Peppa Pig cupcakes

My friend’s little girl is obsessed with Peppa Pig! So, for her fourth birthday, the whole family travelled over from Guernsey for a holiday on “the Mainland” culminating in a two-day visit to Peppa Pig World. First though, they visited us here in Bath, so I decided to make some Peppa Pig cupcakes (and, as my rhubarb in the garden was ripe for picking, some rhubarb crumble muffins) to welcome them!

I had a quick flick through Pinterest for some inspiration and as I didn’t have loads of time, I decided to keep it reasonably simple: decorating 6 cupcakes with the Peppa theme and 6 with a simple pink rose swirl.

I made the Peppa cupcake toppers the night before making the cakes: this allows the icing to dry and firm and means that it is less likely to absorb the moisture from the buttercream and go floppy! Getting the right thickness is difficult – mine were too thick! I’d probably aim for about 1-2mm thick. For the images on top, I used cutters from this set. 

This set is fantastic! I have a rather huge collection of fondant cutters and plunger cutters, but this set is the one that I use time and time again! I don’t have a set of number cutters (must buy some!) so I cut the number fours from a triangle of icing.

As the cakes were for a four-year-old, I decided to go for a very simple vanilla cupcake, filled with raspberry jam to liven them up and help them last a bit longer. Adding a filling like jam to cupcakes not only boosts the flavour, but it also helps to increase the life of the cakes: as the cakes age, they tend to dry out a bit and so the jam adds moisture.

The final result: well, the Birthday girl loved them (and so did her mum!), which was the main thing! For me, they weren’t the best thing that I have ever made – the red outline on Peppa doesn’t quite work right – it should be pink (but I don’t have a pink food colour pen!) and the blue disks were way too thick! However, the cake was light and fluffy and tasted good – which is the main thing!  

Vanilla cupcakes with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream

Ingredients

1. 110g butter, at room temperature
2. 225g golden castor sugar
3. 2 large eggs
4. 150g self-raising flour, sifted
5. 125g plain flour, sifted
6. 120ml semi-skimmed milk
7. 1 tsp vanilla extract
8. 4 tblsp raspberry jam

Buttercream:

1. 110g butter, at room temperature and very soft
2. 500g icing sugar, sifted
3. 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. 60ml milk 
5. Pink paste food colouring

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160C/350F/GM4.
2. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy this will take at least 5 minutes with an electric hand mixer – don’t rush this stage).
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition. It should result in a lovely light mousse-like mixture.
5. Combine the two flours in a separate bowl.
6. Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a jug.
7. Add one third of the flours to the creamed mixture and stir gently to combine.
8. Pour in one third of the milk mixture and stir gently.
9. Continue to add flours and then milk mixture alternately, stirring gently after each addition, until all have been added.
10. Spoon mixture into the cupcake cases, filling to about 2/3 full.
11. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until lightly golden brown. The cakes will spring back lightly when touched, if cooked.
12. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes, before carefully placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

While the cakes are in the oven, make up the buttercream:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half of the icing sugar until smooth.
2. Add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Put buttercream into a piping bag with a large star nozzle.

Once cakes are cooked and cooled:

1. Use a tea spoon to cut a cone out from the centre of the cakes.
2. Cut the top disk off each cone and retain.
3. Fill the hole in each cake with a teaspoon of raspberry jam and then replace a cake disk onto each cake to seal the hole.
4. Pipe rose swirls onto all of the cupcakes.
5. Top cakes with a Peppa disk.

Peppa-themed cupcake toppers

1. Pale blue, yellow, pink, red and white fondant icing
2. Black writing icing / black food colour pen
3. Red food colouring
4. Pink food colour pen

Method

1. Roll out the blue fondant icing to 1-2mm thick and cut out 6 circles with a 75mm round cutter.

For the sun cupcakes:

1. Roll out the yellow fondant to about 1mm thick
2. Cut out two 25mm circles and 16 small rectangles.
3. Use a paintbrush and a very small amount of tap water to stick the suns to the blue disks.

For the cloud cupcakes:

1. Roll out the white fondant to 2-3mm thick.
2. Cut out two flowers and then carefully roll over each flower in one direction with a rolling pin.
3. Use a number or a letter cutter to cut out an age or initial.
4. Use a paintbrush and a very small amount of tap water to stick the clouds to the blue disks and then the numbers to the clouds.

