White Chocolate and Strawberry Cupcakes

Piping on the cupcakes

   I baked a simple Strawberry cupcake recipe and added some red food colouring to the cupcakes. Once they’d cooled on a wire rack, I made some white chocolate icing by melting 75g of white cooking chocolate and adding it to 110g of creamed icing sugar and 50g of margarine. The mixture was a little thick so I added3 drops of milk – I know from a previous experience that you only need drops or the icing will turn to a slop! I then spooned the mixture into a piping bag, fitted with a star nozzle before piping generous swirls on the top of the cupcakes. To decorate I placed silver balls on the icing.

The gourmet chocolate icing

Swirly-Wirly Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

The chocolate chip icing

   I made some cherry cupcakes and left them on a wire rack to cool down. In the meantime, I made some chocolate buttercream and added a splash of cherry essence, but I made sure that it was thick enough to hold its shape but soft enough to easily pipe. I used a disposable piping bag and cut a small circle and piped chocolate swirls on top of the cupcakes before topping with chocolate drops. They turned out better that I thought and next time I’ll probably use a brightly coloured icing.

Carrot Cookies

Bicarbonate of Soda and vinegar

   This is another WWII recipe which I used. Carrots were the British’s secret weapon as they were nutritious and because they grow in Britain, there was a large supply of them. I mixed a tiny amount of sugar and fat before sieving in the flour. Next I added a dash of milk and 4 tablespoons of carrot. When the carrot was completely mixed with the other ingredients and put teaspoon dollops onto a baking tray and cooked for 20 minutes.

The cookies ready to bake

Chocolate Ganache Cake

Ganache covered cake

   I made a chocolate sponge cake and took it to my assessors house where I melted double cream and dark chocolate in a bain-marie until it was all combined. Then I spooned some ganache into the middle of the cake before putting the other half on top. Then I spooned lots of ganache on top of the cake and used a large palette knife to smooth ganache over the entire cake. 

Piped zig-zags

Chocolate stars

    Then I left the ganache to cool whilst I melted some dark chocolate and put it into a piping bag and cut a long strip of baking parchment which I piped the chocolate onto in sharp zig-zag patterns. I then put another layer of ganache onto the cake and piped other patterns onto some baking paper. Once the zig-zags had dried a little I pressed it onto the side of the cake and let it dry.

Peeling off the parchment

zig-zag collar

  







20 minutes later and all of the chocolate had dried and I was able to peel off the baking parchment and reveal the chocolate zig-zag collar. To finish, I covered the top of the cake in piped chocolate starts that I had made earlier.

The finished cake