Mini cupcakes for little princesses...

Now that I work whilst The Team are at school/work, it's a bit trickier to organise my time for baking and other fun stuff.  And for more dull stuff, like making packed lunches and getting the kids to after-school activities on time and the like, sigh...  I guess this part is a work in progress, as I hone my time management skills in a new way - that's a positive way to look at things  :)

So for the big batch of mini cupcakes I needed for tomorrow lunchtime, I started on the sugarpaste decorations on Thursday night.  I had spoken to the parents of most the young girls in question, to find out their favourite colours as I had a plan to name and decorate cupcakes in matching colours.  

 

And you can see that The Team got their names in there too, in their favourite colours of green (Mini-1) and pink (Mini-2).  And no, before you ask, I don't have those tiny cute stamps in numbers, despite trying to locate some.

I got the cupcakes baked tonight, and am pleased that nearly all of them turned out well.  But oh boy, I made way too many decorations!  I had bought some cute Disney Princess and Disney Monsters University topper discs too, and didn't have enough cupcakes to use them all - oops.  I'm sure the girls will all be a) super excited to see so many mini cupcakes just for them, and b) to see their names in their favourite colours on said cupcakes.  Roll on tomorrow!

The girls range in age from 2 to 9, they'll all like Disney Princesses, right?

 I mean, who doesn't?

Aww, I just think they're so cute!  Hope the girls do too...

Parent council meetings aren't so boring now

I've been lucky enough to have customers order treats for all sorts of occasions (weddings not included).  Tupperware type parties, baby showers, get well soon gifts, birthdays, Holy Communions, gifts for Teachers, Valentine's Day, Fathers Day, Mothers Day and so on.  But not as the highlight of a primary school Parent Council Meeting before.  

Until today, that is.  

These few dozen mini cupcakes and a sweet traybake made the meeting loads more fun, or so I was led to believe! 

Honey, I shrunk the cake club

I belong to a cake club.  You probably aren't surprised, and probably also already know that.  It's similar to a book-club, in that you all get together to chat, but you bake a cake to a set theme.  Then you eat all the cakes and talk about them.  Seriously.

We decided to go off-piste this meeting (I love the sound of that phrase.  It conjures up breaking-of-rules, and being a dare-devil.  I never went off-piste when skiing, as it was usually the black runs that had the off-piste areas, and they were challenging enough as it was.  Although actually, I think Dad and I did go off-piste once when I was in my later teens.  It was at Mt Hotham, and the run was the Blue Ribbon and I'm sure if you skied directly under the chairlift that was technically off-piste.  I tell you, those moguls were huge!  Ahhh, great times) and go mini.  Petit Fours was the theme, and go small but many was the instruction.

I ummmed and ahhhed over what exactly to bake/bring this time.  Cupcakes are smaller than cake, but I couldn't decide which flavour.  Cookies are smaller than cake, but again I had trouble deciding which ones.  Then I had a brainwave, whilst reading an email.  Brownies bites.  With peanut butter!  A la the late, great Betty Crocker.  And a star was born. 

Other bakers brought mini cupcakes, whoopie pies, chocolate dipped fondants, macarons, baked donuts and so on.  Mmmm, mmmm...

And H came in later with some super-tasty mini eclairs, in chocolate or caramel

We had a few new members this meeting, and here we can see some of them licking their fingers in delight, and giggling at whatever funny thing one another may have said.  Oooh, cake club - another winning evening!

Hearts bursting and falling for a birthday

I used to work in a well-known fast-food outlet before having the kids.  A good few years before having them, actually, but you know what I mean.  I really quite enjoyed it, it was very fast-paced, and challenging at times, but such a good laugh when a shift went well.  I worked with lots and lots of people during my years there - on a busy weekend shift we could have nearly 40 staff on in a day!  Anyway, one such person was A, and his wife S worked there too.  They got in touch recently to say they'd been watching my page and cake progress and wished to order a cake for their eldest's 18th birthday.  What??!!  Wasn't she just the same age as my Mini-1?!  Gosh, aren't children just the best (and worst) thing for proving how quickly time flies?

Anyway, their daughter had seen a cake of mine and wished to make some changes to it.  I duly met with A and S, in my first proper cake consultation - that was exciting!  Usually it's a case of back and forth with emails or texts, so a face-to-face meeting was fun.  Glad it was old colleagues for my first time though...

They hadn't planned a party for her to start with, but decided to go for it after all.  So we decided upon a cake as a centrepiece and a few dozen matching mini cupcakes for nibbles.  

The birthday girl chose to have some hearts bursting out of the top of the cake, and other cascading from the burst, across the cake to the bottom edge.

Her name and age were embossed onto the cake base, and highlighted in glitter piping icing

 The request for the cupcake decorations were J's, 18's, hearts and flowers.

