Chocolate Cupcakes :-)

Chocolate, the way to my heart, the way to every womans heart!!

Along with shoes, handbags and diamonds! Although chocolate has a much nicer price tag!!

I adore chocolate, be it milk, dark or white! It can be hot, cold, freezing, piped, as a topping, a filling or on toast. In all its many shapes and forms, I love them all.

A dense sticky sponge with a super sweet swirl of chocolate buttercream ......... who could wish for more?!

Ingredients:-

Chocolate Sponge

* 4 medium eggs
* 7oz self raising flour
* 7oz caster sugar
* 1tsp vanilla essence
* 1tbsp cocoa powder

Chocolate Buttercream

* 2tbsp cocoa powder
* 4oz softened unsalted butter
* 4oz icing sugar

I'm a lazy baker, i'll admit that. I like the good old fashioned, stick it all in the mixer and let that do the hard work whilst I sit back and have a cup of tea method! I wont deny that, but I also wont deny that i'm a complete perfectionist when it comes to the food I am willing to put in front of someone to try!

I was petrified of making mint chocolate cupcakes after being told they'd be like toothpaste on top of chocolate cake!

The end result of making these? Im not happy with the photographic equipment! Thankfully for me, I have parental input in the form of my dad to supply the necessary goods which came in the form of a mini photo booth for my spectacular little cakies! Finally justice for the baked goods!! Thankyou Dad!! :-)

Much better photo's from this point forth!!

 

Christening Delights :-)

So being asked to do a christening cake and the only thing i'm asked is that its pink! Three tiers, vanilla and has to feed a lot of people!!

Thought process begins straight away and decisions that not only does pink have to feature, this has to be spectacular, this has to be huge and this has to be the biggest thing ive ever attempted!!

Back to the beginning .......

Two months before ..................... "i need a christening cake, we want you to make it, do you have ideas and can you do it"

After a secret jig to myself and a massive smile spreading across my face ....... "come round and we can discuss ideas"

I sat with the mummy of the beautiful christening baby and listened intently to ......... " i want it to be pink, i want three tiers and I want vanilla"

So, i designed a three tier, vanilla sponge and vanilla buttercream christening cake. This cake was to have a bubblegum pink base, a powder pink centre and an ivory upper tier. I wanted roses and plenty of them, the main feature to be roses and I had to find the time to do it!!

Cutting to cake day ....................... I finish work at half five and hit the worse traffic i can ever imagine and decide that this is a very bad start!! I have catching up to do and I have to start straight away, no tea break, no time to change ..... I HAVE A CAKE TO MAKE!!!!

Thank heavens for cold weather, i have a frosty chilly out-house and a lovely chilled environment for my cakes to cool down!! Lets get baking!!!

Several hours later, cakes are cooling, buttercream is mixing, i finally have time for a cuppa and im starting to go past tired and into the hyperactive stage!!

Buttercream in, layers assembled and time to cool and start mixing icing colours. All three icing colours were great straight away, im sure my arms will end up looking like Arnold Schwarezenegger if i carry on doing this!! Time to roll, time to ice and time to make roses!!

Its 1 a.m, ive decided that whatever i cant do now, isnt going on the cake!! Im preparing to fall into a coma, normal sleep will not suffice at this point!!

I think the final product speaks for itself......

This turned out so much better than I could have hoped for! The end result was the centre of attention and the day was absolutely gorgeous! :-)

Sugar Cookies :-)

My first attempt at sugar cookies wasnt too bad! I was expecting worse, although the recipe I used produced a very very sticky dough which I had to add more flour to.
The cookies only take ten minutes to bake and I did a batch of eight to start with. The cookies come out a lovely pale golden colour and dont rise which gave a perfect base to ice :-)

I used royal icing to a piping consistency to pipe the outline onto the cookies and then flooded the cookies with a thinner pourable icing.

I finally finished the eight cookies and decided that with a ton of cookie dough left over to make the final batches of cookies, thirty eight in total!!

I used the same method with outlining the cookie and flooding with icing and adding final details when the icing had set

 

PP = Pinkys Patisserie,  check me out at www.facebook.co.uk/pinkyspatisserie

Parisian Macarons :-)

Parisian Macarons ........ Well where do I start? Notoriously difficult to make, beautiful to look at and a true delight on the palate.

I have tried them before, much to my mouths delight but not a delight to the eye I can assure you, however, this time, I used a different recipe and kept the oven door open a jar and it worked a treat.

I chose pastel pink for the body of the macaron and a lovely hot pink for the peanut buttercream filling. Each and every macaron looks like perfection and the pictures do them every justice!

I truly believe I have mastered the art of the Parisian Macaron and couldn't be happier! They have turned out beautifully and melt in the mouth!

En Francais :-)

I intend to spend some time working on perfecting the French Macaron and also to work on the whoopie pies! I seem to have more time on my hands recently and seem to be looking more and more at the recipe books I was so delighted with at Christmas. I have tried French Macarons previously and although successful, they were not something Mary Berry would have been proud to look at!

I love the look of the French Macaron and the possibilities are endless. Light, delicate flavours paired with flawless pastel colours.

I will keep you updated with plenty of pictures - especially now they look so professional! Please note that the amazing photo above is not mine! However, it wont be long until mine are perfection like those beauties!

Check Me Out :-)

I decided it would be a grand idea to use facebook as a tool to show people what I can do, you can check me out on www.facebook.com/pinkyspatisserie

This has been a success so far and I've had a couple of orders so far including a wedding cake in September! 

Meanwhile, I have been practicing the old photography skills to get the best photos I can, this included an amazing gift of a mini portrait photo booth! The photographs are looking brilliant and I couldn't be happier!

Cupcakes of all Shapes and Sizes :-)

The day came where cupcakes needed to be made. Lots of cupcakes. Lots of different cupcakes. Lots of yummy, sparkly cupcakes. Mmmmmm cupcakes!!! They make my world go around ....... well partly anyway, gigantic beautiful cakes do the other part!!!

So, ginger cupcakes and lemon buttercream, lightly spiced, lightly flavoured and wonderful for these chilly winter nights for a bit of heat :-)

Yummy!!! I love cupcakes and today was no exception! A couple of hours of complete cakiness heaven!!