Raspberry and Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Butter Cream

Buttercream? On my cakes? Yep, that’s right. I just had to try it, and boy, I’m ever so glad I did!

They were absolutely delicious, especially that I mixed fresh raspberries in the buttercream and it wasn’t only yummy, but also beautiful.

I was ready to put a little pink food colour in the cream, but to my amazement there was no need for that. So, what you see is absolutely and 100% natural flavour and colour, it’s all raspberry!

I made these as a gift to my neighbours, a lovely family with their 4 kids.

Well, I made few mistakes spelling their names (shame on me), but luckily, I corrected them before giving away the cupcakes, unfortunately it was too late for the photos.

My little girl as a quality supervisor 🙂

  

Zesty Lemon And Poppy Seed Cupcakes

Very lemony, very poppy seedy, very moist, very yellow. These are the key words for my latest cupcakes, which turned out way better then I imagined.

No need for flour in this recipe because I used ground almonds instead.

To make this very bright yellow icing I used double cream and yellow food colour. The flower decorations are made of paper.

Without flowers…

 

Raspberry Cream Cheese Cakes

Recently I bought three little cake tins and this is how I tested them. They worked perfectly so I am more than happy with my purchase.

I made a chocolate sponge and to fill the cakes I whipped 300 ml Double cream with a pack of Mascarpone cream cheese and few tablespoon of Raspberry conserve. I also put in the middle a layer of natural whipped Double cream.

For decoration I used artificial flowers, which saved me a good amount of time….again 🙂 I usually have fresh, real flowers in my kitchen, but not this time.

Avocado And Chocolate Cupcakes

I’ve planned to make these for a long time ago, ever since my friend sent me a recipe about avocados in a chocolate cake.

The day has finally come this weekend and I made them for another friend’s birthday.

I never eat avocados as a desert before, but I often make guacamole, because I love it so much and I can’t get enough of it. Anyway, avocados can easily go as a fruit as well as vegetables, and this time I used them as fruits.

This recipe needs 3 very ripe avocados (one in the cake and two in the frosting). I must say that these cupcakes are not ordinary cupcakes, they are very natural in flavour and colours, they are healthy, they are vegan (as no eggs used), and they are special in a wonderful way.

Ingredients:

– 1,5 cup flour

– 3 Tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)

– salt

– 1 tsp baking powder

– 1 tsp baking soda

– 1 cup brown sugar

– 30 ml vegetable oil

– 1 soft avocado mashed

– 1 Tbsp vinegar

– 2 tsp vanilla extract

– 1 cup water

Frosting:

– 2 ripe avocados

– 2 Tbsp lemon juice

– powder sugar (the more you put, the thicker your frosting will be…and sweeter of course)

–100 ml double cream

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C. Place the cupcake cases in the holes of the muffin tin.
2. In a bowl mix together the flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
3. In another bowl whisk together the sugar, oil, mashed avocado, vinegar and vanilla, then add the water. Sift in the dry ingredients, then whisk until smooth.
4. Scoop the batter with the ice cream scoop into the cupcake cases and bake for about 35 minutes.
5. Let the cupcakes stay in the tin for another 5 minutes before taking them out on a cooling rack to cool down completely.
6. Peel and pit the avocados and smash it with a blender.
7. Add the lemon juice, this will prevent to change the fresh green colour to brown. Then add the powder sugar, double cream and mix it with the electric mixer. This avocado frosting tastes like a fresh lemonade and is very delicious with the chocolate cake.

Carrot Cupcakes With Brazilian Nuts And Indian Alphonso Mango Whipped Cream

Tomorrow is Halloween, Boo Hoooo! My kids are so waiting for this every year! They love to dress up and go Trick or Treat. Me? Not so much. Way too many sweets……

I made carrot cupcakes for this occasion. I use my same recipe to bake this which you can find in my archive, but this time I didn’t put Pecan nuts, but Brazilian nuts for a change.

To make the frosting I whipped the double cream and slowly I add few spoons of liquid Alphonso Mango coulis to it.

The cupcake toppings are NOT edible 🙂 They are plastic sculls, but if I would have a silicone scull mould I would have made few myself.

The cupcake wrappers are once again made by me from cardboard paper.

Pecan and Chocolate Cupcakes With Spicy-Nutty Cream Cheese Frosting

I made one of my favourite recipe this weekend: cupcakes with lots of crunchy pecan nuts and milk chocolate chips generously frosted with cream cheese icing full with finely chopped pecan nuts and spices. Without exaggeration, they were all gone in an hour, they didn’t even cool down completely 🙂 The kids and my husband just came home from the park when I finished them and they could not resist it. And me neither, of course!

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs (room temperature)

200 g unsalted butter (room temperature)

5 tbsp walnuts (chopped)

2 tbsp honey

3 tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

100 g chocolate (chopped)

Frosting cream:

250 g Mascarpone, soft cream-cheese

5 tbsp powder sugar (icing sugar)

300 ml milk

40 g custard powder

300 ml double cream

1 tsp Schwartz Mixed Spice (optional but it definitely gives an exclusive character to the cream)

3 tbsp finely chopped walnuts (using an electric grinder)

salt

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line your cupcake tin with the cupcake cases and put it aside.

2.Stir the flour, salt and baking powder together and set aside.

3.Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and cream together until you get a smooth mixture. Add the honey and chopped walnuts, give it a stir then add the flour and the milk and mix it but only until everything is combined. Finally stir in the chocolate.

I used milk chocolate, but you can use dark chocolate if you like, and also ready made chocolate chips will do.