A was due to collect the cake at midday, but I got a panicked call a half hour later to say that his lift hadn't arrived and he was about to jump on a bus.  A bus?!  He'd need at least 2 to get across to me, as our buses tend to go into the city centre and back out again like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, rather than across.  And he would have struggled to keep all the boxes flat in carriage.  Luckily I'd had my afternoon appointment cancelled, so was able to deliver the goodies.  And what a lovely surprise it was to receive this card and box of lovely chocolates from them, as a thank you for making the cakes.  Awwww...

Mini cupcake fun at Halloween

I was lucky enough to be given permission to bake again for the girls at school.  Now that they're both at school, there were 2 class parties to cater for and after determining exactly how many mini cupcakes were required I realised that I'd have many leftovers.  What I hadn't figured out was just quite how many leftovers there would be - eek, 7 dozen cupcakes was not the total amount I had expected!!

But I had fun, decorating them with chocolate and vanilla buttercream, some coloured orange (but not flavoured orange, I'd learnt that lesson awhile back.  Kids don't like orange-tasting icing - odd, but true) and a selection of sparkly black and orange lines, white ghosts and black bats.

 The orange with bats and ghosts went to one class, the white with lines to the other...

 The chocolate iced ones went to the school office to be divvied up...

And these last ones plus some white ones with ghosts and bats went to Mr Becca's office.  Bet you there won't even be any crumbs in the containers when I get them back.  Happy Halloween!

Mini cupcakes or a traybake?? Or both...

A lovely lady, let's call her R, and I have been friends since we met with my eldest daughter (and her youngest) at a toddler group years ago.  She's one of those friends whom you don't see all that often, but pick up where you left off when you do get together, and are always happy to catch up or run into one another.

She was one of my first customers, and has recommended me to others.  And this year, her daughter wanted my mini cupcakes and a traybake again for her birthday.  There was a bit of discussion with the older brothers as to precisely which traybake but the brief was simple - white, purple and sparkle.  Ah, music to my ears!! 

The boys agreed on the Mars Bar slice, full to bursting with Rice Bubbles (I know, I know, they're not called that here, but it's the name of my youth) and covered in white chocolate this time.  I forgot to take a photo, but you've seen one before ;)

I'm pleased with the cupcakes though, and both mother and daughter loved them!  Happy 7th Birthday Dea!!

 

 

 

Lots and lots of mini lovelies

I was contacted by a friend of a friend, to make mini cupcakes for her daughter's 21st birthday.  The customer was pleasingly specific about what she wanted, and I was happy to be able to help.  The brief was 25 blue, 25 pink, white icing and white cake but coloured wraps and accents. 

Luckily, I have a supplier of pink and blue mini cupcake cases (how lucky is that?! any other colours and I probably couldn't have helped her) and I have edible food colouring in every colour of the rainbow in order to make the accents out of sugarpaste. 

There was a lot to organise for the party, so the husband came by to collect the cupcakes, and seemed pleased.  And the customer verdict?  Well, the few remaining ones were brought into work this morning and my friend was told 'these are all that are left.  They went down very well'.  Hooray, and Happy 21st Morven!

 

Easter treats for the last day of term

After checking with the class teacher, it was agreed that I'd be allowed to do mini cupcakes for the end of term day at school today.  I would have said end of term party, but they weren't having one this time.  Mini-1 seems to have lost a lot of her classmates (careless, wouldn't you say?) so it wasn't very many I'd have to do.  Which was fab, as I planned to use the remainder of the Strawberry Swirl ones from the batch with the alcoholic icing that I did for Lisa.  Lucky that they didn't have alcohol in the batter, wasn't it?

Anyway, in keeping with the Easter theme of the imminent holidays, I decorated them with matching Strawberry Swirl icing (if you look closely you can see some of the rich jam there amongst the buttercream) and topped them with super-mini chocolate cracknel covered easter eggs.  Totally yummy or what?!

Alcoholic cupcakes? Well, I never

One of the school mums knew I baked cakes, and had perhaps seen some of my work on here or our Facebook page and had a party planned for later on today.  She decided she'd quite like some mini cupcakes for nibbles for afterwards, and fancied them to be alcoholic.  No problem, I said, I'm sure that's easily done.  And quickly proceeded to research it.  Do people flavour the sponge?  Do you need extra alcohol for the flavour not to bake out?  Do you flavour the icing?  Do you need extra icing sugar to counteract the consistency of the icing once the extra liquid is added?  Do certain flavours work better in batter?  Icing?  So much to know...

Then Lisa told me she had some Champagne and some Amaretto and could I use those please?  So, one problem solved, ha ha.  In the end I went with the Amaretto, as it was a slightly more viscous liquid (and the bottle was already opened) and just used it in the icing. 

