Halloween Cupcakes 2012

I love Halloween baking and really went all out last year. I was planning a few different things this year but time ran away from me so here's my last minute attempt. Red Velvet Eyeball Cupcakes and Chocolate Pumpkin Patch with Wriggly Worms. It's late and I'm too tired to think of cool names! 

The cupcakes were fairly easy to make and you don't need a lot of specialist equipment. I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes (12) and a batch of chocolate cupcakes (18). The frosting was enough to frost all 30 cupcakes! (Click on the links for the recipe).  The frosting was from the red velvet cupcake recipe - I frosted the red velvet cupcakes first and then added 50g melted chocolate to the remaining frosting for the chocolate cupcakes. 

As these are for Halloween, I'm entering them to Calendar Cakes hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and co-hosted by Laura from Laura Loves Cakes. 

 red velvet cupcakes - nice and red but bits of batter that I didn't mix properly -oops! 

 covered with cream cheese frosting 

 pipe a small circle of green frosting then fill with an M&M for the eyes

 I bought a tube of Wilton red decorating gel 

 to create bloody eyeballs.. spooky! 

 chocolate cupcakes 

 covered in chocolate cream cheese frosting 

 crushed oreo cookie crumbs and Jelly worms for decoration 

 I also decided to make some little pumpkins from ready rolled orange icing and a green tic tac. I used a toothpick to make the indentations on the side. 

Happy Halloween Everyone! 

Giant Red Velvet Cupcake

Today was my last day at my current job (sob sob).  It's really sad to be leaving as I've had such a fantastic year.  The team have been absolutely brilliant and I've learnt so much from everyone. Don't worry, no long blubbery oscar worthy speech but cake and goodies :)

So I had to finish with a 'bang' well a cake of course and what better than a giant red velvet cupcake! I seem to make them for leaving do's and birthdays (giant chocolate caramel cupcake, giant strawberries and cream cupcake, giant chocolate cupcake) but you have to agree that they do have a certain 'wow' factor.
I've used my standard red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting recipe from the hummingbird bakery.
I also made my entry for this month's we should cocoa challenge which was a surprise hit. It disappeared even quicker than the cake!! Check back later to find out what I made.
It has been a busy baking week for me as it was my last week at work so I thought I'd push the boat out and managed to bake a total of 12 items, some of which are repeat bakes. I will try to update my blog every day/alternate day this week to keep up.
On a final note, I got the loveliest leaving present - a V&A fine china 2 tier cake stand!!! I'm soooooooo excited and happy as I've always wanted one of these and now I have one!! Thank you everyone.

Red Velvet Cake

This is yet another birthday cake for my mum.  She had a birthday lunch with her friends so I agreed to make the cake for them. She had a store bought red velvet cake for one of her birthday dinners (there have been many birthday celebrations!) and really enjoyed it so I thought I'd make her one myself.  My family thought it was much better than the store bought one... well I suppose they would say that as they are family! I have to admit it tasted really good. The cake was nice and moist and I really love the colour of the cake. I wanted to try some different frosting methods but they didn't quite turn out as expected. I tried using my mum's piping syringe with attachments which was difficult to control compared to a piping bag.  Oh well practice makes perfect, right? Plus the icing got quite runny as I had to re-do the piping a few times and didn't have time to firm it up in the fridge as I was running late! The final result is quite plain and simple but at least the taste spoke for itself.
Incidentally this is also my 100th post so it's fitting that it's a birthday red velvet cake :)
PS apologies for the quality of photos, most were taken from my phone.

 fresh from the oven, I was a little worried it was not red enough but it looks better in reality.  

 

 First attempt at frosting borders. Didn't quite turn out so I scraped it all off ...

 ...and ended up with this! 

 tried to make lines on the side of the cake with a new cake tool I have but I obviously need more practice! I do like the borders on the edges.

 

 the photo doesn't do it justice but it was a beautiful red colour 

For the cake 

120g unsalted butter, room temperature

300g caster sugar

2 eggs

20g cocoa powder

40mls red food colouring (I used 30mls and it turned out beautifully red)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

240ml buttermilk (You can make your own by adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of milk)

300g plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Cream Cheese Frosting

600g icing sugar, sifted

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

250g cream cheese cold

• Preheat the oven to 170C
• Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Slowly add the eggs and beat well.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a thick, dark paste.
• Add to the butter mixture and mix well.
• Slowly pour in half the buttermilk, then add half the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated.
• Repeat until all the flour and buttermilk have been added.
• Add salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar.
• Beat until well mixed.
• Pour mixture into prepared cake tins and bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 minutes.
• Leave to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
• To make the frosting, beat together the icing sugar and butter and then add the cream cheese in one go and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Be careful not to overbeat as it can become runny.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I decided to make red velvet cupcakes for the chinese new year dinner at Dave and Ruby's (see previous post) I chose red velvet as it was Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day on the same day. Red is an auspicious colour in chinese culture and red is also the colour of love. I used my favourite hummingbird bakery recipe but was a little over-zealous with the food colouring as you can see. Oops! The cake still tasted good though :) I added in a little 'surprise' in the form of a gold coin for luck for the new year. It's not a new idea (see new year post) but it works everytime.

my super red batter

with gold coins

Did I mention how red it turned out? (Love the colour though)

I think my piping skills are finally improving :)

I sprinkled miniature hearts on half of the cakes for Valentine's and left the other half plain

Cross section of the cake

Red Velvet Cupcakes (recipe from the hummingbird bakery cookbook, I've simplified the method section for this post)

60g unsalted butter, room temperature

150g caster sugar

1 egg

10g cocoa powder

20ml red food colouring (preferably Dr Oetker red food colouring)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

120ml buttermilk

150g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1.5 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Cream Cheese Frosting

300g icing sugar, sifted

50g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125g cream cheese cold

• Preheat the oven to 170C
• Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Slowly add the egg and beat well.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a thick, dark paste.
• Add to the butter mixture and mix well.
• Slowly pour in half the buttermilk, then add half the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated.
• Repeat until all the flour and buttermilk have been added.
• Add salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar.
• Beat until well mixed.
• Spoon mixture into paper cases until 2/3 full and bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
• Leave to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
• To make the frosting, beat together the icing sugar and butter and then add the cream cheese in one go and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Be careful not to overbeat as it can become runny.