Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Snowflake piping

  Happy December! I decided to whip up a simple vanilla cake mix but added a generous amount of chocolate chips. I mixed half of the chips in the cake batter and gentle pushed the rest into the top of the cakes when they were in the cases. I did this because they have a habit of sinking to the bottom. Once the cakes were cooled I turned them upside-down and found that most of the chocolate had sunk to the bottom, but the chips placed on the top were scattered within the cake! To decorate I made a vanilla buttercream and piped stars in a snowflake formation on the top of the cakes before sprinkling with glitter.

Pretty Pink Gerbera

Shaping the flower

   Today I was at Claire’s and I was going to make flowers. I mixed pink colouring with white fondant icing and rolled it thinly to begin making a gerbera. Using a large plunger cutter I cut out 2 flowers and I laid one upon the other to show off all of the petals. Then I made a dish out of tin foil to shape the flower. Using a ball tool I put a large indent in the flower. Then I cut out two small flowers and rolled a small ball out of chocolate icing and put indents all over it to give it texture. I then wrapped the two flowers over the chocolate icing before putting this in the centre of the two large flowers. I finished by putting this flower on the top of a pink swirl of icing on a pink cupcake.

Splitting the inner petals

The Gerbera Cupcake

Geometric Cupcakes

Adding some colouring

4oz, sugar, margarine and flour, 2 eggs, teaspoon of baking powder, tsp of strawberry essence, splash of milk and a drop or red colouring. First I weighed the margarine and sugar and creamed them together. Next I added the beaten eggs, 1 at a time to make the mixture smooth. Then I added a drop of food colouring and the strawberry essence. I sieved the flour and baking powder and folded the mixture together before adding the milk to give the mixture a smooth consistency. Finally I spooned them into bun cases and cooked for 20 minutes at 180^oC. Once the cakes had cooled, I combined light cream cheese with icing sugar and some red food colouring. Once it was a thick frosting I covered the cakes with it before finishing with dark chocolate drops in geometric patterns.

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Pink icing and dark chocolate drops

Caramel, Fudge and Chocolate Surprises

Spooning in the chocolate spread

   I thought I would use some more of my caramel essence to make light and fluffy muffins. I combined butter, sugar, eggs, milk, essence, flour and baking powder together in a bowl. I now add a tablespoon of milk to give my cakes a lighter texture and to make them less oily. I spooned some of the mixture into the bottom of each case and then added a teaspoon of chocolate spread to the middle of each one. Then I covered the chocolate with some more batter. After cooking for 20 minutes on 170^oC they had small peaks and sprung back when touched.



The chocolate surprise

   When I cut the cakes open the chocolate spread was not in the middle but had sunk to form a thin layer on the bottom of the cake with very little cake underneath. It was still gooey and provided a unique aesthetic. 

  To decorate these cupcakes, I made a thick caramel buttercream and covered the top of the cakes in a thick layer before finally adding a sprinkle of chopped fudge pieces.

Thick caramel icing and real fudge pieces

Clementine and Pumpkin Cupcakes



Giving texure to the pumpkins

   I used a basic cupcake mix and added the rind of 1 clementine and a spoonful of orange curd before combining thoroughly and evenly. I spooned the mixture into the cupcake cases and baked for 20 minutes until they were golden brown. I left the cakes on a wire rack to cool and set about making the icing pumpkins for the top of the cakes. I softened orange sugarpaste and made 6 medium sizes balls. To achieve the ribbed effect I pressed spaghetti into the pumpkins. For the stems I combined green food paste with white fondant until it was malleable. Then I made 6 small cones with a curved point and put on each of the cupcakes. For a few I thinly rolled the green icing and made a small coil to act as a vine, and also a couple of leaves to make the pumpkins more realistic. To ice the cakes I beat margarine, icing sugar and concentrated orange juice together until it formed a smooth icing which I then coated the cakes with before decoratively placing the pumpkins on top.

The finished cupcakes

Chocolate Pillows

The little pillows

   I made a chocolate chip traybake and today I wanted to try and cover squares in fondant. I put the cake in the fridge to cool whilst I rolled out 6 squares of pale blue fondant 0.5cm thick and around 15cm square. I then made a quick chocolate buttercream. I then removed the cake from the fridge and quickly sliced it in half lengthways and then into six squares. I filled and covered the cakes with the buttercream before putting the fondant on top. I smoothed it down the sides and slit the icing to try and get a smoother finish in the corners and trimmed the icing and folded any excess underneath. The corners were ripped but I covered these up with rolled blue stars. When they were finished they looked like little pillows!

Blackberry and Vanilla Cupcakes

I topped the cakes with fresh fruit

   It is blackberry season and down our drive there plenty of berry bushes. I picked a large handful and washed them. I left 15 large blackberries aside and lightly crushed ½ of the remaining blackberries. I gently folded the whole blackberries in the vanilla cake mixture and then added the crushed fruit.  I spooned 2 teaspoons of the mixture into each cake before baking. When the cakes were golden brown and had a nice rise I took them out of the oven. Whilst they were cooling I creamed margarine and icing sugar together with a dash of vanilla essence to make buttercream. I filled a piping bag with a star nozzle and piped small swirls on the cold cakes. I pushed a ripe blackberry into the top of the cake and sprinkled pink glitter over the cakes. I made more cakes than I needed so I froze half of them and I also open froze the blackberries so I could use them to decorate. 

Three of the cakes