Amazing cakes!

Wow! A friend just sent me a link to this blog http://www.smallthingsiced.blogspot.com/ and the cakes on here are truly, truly, truly amazing - I'm loving the vintage sewing machine with matching cupcakes!!

Being left handed and icing cupcakes...

Just a note - as a result of being asked for information from a friend who is also left handed.  Being left handed is not an impediment to icing cupcakes - these are the things that I have found make my life easier:

• Disposable icing bags (I know it's not environmentally friendly, but it makes life and cleaning up so so so much easier)...
• Large nozzles (the ones labelled for food use rather than the ones that come with small icing bags or syringes - although these are good for detail, just not icing cupcakes).
• PRACTICE.... I practise - I practised lots and lots and lots, both on cakes, but also on the base of teacups or plates or whatever just trying to get the right shape and look.  Practising on solid non-cake items also has the benefit that you can scrape the icing off (ensuring you make any adjustments to get it to the right texture again) and stick it back in the bag to do more practise...
• Look at tutorials online - I found some good examples in places like youtube, but also signing up for updates (eg on Facebook) from people who do it a lot such as Pet Lamb Patisserie or Hummingbird Bakery often elicits some top tips.
• BUT, be aware that if you are left handed you made need to make your icing in the opposite direction, holding the bag in the opposite hand!
• The top tip I learned from the Hummingbird Bakery updates was that they ice their cupcakes with a palette knife, rather than an icing bag, and now I often do this as it can be quicker and just as effective - eg see the cheesecake cupcakes on the previous post.
• Buy other people's cupcakes - I'm very picky and often critical about some cupcakes on sale (for example we were at a local flea/crafty sort of market yesterday and there were some on sale that were truly, truly awful - in my opinion), however, if you see some that are stunning then invest and dissect - learn from the ones you admire! (and I guess also from the ones you don't - the ones I didn't like appeared to have really stiff mounds of icing which looked like it could have been done separately and then stuck on top!!
• Practice with the texture of your icing - I find it difficult to follow recipes for icing from baking books as it depends a lot on the temperature of your butter or whatever else is in the mix - so again the only way to be confident with this is to practice and get used to what you KNOW is the right texture for you to work with - too soft and it flops and doesn't hold its shape, and to solid and it just doesn't look pleasant!

Well, look at me - I made cupcakes!

There were two occasions I was supposed to be at this weekend, one was a picnic and the other was an afternoon tea, and so on Friday I made cupcakes.  However, still incubating my own little cupcake and having some dodgy blood pressure readings resulted in Friday night in hospital and a promise that I would rest on the Saturday, so I did make it to the afternoon tea (on the basis it was at our friends house in our street), but not to the picnic (which was a shame).
However, I frosted the cupcakes for the occasion and took them along.
I made cookies and cream cupcakes - these were somewhat shamelessly 'inspired' by the cookies and cream cupcakes we had from the Pet Lamb Patisserie girls the previous week, and I also made black bottomed cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook that I received as part of my leaving present from work.
Here they are:

No cupcakes for a while, but I did buy some!

from the very glamorous girls at Pet Lamb Patisserie! I went with a friend to a craft night at a local art gallery and there was a very tempting array - we came away with a Malteser cupcake, a cookies and cream cupcake, a vanilla one, another one that I can't remember and a packet of pecan cookies... Yum!

I will get round to more cakes eventually, however, the little cupcake I am currently incubating is currently sapping all of my energy!

No cupcakes for a while, but I did just buy this!

I found this on Etsy and just had to have one....

http://www.etsy.com/listing/55247798/keep-calm-and-make-cupcakes-pink?ref=sr_gallery_1&ga_search_query=cupcake+scrabble+necklace&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=&order=&includes[0]=tags&includes[1]=title

The image is from the same place as the necklace....