Red Velvet is perfect for Christmas

Remember P and B who ordered the Red Velvet and Banoffee cupcakes?  Well, B's sister liked P's birthday cake back in the autumn so much that she ordered one for Christmas Day.  It was to be with cream cheese icing, and that needs to be refrigerated, so I couldn't do sugarpaste accents or decorations because they shouldn't be kept in the fridge.  So I went for those fabulous rosette swirls that make a cake look as inviting as a plump pillow (or is it just me who thinks it looks like you could dive right in??), with just a few white snowflakes and a sprinkle of silver glitter...  Merry Christmas gang!

Christmas cupcakes in winter-fun flavours

P and B fancied an end-of-school/Christmas treat, so asked for a dozen cupcakes in Red Velvet and Banoffee (spiced banana cupcakes with toffee buttercream icing).  I had bought some gorgeous icing toppers from Jade at The Cupcake Company, and was only too keen to use them and make decorations to coordinate.  You'll recognise them from the Teacher treats post, as they were done soon after.  

I had just recently visited my local TK Maxx store, here in Dundee, and bought myself some Jem bow cutters.  I've tried in vain to make bows free-hand, based upon watching a selection of YouTube videos, and despaired of ever doing them well.  Then I spotted the small bow cutter set at the store, and didn't think twice.  I was able to follow the instructions, and was really pleased with the result.

These decorations were really fun to make, and coordinated well with the vintage style toppers I planned to use on the Red Velvet cupcakes.  

The banoffee ones I did a little bit differently this time, as I had some toffee sauce leftover. 

They look pretty luscious, right??!  They got great reviews too  :)

Red Velvet hits the spot

B had eaten some of our goodies before, and was after something special for his wife for her upcoming birthday.  She fancied Red Velvet, and I was only too happy to assist.  He hadn't given me much direction with regard to the decoration, except that he wanted it to give her name and age on top.  Fair enough.  I wanted to try the rose swirls all over, because it looks so pretty - like you could just dive into a pillow of cake (mmmmm), and I thought pink for the accents, because red is hard to achieve, and pink would give a hint as to the richness of the interior colour.

He said, on collection, that the decoration was just what she wanted - as she'd seem similar on my Facebook page and loved it - woo hoo!

 

Clandestine Cake Club Dundee number 2

How exciting that we'd managed to organise another meeting of the Clandestine Cake Club in Dundee.  People seemed to have really enjoyed themselves at the first event, and this second one was no different.  Jac and I had discussed possible dates and venues and come up with last night at The Milton Inn, Monifieth.  I had chosen the venue because Team Becca had eaten there on more than one occasion and been impressed with both the quality of food and staff/atmosphere.

The theme we chose was fitting and current - A Right Royal Cake-up; red, white & blue.  Because really, the Queen's Jubilee comes only once in a lifetime.  We contacted everyone on our list, and in the end had 5 bakers and 11 in total.  This was slightly less than last time, but worked out well, as we had more people to eat less cakes.  We all still went home with leftovers and sore tummys though!

I had chosen to make a Red Velvet cake, with cream cheese icing tinged blue.  Thus getting in my required red, white and blue colours.  Or so I thought.  I had lent my Sugarflair Christmas Red paste to my neighbour a day or so ago, and hadn't asked for it back at a certain time, not remembering that I would need it so soon.  So I was all set to make pink velvet and figured I'd just apologise then I found a Dr Oetker Natural Red liquid colour bottle.  Kinda wish I hadn't...  I'm going to show you finished cake first, so you'll feel happy when you look at the colour of the interior at which point you may feel a little sad - I sure did.

Here's how I made the blue part of the swirl - I painted a stripe of blue food paste in the piping bag before I added the cream cheese icing.  So each time the icing passed the blue, it picked up a little bit.

And sadly, here's the interior.  See what I mean?  It's terracotta at best...  :(

So, to cheer you all up after that little disapointment - here are the individual cakes in close-up.  They were all soft, moist and delicious!  Mmmm

Earl Grey cake with a Rhubarb Glaze (and yes, it was very hot that day)

Devil's Food Cake with coconut and berries

White chocolate cake with cranberry & raspberry filling

Raspberry & vanilla cake.  And here we see me cutting into my own cake

Some of the other members trying out the delicious treats

And a lovely smiley group photo...

Buttermilk and blueberries = ??

At Christmas-time, I hadn't been able to find any buttermilk on the supermarket shelves.  No idea why, I can't think particularly what people do with buttermilk specifically at that time of year (all advice gratefully received).  I wanted it to make Red Velvet cupcakes, as I had thought the bright red sponge would look lovely at that time of year - ah well.  So when I found some last week, I snapped it up without thinking.

