape cutters & sculpturing/modeling tools. Then to glue parts together I used sugar glue.

Around the start of August Meaghan sent me a picture of cupcakes that she wanted for her birthday. They seemed impossible so I was like “pfffft, yeah right!” BUT then I came across the rainbow candy strips that was the key to the decoration and knew I had to suprise her with them.

One of my old workmates, Lauren, also messaged me a few days before I was planning to make Meaghans cupcakes to offer me my first every paid job (exciting!). She was after something bright like my rainbow cupcakes like I’ve done before (like these) for a friends birthday. I showed her what I was planning to make Meaghan and she was super keen on them too. The timing worked out to be perfect that I could make Meaghan & Lauren’s cupcakes at the same time.

Because I was making two batches with the same decoration – I decided to make two different flavours. I made chocolate cupcakes because everybody loves chocolate and I figured custard powder has the same consistency as cocoa powder so I made custard cupcakes too. I was a bit nervous about how they would turn out but it REALLY worked! They tasted caramelly – nom!!

chocolate cupcakes

ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 2 x 15ml T cocoa powder, sifted
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g soft unsalted butter
• 200g castor sugar
• 2 tsp red food colouring
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 175ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp cider vinegar or other vinegar

method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C and line two muffin trays with paper cases
2. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl
3. In another bowl, cream the butter, and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Beat in the food colouring and vanilla extract
5. While still beating, add one spoonful of dried ingredients, then one egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients
6. Beat together the buttermilk and vinegar
7. Fold into creamed mixture
8. Spoon the batter evenly into the cases
9. Bake for 20 mins or until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched
10. Transfer to a wire tack to cool down completely before decorating

custard cupcakes

The same as above but swap cocoa powder with custard powder, and red food colouring with yellow.

blue buttery cream cheese icing

ingredients

• 400g icing sugar, sifted
• 125g cream cheese
• 125g soft unsalted butter
• 1 tsp blue food colouring
• 1 tsp cider vinegar or lemon juice

Beat all of the above ingredients together until smooth then spread over the cupcakes.

decoration

Pipe on white clouds (200g icing sugar & 80g cream cheese) on each side of the cupcake in zigzags. Leave for a few mins to set a little, then push strips of rainbow candy into the clouds.



For Briar’s birthday I wanted to make her something bright and vibrant – so rainbow cupcakes seemed like the perfect idea! I’ve seen this style of icing before in my google image searches for cupcake decoration ideas so now was the best excuse to try it out.

I made my standard vanilla cupcake recipe and dyed the mixiture and icing so that when you took a bite it was coloured pink-purple-blue-green-yellow!

cupcakes

Ingredients

• 190g butter, softened
• 2 T vanilla essence
• 1 C caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 ½ C plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• ½ C milk

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. Divide mixture into thirds and colour as desired
8. Spoon mixture evenly into the prepared mini cupcake pan that has been lined with paper cases
9. When spooing the mixture in, evenly place in the colours as desired then gently swurl with a toothpick so the mixture marbles when baked
10. Bake for 15 mins or until cakes spring back when lightly touched
11. Transfer to a wire tack to cool down before decorating

butter icing

Ingredients

• 100gbutter
• 2 T vanilla essence
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 T hot water
• ½ tsp food colouring
• 2 C icing sugar, sifted

Beat all of the above ingredients together until smooth. Divide into thirds and colour each batch as desired, this website details how to get the different colours to blend when you pipe the icing on the top

http://www.bigredkitchen.com/2009/05/rainbow-cupcakes.html

It was actually REALLY easy to do! All you have to do is spoon different colours into the piping bag and it just mixes itself!

I sprinkled yellow and green edible glitter on the top when done just to give them a bit more pazaaz!

They were delicious!

For Michael’s (Steve’s Brothers) birthday I decided to make a cake around something he loves – dinosaurs! I didn’t want to make a shaped cake but instead little dinosaurs like the ones that I found on http://www.abakedcreation.com/2009/06/dinosaur-birthday-cupcakes.html.

To make these I used a packed of white icing / fondant from the supermarket. Broke it up into batches, then dyed them different colours for each type of dinosaur.

This was my first time making fondant models. I found that once I kneaded in the colours in it had softened way too much from the heat of my hands so I popped them back in the freezer for a few mins so they could harden up so they were more clay like to play with.

Here’s the t-rex…

Here’s the spikey dinosaur…

here’s the spotty dinosaur…

& here they all are…

With the left over fondant I made some dinosaur eggs that also worked as candle holders – cute!

On top of making something that looks real cool, I still wanted to make something that tasted yum so I made the same cake I made for his dad last year – a Lemon Sour Cream Cake from the Edmond’s cook book. I’ve made this a few times now and I knew I wanted it to be bigger so I doubled the following recipe.

lemon sour cream cake

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 2 tsp grated lemon rind
• 1 C sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 C plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ C sour cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Cream butter, lemon rind, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy
3. Sift flour and baking powder together
4. Fold sifted mixture into egg mixture alternatively with sour cream, mixing until smooth
5. Spoon mixture evenly into a greased and lined 20cm round cake tin
6. Bake for 45 mins, or until the cake springs back when lightly touched
7. Leave in tin for 5-10 mins then transfer to a wire tack to cool down before decorating

As I doubled the recipe I cooked the cake longer, it took approx. 1 hour and checked on it every 5 mins till ready. I think next time I’ll cook each batch separately and do this as a double layer cake as it wasn’t as light as it usually turns out – but in saying that it was still SO delicious.

