No 35 - Cake Toppings

101 ways to get pretty organized

No 35 - Keep your favourite cupcake decorations easy to hand and create eye candy for your walls by storing cake decorations in spice jars that can be hung on the wall using a spice rack. I store my decorations in pretty pastel cute ceramic-lidded tiny flip jars from Jamie Oliver. I have hung them on the wall using the line up oak spice rack designed exclusively by London-based designers Morph as a home for Jamie Oliver's tiny Flip jars. It comes with blank card slips so you can write your own labels and tuck them in the metal frame in front of each jar.

Here they are in my baking corner

Have a sweet day!

Peach custard cupcakes

To go in my lined neon pink pretty white broderie anglaise cupcake wrappers that the lovely peeps at Just Bake sent me along with cupcake decorations. I made custard filled cupcakes with sliced peaches on top. I went for a simple cream frosting and decorated them with white chocolate glittery flowers and leaves, glittery white chocolate egg and sprinkled them with white chocolate strands so they would look like nests. I baked all my cupcakes in white foil cupcake cases from Just Bake.



Here's how...

Start by making the custard...

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp Custard powder
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 125ml milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cooking instructions

1. Place the custard powder, sugar, milk and vanilla extract in a small saucepan and blend together
2. Heat on a medium heat, stirring continuously until mixture boils and thickens.
3. Pour into a bowl, cover surface with cling film and leave to cool

Gluten-free Peach & custard cupcakes (makes 12 large cupcakes)

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 110g gluten-free self raising flour
• 90g unsalted butter, softened
• 110g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 30g custard powder
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 large peaches,thinly sliced

Cooking instructions

1. Heat oven to 160C fan assisted
2. Line baking tray with cases
3. In a food mixer, beat the eggs, flour, butter, sugar, vanilla extract, custard powder and milk till mixture lightens to a pale colour
4. Divide half the batter between the cases
5. Top with custard
6. Divide the remaining batter between the cases, so the custard is covered
7. Top with sliced peaches
8. Bake for about 30-35 mins until cakes bounce back when lightly pressed
9. Place on rack to cool

To decorate (for 12 large cupcake sized cakes) Ingredients

• 250ml double cream
• 2 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
• Glittered Chocolate egg disc
• White chocolate strands
• Glittered white chocolate flowers

Instructions

1. Place the cream and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk till light and fluffy
2. Fill piping bag fitted with a star nozzle
3. Pipe a swirl of cream icing on top of the cakes and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles
4. Place glitter eggs disc inside
5. Adorn nest with chocolate flower and leaves

Have a sweet day!

Cadbury's Creme Egg cupcakes

As I was saying yesterday, the lovely peeps at Just Bake sent me some pretty white broderie anglaise cupcake wrappers and cupcake decorations for Easter. So to fit in with my Neon and pastel colour palette I lined them in neon yellow, green and pink paper. I wanted my cupcake flavours to match the colour of the wrappers, to go with the neon yellow lined wrappers I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with a mini Cadbury's creme egg hidden inside. After some research, the best advice I found was to freeze the eggs first so they wouldn't completely melt inside. To match the gooey chocolate cupcakes I went for a cream cheese and marshmallow frosting and decorated them with white chocolate bunnies on a disc of green sparkles. I baked all my cupcakes in white foil cupcake cases from Just Bake.



Here's how...

Gluten-free Cadbury's Creme Egg cupcakes (makes 12 large cupcakes)

Ingredients

• 60g dark chocolate chips
• 160ml water
• 2 large eggs
• 100g gluten-free self raising flour
• 90g unsalted butter, softened
• 220g Brown sugar
• 40g ground almonds
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 12 frozen mini creme eggs

Cooking instructions

1. Heat oven to 150C fan assisted
2. Line baking tray with cases
3. Place water and chopped chocolate in to a small saucepan, stir over a low heat until smooth, set to one side
4. In a food mixer, beat the butter, sugar and eggs till light and fluffy
5. Stir in the sifted flour, cocoa powder, ground almonds and chocolate mixture
6. Divide half the batter between the cases
7. Place one frozen cream egg into the batter filled cases
8. Divide the rest of the batter between the cases, so you cover the eggs
9. Bake for about 25-30 mins until cakes bounce back when lightly pressed
10. Place on rack to cool

To decorate (for 12 large cupcake sized cakes) Ingredients

• 1 jar of marshmallow Fluff, 213g
• 200g cream cheese, room temperature
• White chocolate bunny disc
• White chocolate strands

Instructions

1. Place the marshamallow fluff and cream cheese in a bowl and whisk till light and fluffy
2. Fill piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle
3. Pipe a swirl of icing on top of the cakes and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles
4. Place chocolate bunny disc inside

Have a sweet day!