We thought Strawberry Swirl would be tastier than just Vanilla cupcakes, so here's the finished product...

And here are the non-alcoholic version for the pregnant party-goers and the children, with an Easter theme and chocolate buttercream icing.  Mmm...

Caramel chocolate fudge cake, but cute

I still had some of that tin of Ducle de Leche left over, and it seemed to still taste amazing, so I thought I'd use my new-ish 6" pan and bake me a cake!  Also, we had plans to visit A on Friday morning, and when I had asked if I could bring anything to lunch, she had replied, oh only if you're baking.  Ha ha.  I had really enjoyed the Caramel chocolate fudge one with the caramel choc ganache icing, but figured I'd only need half the recipe for the smaller tin.  That dropped it down to 1 egg from two, so made everything else easier too.  The only problem was, because I didn't have a full tin of caramel, I winged it with the amounts and got a little over-excited when adding to the cake batter.  Suffice it to say, the cake was only just cooked after nearly the full time, and ended up sinking whilst cooling.  (I didn't take a photo at this point, as I was rather embarrassed). 

But I figured I could just hide it with the ganache...  What do you think - can you see the hole??  Under all that delicious, gooey, swirly caramel choc topping with the edible pink glitter?  No?  Great! 

And all that extra caramel in the batter?  Wow, the cake was super-moist and delicious!  And because it was only 6" it was all gone quite quickly.  I posted a pic on our Facebook page and it garnered a lot of pleasing comments, so I took some slices for samples to friends.  Aren't I the best?  ha ha

Christmas at school, Becca style

I felt quite pleased to be asked by Mini-1's school to provide brownies for the adults to nibble with their tea/coffee after the Carol Concert (which was held before the Christmas Fayre).  To be fair, it's a fairly small school so I knew it was an achieveable request, and offered to do 2 trays and cut them into bite-size pieces so they'd be a) manageable and b) go further.  Mini-2 and I arrived after the concert, but just before the fayre started and were thrilled to be greeted by many parents, (some of whom we didn't even know) congratulating us on the delicious brownies!  No idea how they knew I made them, but very pleased nonetheless. 

Then it was the turn of the class party.  I had considered offering to bake mini cupcakes for the class, but knew it wasn't officially sanctioned by the Scottish Government (not conducive to the Healthy Eating in School (or elsewhere, for that matter) Policy) and so the Education Dept didn't allow it.  But then the class teacher shyly asked if I could.  Sure of course, I said, but I couldn't make as few as 16 - could she pass out the rest?  Oh yes, was the quick reply.  And thus it was that I handed in 4 dozen similarly decorated little Christmas beauties.

And I'm pleased to say that these too got great reviews!

Mini pumpkin pies, better late than never

Before I got around to the actual baking and cooking, I had had great plans for things to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.  These mini pumpkin pies were one of the items I planned to make, but after reading (incorrectly, as it turned out) through the recipe, I felt that the dozen it would supply wouldn't be enough so didn't do them.

I had the time a few days later, and started by cooking the pumpkin and so forth.  I rolled out my sheet of room-temperature shortcrust pastry (you didn't think I was going to attempt making my own pastry, did you?  Thanks for the vote of confidence, but not yet) and stamped out as many circles as I could.  After filling them with mix, I couldn't figure out why they were so full and I still had loads of mix left?!

So I read and re-read the recipe, and then discovered that I had bought a 375g packet of pastry, and the recipe required 500g.  Aha, problem solved.  But what to do with the extra mix?  Nah, we couldn't figure that one out either... The pies baked up really well, and tasted very American.  Which is to say, sweet and gently spiced and not at all like we expected - good but different.  So I won't be making these for us again in a hurry, ha ha.

Halloween, Becca Bakes style

Our schools have a Healthy Eating Policy.  Well, all of Scotland does really, and quite rightly so.  I believe that our fair country may be the fattest in Europe, something about which I'm not proud.  I'm an honourary Scot, having lived here for over 15 years now, and am still not a fan of deep-fried Mars Bars (seriously, someone in Glasgow 'invented' them!).

As such, school children aren't allowed to bring in cakes for their class on their birthdays (neither are nursery children) but I'm very lucky to have been given permission by our Headmaster in the past to bake (and take in with Mini-1) mini cupcakes for various class parties.  And so I was allowed again, for the class Halloween party.

Mini-1 chose orange icing with chocolate sprinkles because it was the most Halloween-y thing we possessed.  Oh no, actually we used graphite grey glitter (sold it by being told it was as good as black, but it isn't!  Don't let them fool you, if you want black glitter, buy black glitter, grrr).  And I made enough for her class and teacher - and they were very happy indeed!

