Cupcake Camp London

On 31st October, I saw more cupcakes than I could ever have imagined. Big ones, little ones, sparkly ones, gruesome ones, elegant ones, vegan ones, funny ones, gooey ones, classic ones, original ones, wheat-free, egg-free, dairy-free, low fat, mainly fat and the list goes on.

OK, so being a cake maker, I may be a litttle bit bias but this one blatantly one of the best things ever to come to London!

Cupcake Camp has been taking New York, Paris and Sydney by storm and Proud Galleries in Camden was host to the first ever London event, put on by the wonderful Daisy Coole.  Masses of people donated batches of home made cupcakes and these were sold to raise money for the North London Hospice.  There were also a number of professional cupcake companies sponsoring the even and supplying beautiful cakes!
I was particularly taken by An American Cupcake In London and was totally bowled over by their Bubblegum flavoured cupcake. Mmmmm

There was also a competition for the very best cupcakes.  I decided to give it a shot and lo and behold I won the 'Little Work of Art Category'!  I spent hours and hours working on my competition entries so I'm glad my total lack of sleep for most of the week wasn't for nothing.  As you can see, I took the title of the category literally and made a teeny little Miro painting and various of arty bits.

I was particularly flattered to have one as two of the judges were Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas of The Primrose Bakery.  Now you don't have to have read much of my blog to know that I treat their cupcake book like a bible so it was a real honour to have them pick my cupcake!

In case you are interested in the technicalities of the cake, it is vanilla (killa vanilla in fact) flavoured and topped with fondant icing.  I made the various props out of sugarpaste and flowerpaste and the easel is made out of pastillage.  I had to sand this down for AGES to get the right sized strips.  I glazed bits, like the water in the cup and the paint, to make them more realistic.

These were some more of my competition entries for the Halloween category which, unfortunately didn't win, but you can't have everything can you?

I also made these Halloweeny ones to be sold at the event.

  

And then I just couldn't resist chucking in a batch of Crunchie Caramel Cupcakes.  These were filled with a delicious caramel sauce and piled high with Crunchie buttercream icing.  Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but they were gone within minutes!

Here is a selection of photos from the event.  The lighting was a bit funny so they aren't the best snaps in the world, but you'll get the idea!

cupcake bouquet!

tried to get a snap of all the leftovers from the 'best taste' categories getting chucked out! tragic!

these were delicious!

some of the cupcakes I bought

                                      

going, going...

gone!

competition entries!

more competition entries!

        I hear the event raised about £4000 for the North London Hospice. Amazing.

        

Boogie Shack Breast Fest Charity Dance!

Recently, our wonderful friends Carla and Paul moved into the flat downstairs.  I love it and I know the cats are glad of each others' company.  It's also very handy to have a couple more cake testers so near by. As far I'm aware, this isn't too much of a burden for them.

Anyway, Carla and Paul are expert swing dancers!  I signed up for lessons during freshers week at uni but never ended up going and now I'm quite jealous of their skills.  Although I am aware of "rock step pump, forward and back", I don't really understand how they relate to my feet. Anyway, their dance crew, Jive Swing put on a monthly Friday social dance called Boogie Shack and this month's event was in aid of Breast Cancer, hence the cheeky name!  I was asked to donate some Yay Cakes! to be used as raffle prizes.


I am told the winners were thrilled with their prizes!


So, I got out the pink dye and came up with a rang of butterflies, boobies, dresses, flowers and bras to go on top of some vanilla cupcakes.  Here are some pics of the final products!

And here are a few snaps taken by Nicky David, photographer for the evening:

Aw, Carla and Paul

Cupcake Bites

a-ma-zing mini fast food.

So...today I had my first go at making little teeny cupcake bites.  I have been admiring the work of the magnificent Bakerella for some time now and pretty much want to try everything she's ever done.  But I had to start somewhere.

I ordered myself a peanut butter cup candy mould the other day and have been itching to use it.  A couple of days ago I made a chocolate cake and had someleftover mix.  So, I stored it in the fridge and the next morning before work, i scooped little dollops of it onto a baking tray and cooked it on a high temperature for about 15 minutes.  Delish.  I had little caked cookie things.  They were very nice to eat as they were but I thought they would be put to better use as mini cupcakes.


So...


I followed Bakerella's instructions, but altered them slightly to accomodate what I had in my kitchen.


First off I crumbled up my cake and mixed it with some chocolate buttercream until it was moist enough to shape into little balls.  


I then popped these onto a baking tray and into the freezer.

Meanwhile, I melted up some choccie and drizzled it into the mould.


Once the balls were set, I squished them into the chocolate and then popped those into the freezer.


I then melted up some white chocolate flavoured cake covering (next time I'll use better stuff, because really, this was too thick) and coloured it pink with some gel dye.


Once the mini cupcakes had set into the chocolate, I popped them out and began dipping them into the chocolate and decorating them with everything I could find!

Here are some of my favs...

 These little treats are extremely mini!  In fact, I measured them and they average at around 3cm tall and 2cm wide! awwwwww!

This one in the middle has a little hand pointing to the cupcake next to it...yea, I did that on purpose.

Must say, I'm rather chuffed with my first attempt at these.  I'm gonna do a take 2 of them soon, so watch this space!

Crunchie cupcakes. No I'm not kiddin ya...

Oh I do like my chocolate dipped honeycomb.  Cadbury's Crunchie is always my milkshake flavour of choice, so I thought, if i can stick it in my shake, I can stick it on my cake.

There's something very satisfying about post-food processor Crunchie dust.  For a start it looks a lot less fattening, which means it tastes even nicer.

This is a vanilla cupcake with Crunchie icing, decorated with Crunchie fairy dust. 

Chocolate Brownies with Raspberry Creammmmmmmmmm

The other day, my friends and I had a little dinner party.  It was all quite last minute but came together beautifully.  By that I mean we all stuffed ourselves silly with stupendous food. Everyone made and brought a different dish. 


This was our menu...

 Chez Mau

Starter

Halloumi Risotto stuffed peppers

 Main course

Spiced pork with red wine sauce

 Autumn vegetable selection

 Home made garlic bread

 Dessert

Double chocolate brownie with raspberry cream

Selection of coffee and teas

********

And this was our pretty table...

My dish, would you believe, was the pud, so I decided to bash together some brownies as you can't go wrong with a brownie.  I always add huge chunks of white chocolate to mine because it tastes heavenly!

I went for some raspberry cream because I thought it would be nice and refreshing. 

And it was.

To make Raspberry cream...

Ingredients

300ml whipping cream

100g icing sugar

150g raspberries

All you need to do, is whisk the ingredients together until the mixture becomes firm (but not too stiff).  I highly recommend using an electric whisk here to prevent your arm falling off.

I garnished mine with some extra raspberries and a few sprigs of fresh mint from the garden.

For the brownies, I've slightly adapted a Nigella recipe...

Ingredients

180g unsalted butter 

180g dark chocolate

3 large eggs

1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

250g caster sugar

120g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

whatever else you fancy...white chocolate, cherries, walnuts,...chuck in around 150g's worth

*Pre-heat the oven to 180°C

*Line your tray with foil or baking paper (better than buttering it).

*Melt the chocolate and butter together on the hob.  Then allow it to cool down a bit.

*Beat the eggs, vanilla and sugar together in another bowl.

*Combine the salt and flour in another bowl.

*Beat the eggy mixture into the chocolatey mixture and then add the flour and any other ingredients you've gone for.

*Beat it!

*Scrape it all out into your pan and bake it for 25 minutes or until the top of it is a bit paler than the inside and the inside is all gooey and delicious and chocolatey and....mmmm.....