When I was at university my friend Astrid made similar butterfly cupcakes using the Hello, Cupcake! book. I remember thinking how amazing they looked and knew I wanted to give it a go myself one day. I found the perfect opportunity to make them this week for Heeral, my sister’s work bestie, who is leaving. The hardest part about making the butterflies was working quickly before the chocolate and candy set, it took a few tries to get my timings right. I placed the wings on to vanilla cupcakes topped with raspberry jam frosting. I decided to leave out the body and antenna and go for a more minimal look, they kind of remind me of those butterfly cupcakes you make when you are little where you make the wings with the top of the cupcake. I hope she likes them! x
I seem to think that making birthday cakes for family and friends is the best time to experiment and try different things. I guess it’s not really a bad thing, it allows me to learn new techniques and make a cake special to that person. This cake was for a dear family friend of ours. We’ve known her forever and she’s so kind and lovely and one of my favourite people. I made her this giant 3- tiered pink cake made up of layers of vanilla sponge, raspberry jam and vanilla frosting. I covered the top with fondant flowers which I left to dry in cupcake tins so they stuck up and then painted them with edible food colouring. I finished it by wrapping it in a matching pink bow. I hope she enjoys it and has a special birthday. Happy Birthday Azra! x
My sister has become pretty obsessed with my macarons. She even requested some for her company, Found‘s quarterly review. I still think it’s pretty amazing that my sister works for a company whose colour is purple. It’s her favourite. So deciding what colour the macarons had to be was easy, but I wasn’t sure what flavour to make them. Most purple macarons I’ve seen are lavender, not my favourite, so I went for blueberry because it creates the perfect purple and I knew my sister would like it. For the filling I used both blueberry jam and fresh blueberries. I hope everyone enjoys them!
Macaron Filling
(for approx 36 whole macarons)
500g icing sugar
160g unsalted butter (room temperature)
3 tbsp blueberry jam
splash of milk
a large handful of fresh blueberries
Beat together the icing sugar, butter and milk. Then add the jam and mix until smooth. Add in the fresh blueberries and mix until the berries are broken up in to large pieces.
I’ve been getting my make up from the same place since I was allowed to wear it at 13. Cosmetics A La Carte, where not only do they have incredible make up, complete with a bespoke option, but they take the time to show and teach you how to apply it. I’ve always loved visiting their shop in Motcomb Street which is like a sweet shop filled with colours of shadows, lipsticks and glosses. It’s always so much fun to visit the lovely girls that work there.
This year they are celebrating their 40th anniversary and when we paid them a visit this weekend I took some cupcakes. I topped the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, half with the ‘A’ from their logo, which features on all of their packaging and on the other half, tiny lipsticks. These reminded me of one of my favourite lipsticks of theirs, a bright red belonging to my Mum in the original A La Carte turquoise tube. It really is the perfect red and I had been “borrowing” it for special occasions until it was hidden. I might now have a new favourite, ‘Cupcake’ which is the perfect shade for a cake lover such as myself. Happy 40th to Cosmetics A La Carte, I hope they enjoyed the cupcakes!
I’ve loved this week. It’s been full of Easter baking which I’ve enjoyed sharing with friends and family. Easter isn’t complete without mini eggs and they are even better on cupcakes. My sister helped me decorate them, her overwhelming need to colour co-ordinate is evident but she did an excellent job. Happy Easter everyone!
So for the past few weeks everywhere I look online I’ve seen posts and pictures of creme egg brownies. It’s Easter. They are having a moment. Today I decided I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I used this recipe which is the main one that has been circulating. Ok yes, that picture looks delicious, yes it’s a great idea and yes I totally want to hear more about that cake tin divider, but the recipe is what I was most interested in. Seeing as the world and their mother (/boyfriend /girlfriend /5 year old /dog) has made them I figured it had to be a good one. I have to say I was somewhat let down. Sure, the batter was smooth and looked great, but it didn’t really bake properly. I’m a big fan of the dense gooey brownie but this was a little too much. I even put it back in the oven a few times. If I was going to do it again, using this recipe I would leave it to initially bake longer than the suggested 15 minutes before putting the creme eggs on. I would also extend the baking time in general for at least another 15 minutes if not 20. Definitely let them cool completely before cutting in to them. Another thing I would recommend doing when making these, is to put the creme eggs in the freezer for a couple of hours before using them as this makes them easier to cut in half. It also helps the eggs to keep their shape when baking. I might try them again before Easter, but maybe use a different brownie recipe. Although slightly disappointing it doesn’t mean I still won’t be eating these with a glass of milk later.
It hasn’t felt even remotely close to Easter yet. Probably due to how quickly it has come around but also this hideous weather. Wanting to bring a bit of sunshine and Easter spirit to our house I decided to make a classic. I’ve never made bread or anything close. I’m not sure I’d even tasted a hot cross bun before. I opted for the current King of bread-making Paul Hollywood’s recipe for my first attempt. The recipe was simple and easy to follow. The only changes I made were to lessen the amount of cinnamon, as my family prefer it that way and I also left out the apple. I found making bread kind of like magic; this giant thing appears from basically nothing. As fascinating as it was to watch it grow and grow, this recipe needs lots of different resting times so takes a while. I’m still surprised when things turn out how they are meant to, especially on first attempts. These buns were light, filled with a good amount of fruit and flavour and delicious toasted for breakfast.
I was really pleased when Ginetta from Graphic Express asked me to make some cupcakes for BNI Elmbridge. BNI is a business networking organisation that meet once a week to exchange business leads, share their business experience and have breakfast. Sounds good right. I made these yummy cupcakes topped with the BNI logo in vanilla and chocolate with Nutella frosting. I hope they liked them and all have a successful day of business today, fuelled by cupcakes.
Yesterday was ‘Macaron Day’. I was informed of this by my Sister who loved my last attempt at macarons. She recently bought me a macaron book which includes a section with savoury options. I decided to surprise her by making some with her favourite ingredient, sweet corn (I once even made her a sweet corn cake). Sweet corn and bacon is one of our family’s favourite combinations; we have it in things like chowder and even our Christmas stuffing. To make these I fried some bacon and then blended it so I could sprinkle it on top of the piped macarons before they baked. For the macarons I used this recipe and added a tiny bit of yellow colouring. For the filling I made some fresh sweet corn, chopped it up and blended it with some marscarpone. Then I added a tiny bit of icing sugar to make it extra sweet. I assembled them by putting a bit of filling and some more bacon bits inside. They are kind of delicious and have that sweet and savoury thing going on that people seem to be mad for. They need to be eaten soon after assembling as this filling makes the shells soften quicker.
This morning I went to the On Cookery School to learn how to make salted caramel eclairs. Choux pastry and salted caramel are two very cool things I’ve been wanting to learn how to do for a long time. The morning was a great balance between demonstrations and hands on learning within a small class. Our teacher Loretta Liu was brilliant, she clearly has a lifetime of skills and knowledge in the kitchen but was patient, calm and still managed to be funny. We began by making the choux pastry, a task my arms were totally not prepared for, which we then piped in rows and put in the oven. We were then shown how to make salted caramel and how to combine part of it with whipped cream for the filling of the eclairs. We piped this cream into the eclairs, but it was really difficult to tell when they were filled and I could only tell when they began to explode. To finish we dipped the top on the eclairs in more salted caramel. I learnt a lot and ate a lot too!