If you ever want to use this recipe, instead of icing it, it’s really nice just squeeze some lemon juice over the top while it’s still warm. Then once cooled just sprinkle over a light dusting of icing sugar, mmmmmmm!!!! BUT for this time, I iced it with a lemon butter icing.

lemon butter icing

Ingredients

• 100g butter
• 2 T lemon juice
• 1 ½ C icing sugar
• 2 T water

1. Cream butter and lemon juice
2. Add icing sugar and water and beat until you get the consistency that you desire

I dyed the lemon butter icing green so it was like ‘grass’ that the dinosaurs were walking around on. Before placing the dinosaurs on the cake i brushed them with edible glitter (it’s called rainbow dust) just to give them an extra touch – and because I just ordered a pack of the edible glitter and i REALLY wanted to use it.

So here it is, my (well Michael’s) dinosaur cake!! Rar!

I popped the candels by the ’28′ when it came time to serve…

Maree came down from Sydney and we caught up with her to celebrate her birthday at Madame Brussels (p.s. those jugs of espresso martini’s will keep you awake ALL night – seriously, I couldn’t sleep till 4am!!).

Athina and I decided to give her mini cupcakes so I went around to her house during the day – packed with my piping sets and sprinkles!! And Briar helped us bake and decorate too.

The great thing that I have found with having this website is that I have my recipes on hand wherever I go. We used the basic cupcake recipe from the Edmond’s cookbook that I used when I baked with my nephew’s.

mini 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

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 the prepared mini cupcake pan that has been lined with paper cases
8. Bake for 8 mins or until cakes spring back when lightly touched (note: bake for 15 mins for standard cupcakes)
9. Transfer to a wire tack to cool down before decorating

While we were baking we decided to make them EXTRA vanillery (is that a word?.. is now) so we used more like a tablespoon (if not more) of vanilla essence.

butter icing

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. Like the cupcake batter, we decided to put a good splash more of the vanilla essence into the icing too. I was a little nervous that they were going too much with all the vanilla we put in - but it worked and they tasted SO good.

Because we used pink and yellow mini cupcake paper cases, we dyed the icing pink and yellow too. We swirled the icing on top and sprinkled silver balls over the top (I think more bounced off and went all over the floor haha).

We popped them in a gift box and ta da! Mini vanilla cupcakes

xx

Chris’s birthday gave me a great excuse to make some creative cupcakes. I looked up heaps of images for ideas and sent them through to Athina (his wife who I made the owl cake pops for). She picked my first choice – Jack Skellington cupcakes which I was very excited about because (a) they looked AWESOME and (b) they needed fondant icing which I hadn’t used before.

The night before Chris’s birthday Athina and Briar came around. It was a very girly night of baking and watching the royal wedding (lame kiss by the way!).

We made batch of my double chocolate cupcakes. Athina had a genius idea of putting pieces of chocolate caramel in the middle from a cupcake that she had earlier in the week that had a caramel easter egg inside it,  YUM!

double chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 ½ C self-raising flour, sifted
• 3/4 C dark choc chips
• ½ C cocoa powder
• 3/4 C caster sugar
• 3/4 C milk
• 125g butter, melted, cooled
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 1 block Cadbury caramelo chocolate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a muffin pan with paper cases
2. Combine flour, cocoa powder, choc chips and caster sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the centre
3. Add milk, butter, eggs and vanilla essence to flour mixture
4. Using a large metal spoon, stir gently to combine
5. Half fill each muffin case with mixture into the prepared muffin pan
6. Place two pieces of caramelo chocolate in the centre of each muffin case
7. Spoon remaining mixture into prepared muffin pan, ensuring to cover each piece of chocolate
8. Bake for 15 minutes
9. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool

decoration

Once the cupcakes cooled, we melted fondant on a double boiler (I used about half a packed / 1 cup). To assist in obtaining a smooth fondant that we could dip the cupcakes into I added some boiling water.

When at reached the desired consistency, dip the top of the now cooled cupcake into the fondant. Let the excess fondant drip off before turning back upright and placing onto the tray. We required two coats of fondant so once the first layer set, we dipped the cupcakes again.

See how smooth the fontant turned out – the cucpcakes acutally had a few cracks after baking but you couldn’t tell after the fondant went on.

Leave the fontant to set before painting on the Jack faces. We waited for about an hour. But next time I will leave these overnight and do the painting the following day – to avoid bleeding.

We googled images of different Jack faces. To paint we used black food colouring and a very fine paint brush. I did the first three or four until Athina and Briar were ready to give it a go (it was a bit nerve-wracking reaching this point and possibly stuffing it up!!).

They turned out amazing and Chris loved them (who wouldn’t??)