For the Peppa cupcakes:

1. Roll out red fondant to about 1mm thick.
2. Cut out two triangles.
3. Use a circle cutter to cut off one corner (to sit the head on) and to round off the opposite edge of the triangle (to sit against the side of the blue disk).
4. Repeat for the second triangle
5. Roll out pink fondant to 1mm thick.
6. Cut out two ellipses.
7. Use a knife to turn the ellipses into Peppa heads (whistle-shaped!)
8. Use a paintbrush and a very small amount of tap water to stick the red dress shapes to the blue disks and then stick on the Peppa heads in the correct position.
9. Roll four very small balls of pink fondant and flatten each slightly.
10. Stick these flattened balls in place as ears.
11. Roll very thin sausages of pink fondant and then stick in place as arms.
12. Use the pink food colour pen to outline Peppa’s head and ears, and define the nose, nostrils and mouth.
13. Add eyes with the black food colour pen.
14. Dilute a tiny amount of red food colouring in a tiny amount of water.
15. Using a paintbrush, use this diluted food colouring to paint on Peppa’s flushed cheeks.  

Rainbow cupcakes

Birthday time again – and my turn to make cakes for the Friday cake meeting at work. I decided to use up one of the small Christmas cakes that I had left over from Christmas (still well preserved in a mixture of sloe gin / cherry brandy / plum liqueur!) and make a couple of complementary cakes. As there is a coeliac amongst my colleagues, I made the very delicious gluten-free carrot, coconut and pistachio cake that I last made in October again.

Cupcakes are generally seen as one of my specialities and I hadn’t made any for a while, so I decided that I would make some lemon cupcakes, filled with passion fruit curd (as I had some in the fridge!) and topped with lemon buttercream.

Given the never-ending rain that we have all had recently, I was inspired by some rainbow-themed cupcakes that I had seen on Pinterest. When it came to decorating the cakes, I tried just smoothing the buttercream on with a pallet knife but my pallet knife skills are not the best and it looked a bit scruffy to me. I decided to go with my ever-reliable  Wilton 2D nozzle and pipe roses. The clouds were piped with a small round nozzle. The rainbows themselves were fizzy multi-coloured belt sweets – cut in half and then stuck down into the clouds.

These cupcakes always taste fantastic – I just love the tangy passion fruit curd combined with the zingy lemon cake and buttercream. When they were first complete, I wasn’t that happy with the finished look but the next morning, I did feel a bit more confident about them – and everyone at work loved them!  If I were to do them again (maybe with a bit more time), I’d love to add little pots of gold to these! 

Chocolate and raspberry Kitkat gateau – again!

Having had a practise bake last weekend (!), this weekend was actually my friend’s hen do and so time to make my second chocolate and raspberry Kitkat gateau. Making it for the second time was definitely easier – having made a few mistakes last week, I followed my own instructions and tips this time and it was actually a fairly easy and simple cake to bake.

I did make a couple of changes this time – I didn’t have much raspberry liqueur left and so I had a search through our alcohol cupboard and found a bottle of plum brandy and decided to use that in the cake instead. You can’t really taste the alcohol in the cake but it does add an extra depth and slight fruitiness to the cake and so I figured changing the type of alcohol shouldn’t affect the flavour too much. I’m not sure if adding the alcohol rather than just water affects the texture at all – will test this out next week when I have to make another chocolate cake – this time for a four-year-old’s birthday so no alcohol in this one!

Last week, I wasn’t that keen on the chocolate icing so I decided to make a few changes. This time, I added a tablespoon of cocoa, to increase the chocolate flavour and reduce the sweetness. Instead of the raspberry liqueur, I added a tablespoon of very strong coffee (1 tsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tblsp hot water) and also 1 tsp salt. You can’t taste the coffee but adding it helps to reduce the sweetness and intensify the chocolate flavour; the salt similarly helps to bring out the chocolate flavour. For me, these changes definitely helped to improve the icing – adapted recipe below.     

The only other change was to use three different types of Kitkat on the outside – dark, milk and Cookies and Cream (topped with white chocolate) – just for a slightly different look.

Chocolate icing:

Ingredients

1. 175 grams dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
2. 250 grams unsalted butter (softened)
3. 275 grams icing sugar (sifted)
4. 1 tblsp cocoa (sifted)
5. 1 tbsp strong coffee (1 tsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tblsp hot water)
6. 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool slightly.
2. In another bowl, beat the butter until it's soft and creamy.
3. Add the sieved icing sugar, cocoa, salt and coffee.
4. Beat again until light and fluffy.
5. Add the chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth. 