See, it's not black enough, is it?  Never mind. 

And here's a random, lovely swirl in white that was done the same day, with a Wilton 2D nozzle rather than my usual Wilton 1M one...

And here's a photo Mini-1 and Mini-2 in costume, ready to go out Trick or Treating.  Mini-2 has her face painted like that because she wore her pumpkin costume to nursery earlier, in case you were wondering.  They had a fabulous evening, just like they remembered from last year.  The matching costumes and a couple of lousy jokes won most people over, and they had quite a haul of sweeties.

Happy 6th birthday Dea

My friend Ros's youngest turns 6 today, and she wanted a lovely treat for her only daughter.  We discussed cupcakes, and came to the conclusion that most kids really only eat the icing, so why pay for/provide cake?  Thus the idea of mini cupcakes was born!  They provide just a smidgen of cake onto which to sit your icing and decoration, hence keeping everyone happy ;)

As Ros has a large family, we decided upon 3 traybakes (Mars Bar Slice, Malteser Slice and Rocky Road) for the adults and older kids to nibble on and 3 dozen mini cupcakes for the party girl and attendees.  The chosen colours were pink and purple and we were to put the number 6 on a dozen, individual initials on another dozen and girly sparkle on the final dozen.  Not a problem I assured her.

Only it kind of was - how was I to co-ordinate my time to get everything as fresh as possible for her Friday morning collection?  I did the traybakes first, as I've done 'scientific testing' on them and know that they remain fresh and great-tasting for up to 6 days when stored in an airtight tin lined with baking paper.  The Mars Bar Slice was first off the starting blocks, and the milk chocolate top layer was dusted with pink glitter and light pink sugar sand.  Next up was Rocky Road's turn, using pink and white mini marshmallows within and a dusting of the two pinks to decorate the dark chocolate top layer.  Finally the Malteser Slice, and its white chocolate top layer was dusted to match.

Just in case you were wondering, this is how I  make a bain marie with which to melt any chocolate I may need to use.  I have tried it both directly in a saucepan and in the microwave and was mild ly inconvenienced on both occasions to learn that you can actually burn chocolate.  Did you know that? 

 The gas is actually on (very low), though it doesn't seem so from the angle of this photo.

Then on to the cupcakes.  I had done the sugarpaste cut-outs prior to last night, so was able to set them out ready and waiting, along with the other items I had thought to use as decorations.  As I'd already done the oddly-enjoyable task of colour separating mini Smarties for Lacey's cake, I used some pink and purple ones on these little cupcakes.  And my beloved glitter - I'm so glad I discovered edible glitter - it's so much fun!  Here they all are laid out to set on the kitchen table...

And here they are in their presentation/delivery box.

And, oh!! Would you look at that - some of the required initials spell out my name!!  (my surname starts with an M too).  How fun is that?

I'm happy to report that Ros was delighted when she came this morning to collect her order.  Happy birthday Dea, hope the party is a huge success!

Cupcakes galore - mini & Cookies & Creme

A local friend, who has been the lucky recipient of many spare cupcakes and cake slices in the past, trusted us enough to bake a couple dozen mini cupcakes for her grandson's 1st birthday.  Her only request was plain sponge and baby blue icing. 

As I have the cute little letter and number cutters, I felt it only right to use them.  And here we have the finished product, with my beloved glitter on the unadorned cakes - silver this time.  She told me the birthday boy grabbed a cupcake as soon as he saw them, and that the rest of them went down quickly too.  Great news, just what we love to hear - happy customers.

Then we had another order for collection tomorrow - two gift-boxes of half dozen Cookies & Creme cupcakes.  The lady chose them because she'd seen the photo of the ones we'd done last week, now that's a first.  She decided to get a box for her hubby's birthday and a box for her staff - what a lovely wife and boss, awww...  Hope they all love them, thanks for thinking of us.

Holy Communion order

I was thrilled to get an order a month or so ago for a girly Holy Communion.  The brief was pink and girly, with both mini cupcakes and a couple of traybakes.  I mentioned that I didn't have any cross cutters but could pipe some crosses on (didn't want to use silver balls after the creamcheese icing situation, just in case) and the mum said just go for it.  So here we have the finished product - cream iced ones with a sparkly pink cross piped on top and pink swirly iced ones with white butterflies, flowers or plain and all dusted with pink glitter.  Both the mum and daughter loved them!!  They also chose a pink glittered Malteser Slice and Rocky Road, which went down a treat I'm sure. 

It was the younger sister's 3rd birthday that day too, so the mum asked for a cupcake with either her name or initial and a number 3 if at all possible.  Here's what I did, a large orange butterfly, letter J and a heart with a sparkly purple piped 3 on it, all dusted in gold glitter - my 3 year old loved it, hope hers did too.