So What Next?

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. – Walt Disney

The Princess and the Cake was my first blog, and it remains my favourite. It was born in April 2010 to document a challenge that had been set for me by my friends: to combine my love of Disney Movies with my love of baking. Each week (or thereabouts) my friends and I would gather in one of our living rooms to watch one of the Disney Classics collection (in chronological order, naturally!), and each week I would bake something for us which was (at times loosely) linked to the movie we were watching. I set up the blog because I figured that baking 50 themed cakes or bakes was a challenge worth documenting.

Two-and-a-bit years later we’ve now finished the Disney Classics collection, and have even baked the Disney Pixar collection to boot, but I don’t want that to be the end of The Princess and the Cake. Baking is something I’m genuinely passionate about, and (believe it or not) I often bake things that are not Disney-themed. I love baking and experimenting with recipes, so, in true Disney style, I’m going to allow my curiosity to take The Princess and the Cake down a new path; rather than becoming a blog solely about Disney, I’d like this to become a blog about baking, experimenting, and trying new and tasty things. Which in a way, is what it always was – the Disney element just added a little extra sparkle and imagination.

So, there will be a few changes around here over the coming weeks. I’m going to change the format of the blog a bit, and my brother-from-another-mother has created a gorgeous banner image for me. There will be things disappearing and the reappear on the site - so please bear with me! I’ll continue to add to the Disney Classics collection and Disney Pixar collection with each new release, but in between that I’ll also be posting recipes that aren’t themed to movies… just really good, tried and tested recipes for sweet treats and savouries. I really hope you all like it!

Happy thoughts,

Stay

X

Sneak Preview

I promise you'll get a proper post explaining everything soon when my internet is back, but for now I'm so excited I wanted to share this with you... it's a sign of things to come soon!

The image is courtesy of and copyright to the incredibly talented Dale Toland at Whaley's World :-) Hope you like it!


Happy Thoughts
x

Quick Update

Hello!

I'm just borrowing the internet at work (it is after 5pm, after-all ;-P ) to drop a quick note. The Mr and I recently changed our TV/Telephone/Broadband provider, but the internet guy has not yet been round to fit the internet! Gah!

This means I'm currently net-less outside of office hours, with the exception of 3G. As blogger doesn't have a mobile app outside of America this has left me unable to post to my blog (#firstworldproblems??)

Anyway, the internet guy is coming on the 1st October, so normal service will resume then!

Until then, I'm sending lots of happy thoughts!

Stay
x

A Cake?

Disney Pixar # 13 - Brave

For the final instalment of the Disney Pixar collection, we decided to take a family outing to the local cinema to watch Brave (after gathering at Angel's house first to scoff down our cakes!) - however, this meant I had no idea what kind of cupcakes to make for this movie. Originally, as the film is set in Scotland and has a whole lot of bright orange hair flying around, I was planning to make some Irn Bru cupcakes. But that felt like a bit of a safe option, especially as I'd made Inca Kola cake for The Emperor's New Groove (which tastes JUST like Irn Bru, might I add), and then Dandelion and Burdock cupcakes for A Bug's Life. So I did a google image search for "Pixar Brave" to see if I could get any inspiration from the images, and there was one that kept popping up which really caught my eye:

There seem to be various images of that little plate of baked goodies - most of which feature the Triplets naughtily sneaking away with them - so I figured they MUST be important, and decided to use those as my inspiration. I don't want to give any spoilers, but it turns out that cake is a pretty big deal in this film!

Anyway, the cakes looked to me to be either an iced bun, or a scone, and in the end I went with scones as they feature prominently in Scottish High Tea. So that was my next dilemma - this is a Pixar movie, and that means I should be making cupcakes, not scones. Unless, that is, I could make cupcake scones. So I decided to bake my little scones in cupcake cases! Yes, this is bending the rules more than a little, but I think it still counts. ^_^

Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes
Makes 12 cupcake scones (or 6 normal sized scones)


Ingredients:

225g plain flour
baking powder
pinch of salt
50g butter
25g sugar
50g white chocolate chunks
25g dried cranberries
Up to 100ml milk (you might not need to use it all!)
Beaten egg, to glaze

To decorate:
25g white chocolate
12 dried cranberries

1.  Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases
2. Tip the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and mix together by hand. Add the butter and rub this into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar, white chocolate chunks and cranberries to the mixture, and stir in my hand until evenly distributed. 
4. Stir in the milk a little at a time until the mixture comes together to form a soft, smooth dough. Fill each cupcake case with around 2tsp of the mixture then brush each cupcake scone with the beaten egg to glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Meanwhile, melt the remaining white chocolate and drizzle this over the top of each cupcake scone. Place a dried cranberry on top of each cupcake scone and leave to cool before serving.
   

The white chocolate and cranberry make these scones very sweet, so they can be eaten without jam and cream. They can also be eaten with jam and cream, if you have a super sweet tooth like I do!

So that's the entire Pixar collection to date! I've had a great time doing this again, and hope that you've also enjoyed reading the recipes! Even though we're now out of Disney movies, the Princess will still continue to bake - all will be revealed in the next post! Until then, my friends,

Happy Thoughts
x