Honey and lemon cupcakes

Having made Hummingbird cupcakes for the netball girls to celebrate my birthday, next step was to decide on cakes to take to work. I decided to take my actual birthday as leave, so decided to take cakes in the following Monday – which gave me the weekend to prepare! As there are quite a few people to cater for, I decided to chuck together another Sticky Ginger Cake, as I’ve made it before for work and it has gone down really well. Next, I felt that it was expected that I produce cupcakes of some kind, so decided to have another go at the Honey and Lemon cupcakes that I made recently. Finally, I decided to make some simple lemon finger biscuits – will write these up in the next blog post. 

The honey and lemon cupcakes were inspired by Martha Kearney on Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and last time I made them, I had a go at copying her Beehive style decoration. Although they tasted delicious, I wasn’t that satisfied with the overall appearance and they were very fiddly to decorate so I decided to have go with a slightly different design for the cupcakes this time. 

I was mainly happy with the overall design of these cupcakes this time – although I’m not sure the actual beehives looked quite right. I started by swirling the buttercream onto the cupcake with a large round nozzle (mine is from this set). If I were to do again, I may try using the same nozzle but instead of simple piping a swirl, building dots of icing one on top of another – this may create a better beehive. I then coloured the buttercream with green colour paste and used one of these piping nozzles (although I got mine in a set like this one from Lakeland - incredibly useful!) to pipe on the grass. 

Finally, I decorated the cupcakes with bees and flowers made from ready-to-roll icing.

The bees are actually quite fiddly to make but worth the effort:

1. Start by rolling a small cone shape of yellow ready-to-roll icing. 
2. Roll out black ready-to-roll icing on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar - it will need to be very thin. 
3. Cut into very thin strips. 
4. Dip a clean paintbrush in water and lightly run over your yellow cone. 
5. Stick two strips of the black icing onto the cone to create your bee's stripes. 
6. Use a sharp knife to make two small incisions on the back of your bee. 
7. Find two similarly sized pieces of sliced almond and dip one tip of each piece in water.
8. Insert the dampened tips into the incisions created in the bee - this will be your bee's wings. 
9. Use a black food colouring pen to add eyes.  

Hummingbird Cupcakes (banana, pineapple and pecan)

 

So, seeing as it was my birthday, I figured I had better make cakes for the netball girls. Netball was on Saturday morning – I had Friday off but was planning to be out all day, so cakes had to be made on Thursday evening after work. This meant two things – I needed to make something that would last well for a couple of days and that wouldn’t take too much time and effort.  I already had some ginger cake made at the weekend but wanted to take a second option. I had a flick through my recipe file and found the recipe for Hummingbird Cupcakes.  This is another recipe from the Sara Stanley cupcake course that I did at the Bertinet Kitchen (see also my Red Velvet recipe) and I love this recipe. I hadn’t made these for ages and they’re fairly easy to make, don’t need a lot of fussy decoration and they last really well, so decision made!

Tins of crushed pineapple aren’t always that easy to find – so, if needed, just use a normal can of pineapple and whizz the pineapple up in a food processor or mini chopper.  I chucked the pineapple and banana in a food processor and quickly blitzed them up together, and this worked really well.

The original Sara Stanley Hummingbird recipe topped the cupcakes with a vanilla cream cheese frosting – this is delicious and complements the cake flavours beautifully. However, the problem with cream cheese frosting is that it should be kept in the fridge – which isn’t great for the cakes themselves. As I was planning to keep the cakes for a couple of days, I wanted to do something different. As I had the pineapple juice leftover from the tinned pineapple, I decided to have a go at making pineapple buttercream. I reduced the pineapple juice down to approx. 60ml by microwaving it for 30 seconds at a time until suitably reduced. I then added this to my normal buttercream recipe in place of milk. It tasted great and really worked well with these cakes.

You may find that you need to make extra caramelised pecans – they’re delicious!

Hummingbird Cupcakes

Ingredients

1. 1 large egg
2. 1 egg yolk
3. 230g caster sugar
4. 110g corn/grapeseed/sunflower oil
5. 1 tsp vanilla extract
6. 125g low fat yoghurt
7. 100g mashed banana (1 medium banana)
8. 100g drained tinned pineapple, crushed
9. 160gg plain flour
10. Pinch of salt
11. ¼ tsp cinnamon
12. ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
13. Pinch of baking powder
14. 60g chopped pecans

For the pineapple buttercream

1. Leftover pineapple juice from the tin of pineapple
2. 110g butter at room temperature
3. 500g icing sugar 

For the caramelised pecans

1. 30g butter
2. 30g light brown sugar
3. 60g pecans

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 165C. Place 12 large cupcake cases into a bun tin and about 8 mini cupcake cases into a mini bun tin.
2. Whisk egg, yolk and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Stream in oil and vanilla, whilst continuing to whisk.
4. Add yoghurt, banana and pineapple and mix.
5. Sieve the flour into a separate bowl, add all the remaining dry ingredients and stir together.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir gently until combined.
7. Fill the large cupcakes to two-thirds full and then use the remaining mixture to two-thirds fill the mini cupcake cases.
8. Bake until the cakes are golden and spring back when lightly touched. The mini cupcakes will take 15-25 minutes to bake and the larger cupcakes 20-30 minutes.
9. When baked, remove from oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes. Remove from the tins and allow to cool fully on a wire cooling rack. 