Before chopping the walnuts I put them on a baking tray and roast it for about 10 minutes. When cooled, chop the walnuts in pieces with a knife. It’s up to you how small or big you chop them, I like them at the size of the chocolate chips so it’s crunchy after baking.

4.Scoop the batter into the cupcake cases, filling only 3/4 way up. Bake for around 20 minutes. Don’t open your oven in the first 10 minutes, but after that you can turn the baking tray if necessary. When they’re done, let them cool for about 5 minutes in the baking tin before taking out on a cooling rack. Let them cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting cream, you have to prepare a thick custard cream and let it cool completely.

So, stir the 40 g (must be about 2 tbsp) of custard powder with 3 tbsp of icing sugar, add 300 ml of milk and bring it to boil until you get a thick custard cream. Let it cool completely.

In a mixing bowl cream together the Mascarpone cream cheese and 2 tbsp of icing sugar, add the fine walnuts and the cold custard cream gradually. Gradually pour the double cream and beat with the cream cheese. This will make it softer and lighter. In the end stir in about 1 tsp of Mixed Spice and a pinch of salt, it only makes it better!

The cupcake wrappers are handmade by me. The toppings are not, I got them from Hobby Craft. I thought they look pretty for this season. Lately I don’t have time to make fondant toppers, my baby girl does not allow me time for this, so I take the easy way and use alternatives where possible.

Blueberry Cheesecake

I have those little heart shaped silicone baking moulds and I used them to make these little blueberry cheesecakes. They were good, but not as good as the strawberry cheesecake, but then I think this is only a matter of what is your personal favourite 🙂

Anyway, it worth the effort!

 

I have those little heart shaped silicone baking moulds and I used them to make these little blueberry cheesecakes. They were good, but not as good as the strawberry cheesecake, but then I think this is only a matter of what is your personal favourite 🙂

Anyway, it worth the effort!

Tamara’s Coral, Yellow and Green 1st Birthday Party

My inspiration for this came from a little dress that I bought for my daughter when I was still pregnant with her. I didn’t want a pink princess birthday for her, but more colourful and summery. Coral is a beautiful colour, but I must admit that it is extremely hard to put together a party choosing coral as a leading theme! What is coral like? Is it a shade of pink, or a shade of red, or a mix of red and yellow, or simply just faded red???  Hard to find any accessories (to keep the party cheep, that is) so I made a compromise and used pinks here and there, as well as oranges and reds. The overall outcome was pretty and suited my little girl just fine!

We had our Hungarian friends coming over with their children, all slightly older than my baby, but young enough to enjoy themselves. We had no party activities of any sort, just free play, and they could do whatever they wished to do. Looking through the mess and the battlefield of toys spread all over the living room, I think they have had a great time 🙂

I made this tree based on a display tree which I saw in Hobby Craft. The one I saw was made of rubber plastic, mine is real and I cut it from a bush, stack it in wet sand and painted it all over with white spray. I decorated it with paper flowers and few butterflies and hanged 12 small, framed photos of my baby starting from birth up to 12 months.

The giant Number 1 I made from polyfoam and covered with spotty tissue paper.

I served sweet Rose to my lady friends, and to keep it cool I placed the bottles in a bucket filled with my special rose ice cubes. I picked small wild rose buds from the bushes next to our house and freezed them in water to make these cute and girly ice cubes.

The Birthday table:

Not everything was on the table when my husband took the photos. We had lots of Nachos with three kind of dips, also I made tuna spread in small pastry shells, and we had Crostini baguettes with Feta cheese cream and cherry tomato salsa on top. This is a delicious recipe that I saw once on Food Network made by one of my favourite TV chefs Ina Garten.

These Number 1 biscuits are my favourite in spite of not being easy to make them. I had no cookie cutter to start with……Was looking on eBay to buy, but the only one I found was £45 from Germany, but no way I would pay that much for a cookie cutter. It doesn’t even make sens to be THAT expensive! So, I had to figure out something, and I just remembered that I had a Christmas tree cookie cutter…… It took me a little while but eventually I managed to mould it with a tool and I transformed the tree into a number 1! Wasn’t exactly perfectly shaped but I loved it anyway and in the end my Number 1 cookies were just fine and imperfect in a pretty funny way 🙂

Now, before Christmas I might just remould it back to a tree, ha-ha!

I made two kind of cupcakes, a batch of vanilla cakes with fresh blueberries and white chocolate chips frosted with white chocolate cream.

The other cupcakes were rich chocolate with caramel chocolate cream frosting and also few with the white chocolate cream.

Simple vanilla cake pops,…

… and lots of sweets for the kids!

The birthday cake is a delicious chocolate cake with many layers.

Strawberry cheese cakes as party favours plus a party bag with a home made Peg Doll for each kid. My Mum and I made the Peg Dolls from outgrown body suits of Tamara’s.

I think they came out very cute, don’t you?

And here’s my darling party-girl 🙂

I also made her a little Smash Cake which she could “play” with a little before eating on her actual birthday.

Ha-ha, she went for the yellow fondant rose on top!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little Darling Tamara!

Key Lime Cheese Cake in recycled baby food jars

I love to make deserts which need no baking, and I also like to use my baby’s empty baby food jars. What’s more, if I make the cheese cakes into these little jars and put them in the fridge they will stay more fresh and definitely odor free because of the lid. Also you can stack them which means it will save some space.

I also made a few in cupcake cases to compare the amount, and now I can say that when using the smallest baby jar you get a larger quantity of cake opposite the cupcake size.

I have saved quite a few jars, because I was preparing to my daughter’s first birthday, but in the meantime I thought I will make the Key Lime cheese cakes, which I had in mind for a while.

Not my first time to make cheese cakes in jars, and surely not the last!