And the blueberries?  Well, me and the Team are great fruit eaters, especially berries.  We love them!  So when we saw blueberries on special offer at our local Lidl store, we snapped up a few punnets - yummy.  Most were eaten as a snack, but there was one punnet left this morning, plus the buttermilk.  This brought to mind a recipe I had just snipped out of a magazine a few days ago, for, you guessed it - blueberry pancakes.

Now, pancakes and I have a very long and chequered history.  Longer, in fact, than Mr Becca and I - which is Very Long Indeed.  The first time I can recall trying (very unsuccessfully) to make them was for a friend I was trying to impress while on a weekend away in Phillip Island, Victoria.  (By the way, if you ever get the chance, you must see the Fairy Penguin parade on this Island, superb!  Can't wait to take the girls there...).  They were an abysmal failure and I remembered that for a long time.  So Betty Crocker and I became good friends, and so did pancakes and I.

Until today, with the confidence born of the general success of my Becca Bakes exploits, and the blind faith of my loving Mini-2.  We weighed out and mixed up the ingredients

Then carefully inspected all the blueberries before adding them to the mix and whisking gently.

I need to figure out how to get them all even and looking good, as the egg shape wasn't foolproof.

So there was quite a selection of shapes from which to choose your favourite, ha ha.

Still, when placed on a plate and drizzled with pure Canadian Maple Syrup, neither Mini-2

nor myself were complaining.  Mmmm, with morning tea this tasty - who needs lunch?

Especially when Mummy lets you lick the bowl at the end...

Christmas chez Becca

I hadn't baked Red Velvet anything in a while, and was thinking of doing it for our own Christmas lunch (as no-one but Mr Becca actually likes fruit cake, of any variety) so did some cupcakes.  A colleague of Mr Becca's had got in touch earlier in the week, and asked if I could do 3 dozen cupcakes for them.  Sure thing!  We agreed on a mix of vanilla and red velvet (see how I snuck that in there?) and how and when I'd deliver them, then off I went.  I boxed some up and put a photo on the Facebook page, in the hopes that someone may be encouraged to purchase some, then boxed up a dozen for one office and the rest for the other. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas dear readers!

Hummingbird Bakery red velvet cupcakes

We were supposed to play at Felix's house this morning, but his mum got in touch to say she was feeling quite under the weather and could we please take a raincheck.  Of course, we said, then wondered what to do instead.  It was raining outside, and we'd eaten all of the brownies we'd made on Tuesday so thought, what the heck, let's bake!  Immediately the girls said, 'let's choose an apron' (yes, we have 4 child-sized and 2 adult-sized from which to choose) and I reminded them that handwashing was a necessity too.  Jobs done, it was on to the chair to watch the Kenwood Premier Chef at work.  Amidst much shoving and wriggling, we got the 2 mixes done and combined and added in all the other ingredients.  Unfortunately though, the girls got bored with all the fiddly bits necessary and wandered off (after removing their aprons and washing their hands again).  Not surprisingly, they returned as I had just finished doling out the mix into the cupcakes cases.  I have been led to believe that a sous-chef has an area of expertise, whereas a commis chef is more of a general helper.  My two are becoming experts at bowl and utensil licking...

They both get a look-in to start with

 The elder moves aside to let the younger swirl her spatula for more

Then steps up again to swirl her spoon about to catch the last bits

Here's what came out of the oven after 18 minutes (I did them in cupcake rather than muffin cases, because they were just for us so didn't need to be big). 

Then they were iced once cool.  This was the first time I'd tried the Hummingbird's cream cheese icing recipe, and it didn't work for me.  There didn't seem to be enough butter into which all the icing sugar could dissolve.  So instead of waiting until it worked, I added in the cream cheese and kept my fingers crossed.  That did go into the correct texture after a moment or two - phew!  My sous-chefs had fully retired by this stage, but came back in the kitchen at the end, to marvel over the finished product, and when more bowl-licking was required, ha ha



Lemon Drizzle and Red Velvet

Thanks to a new item (Flora Cuisine, a sort of liquid butter but with 45% less sat fat) and an offer at one of the supermarkets, I made this Lemon Drizzle Cake.  The recipe was in the supermarket's magazine, next to a full-page ad for the product and it was easy and tasted great!  The whole team loved it, and it could even have done with more lemon and not been too tart.  There's also a recipe for Carrot Cake using the new butter, so I'll try that soon.

I've been busy baking, but not busy blogging so you get two cakes for the price of one in this post!  This is, rather obviously, a double decker Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese icing.  I'd previously done it as cupcakes and really liked it, but felt it didn't taste of chocolate at all.  So this time I exchanged some of the flour for extra cocoa and it's better.  Smells fab, lovely and light texture and there's a touch of vinegar in the icing (seriously) to take the edge off the sweetness - yum!  It was a birthday gift to my friend Paula, and she and her kids (plus our Team) all cleaned their plates without any prompting.