For the buttercream

1. Pour the pineapple juice into a microwaveable bowl and microwave for 30 seconds at a time until reduced to 60ml. Allow to cool.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, reduced, cooled pineapple juice and half the icing sugar until smooth.
3. Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar and beat again until smooth and creamy.

For the caramelised pecans

1. Melt the butter in a small frying pan, over a low heat.
2. Add the sugar and pecans and stir for about 3 minutes until caramelised.

Apple and Cinnamon Owl cupcakes

As mentioned in my previous post, it was my friend’s birthday and so I was baking presents. Having decided to make apple and cinnamon cupcakes – I realised I was going to have to make up the recipe as I couldn’t find one in any of my many baking books and I don’t really like trusting online recipes that much!

I decided to go with my standard Primrose Bakery cupcake recipe and adapt as I went through!  As I wanted a slightly denser and fudgier cake – I decided to use a mix of light brown and Demerara sugar, instead of castor. I reduced the milk slightly to compensate for the additional water in the apples. The actual cakes didn’t look beautiful when baked – but they tasted fantastic!  Will definitely be making these again.

When making the icing, I added slightly too much vanilla – which made it over-sweet. I think the vanilla needs to be there to temper the cinnamon, which can be a bit bitter, but it needs to be carefully balanced!

Inspired by the owls that are everywhere at the moment – I decided to make owl cupcake toppers.  I had to improvise quite a bit to find cutters to work for the owl shapes – in the end, I used two kleaf cutters for the bodies of the owls and the tip of a piping nozzle for the eyes. The flowers were easy, but I had to use the edge of a piping nozzle  to cut the leaf shapes. They took quite a while but I think they were worth it!

Apple and cinnamon cupcakes with an apple puree filling and cinnamon buttercream

Recipe

1. 110g butter, at room temperature
2. 150g soft brown sugar
3. 75g Demerara sugar
4. 2 large eggs
5. 150g self-raising flour, sifted
6. 125g plain flour, sifted
7. 90ml semi-skimmed milk
8. 2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and grated
9. 2 tsp cinnamon

Filling

1. 2 large or 3 small Bramley apples, peeled, cored and cut into rough chunks
2. Soft brown sugar, to taste
3. 3 tblsp water

Buttercream icing:

1. 110g butter, at room temperature
2. 500g icing sugar, sifted
3. 60ml semi-skimmed milk
4. ½ tsp vanilla extract
5. 1 tsp cinnamon

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160C/350F/GM4.
2. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy this will take at least 5 minutes with an electric hand mixer – don’t rush this stage).
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition. It should result in a lovely light mousse-like mixture.
5. Combine the two flours and the cinnamon in a separate bowl.
6. Add one third of the flours to the creamed mixture and stir gently to combine.
7. Pour in one third of the milk mixture and stir gently.
8. Continue to add flours and then milk mixture alternately, stirring gently after each addition, until all have been added.
9. Squeeze the grated apple in your hands to get rid of as much of the apple juice as possible.
10. Stir in the squeezed apple gratings to the cake mixture.
11. Spoon mixture into the cupcake cases, filling to about 2/3 full.
12. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until lightly golden brown. The cakes will spring back lightly when touched, if cooked.
13. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes, before carefully placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

While the cakes are in the oven, make up the filling and buttercream:

1. Put the Bramley apple chunks into a saucepan with the water and about a tablespoon of soft brown sugar.
2. Place over a low heat and stir occasionally until the apples have reduced to a thick puree.
3. Taste and add more sugar as needed. You don’t want the apple to be too sweet as it will balance the sweet buttercream.
4. Place to one side to cool slightly.
5. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon and half of the icing sugar until smooth.
6. Add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.

To fill and decorate:

1. Once cakes are cooked and cooled, use a tea spoon to cut a cone out from the centre of the cakes.
2. Cut the top disk off each cone and retain.
3. Fill the hole in each cake with a teaspoon of pureed apple and then replace a cake disk onto each cake to seal the hole.
4. Place buttercream into an icing bag with a star shaped nozzle (I use the Wilton 1M nozzle). Swirl onto cupcakes.