Key Lime Cupcakes

The lovely peeps at Just Bake sent me some pretty white broderie anglaise cupcake wrappers and cupcake decorations for Easter. So to fit in with my Neon and pastel colour palette I lined them in neon yellow, green and pink paper. I wanted my cupcake flavours to match the colour of the wrappers, to go with the neon green lined wrappers I made zesty lime cupcakes with a lime curd filling. To match the zesty cupcakes I went for a mascapone and cream frosting and decorated them with white chocolate glittery flowers and leaves, glittery white chocolate egg and sprinkled them with white chocolate strands so they would look like nests.



Here's how...

Gluten-free key lime cupcakes (makes 12 large cupcakes)

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 175g gluten-free self raising flour
• 175g unsalted butter, softened
• 175g goldencaster sugar
• Grated zest of two limes
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp milk

Cooking instructions

1. Heat oven to 190C fan assisted
2. Line baking tray with cases
3. In a food mixer, beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy
4. Slowly beat the eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar mix till just combined
5. Whisk in sifted flour, lime zest, baking powder and milk until fluffy
6. Divide the batter between the cases
7. Bake for about 15-20 mins until cakes bounce back when lightly pressed
8. Place on rack to cool

Whilst the cakes are baking, make the lime curd...

Ingredients

• 25g butter
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs , beaten
• Juice of 4 limes

Cooking instructions

1. Place the butter, sugar, eggs and lime juice in a medium saucepan
2. Heat on a low heat, stirring continuously until thickened.
3. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool

To decorate (for 12 large cupcake sized cakes) Ingredients

• 250ml double cream
• 220g mascarpone cheese, room temperature
• 2 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
• Glittered Chocolate egg disc
• White chocolate strands
• Glittered white chocolate flowers and leaves

Instructions

1. Place the cream, mascarpone cheese and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk till light and fluffy
2. Place bowl in fridge for 1-2 hours
3. Using an apple corer ~ Gently push the corer into the center of your cupcake, rotate the corer slightly and pull the corer out of the cupcake. Push the small cake round out of the corer and repeat this process with all the cupcakes.
   Or use a cupcake corer as per instructions.(they all differ slightly)
   Be sure not to go all the way down to the bottom of the cupcake, otherwise this can cause your filling to seep through the case.
4. Fill piping bag fitted with a star nozzle
5. Put lime curd into the hole in each cake and replace the cake pieces
6. Pipe a swirl of mascapone icing on top of the cakes and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles
7. Place glitter eggs disc inside
8. Adorn nest with chocolate flower and leaves

Have a sweet day!

Edible Neon Glitter

I love a bit of sparkle on my cakes and sweet treats and use EdAble art glitters as they meet the FSA standards. For my Easter decorations I used Disco Neon Way Too Pink, Disco Neon Flamingo and Disco Neon Yellow which are available from the EdAble Art Glitters and Powders Facebook page.

Have a sweet day!

Neon decorated wooden letters

I bought some "Happy Easter" MDF letters at the Make it & Knit it craft show. I decided to decorate the letters in the same prints that I used for my Neon bird houses. Here's how...

Neon decorated wooden letters
Tools and Materials

• Neon pink acrylic paint
• Neon yellow acrylic paint
• PVA glue or Modge podge
• Grey And white geo printed paper
• Peach and white geo printed paper
• Scissors
• Sharp pencil

Neon decorated wooden letters, How-to step by step

Start by tracing round the letters on to your printed paper and cut out. Then carefully paint the outside edges of the letters with neon paint and leave to dry. Apply a thin layer of glue on to the MDF letters and adhere cut out printed letters to them, leave to dry. Paint a thin layer of modge podge over the printed papered MDF letters, leave to dry.





I love my decorated wooden letters that I have decided to place the "Happy" word in my craft room!

Have a sweet day!

My Neon & Pastel Easter Table

Pastel and neon paper chain garland tutorial

I hope you all has a lovely Easter and as promised yesterday, here are the photos of my Easter table...

Neon and pastel bird houses tutorial

Turkish delight mini doughnut nests

Neon and pastel bird houses tutorial

Turkish delight mini doughnut nests

Mini pina colada doughnut nests

Pretty neon egg cups tutorial

I will be back tomorrow with recipes and show you what was hidden inside my Easter cupcakes!

Have a sweet day!