"99 with Cake" - Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Since the sun has decided to show its beautiful, shiny, happy face this week, I thought it would be fun to post my recipe for these cute little ice-cream cone cupcakes. I made these for a Marie Curie Tea Party my friend Joy and I hosted a couple of years back, and they went down very well indeed!

I couldn't find any flat bottomed cones, so I bought normal cones and very carefully sawed off the bottoms to make them stand... this meant I had to bake the cupcakes separate to the cone, but it worked well :-)

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 medium egg
2tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract
100g self-raising flour

For the butter cream:
300g butter
600g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
a little milk, if needed

To decorate:
12 ice cream cones
3 cadbury flakes (full sized), or 12 mini flakes

Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 15 - 20 mins
Makes 12

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 (or 180) and line a bun try with cupcake cases.
2. Beat together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, milk and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in the flour and fold in until the mixture is smooth (and delicious - try not to eat too much just yet!)
3. Spoon the batter into the cupcake cases and bake for 15 - 20 minutes, until golden brown and springy when touched. Leave the cakes to one side to cool.
4. While the cakes are cooling, prepare your butter cream. Beat the butter until soft, then mix in the icing sugar and vanilla. If you find your butter cream is too stiff, add a teeny tiny splash of milk, stir it in, and repeat until you have the desired consistency. You need this butter cream to be fairly robust if you want to make it look ice-creamy! Spoon the butter cream into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle (I used Wilton 1M) and pop to one side.
5. Now the tricky part... if you're using flat bottomed cones and mini flakes - well done you! You are much cleverer than I am, and can move to the next step. If, like me, you have pointy bottomed cones and standard sized flakes, I hope that, unlike me, you have a steady hand! Use a serrated knife to carefully cut off the end of each cone, so that the cone can stand flat. Next, chop the flakes into 12 mini-pieces. Try not to crumble them into dust in the process. (MUCH easier said than done!!)
6. Now for the assembly. Remove the cooled cupcakes from their cases, and pop each one into your prepare ice-cream cone. Pipe a big swirl of butter cream on top of each (think Mr. Whippy!) and then pop a flake into the icing to finish.
7. Eat them quick - you wouldn't want the ice-cream to melt ;-)

Happy Thoughts
x

Chocolate Christmas Pudding Muffins

I'm going to let you in on a little secret - there is  type of cake I really hate. I know. It's sacrilege! Completely and utterly against my religion! I should be banned from the bake-blogging world immediately!! But it's true, I really can't stand fruit cakes. That includes fruit puddings too, so Christmas cake and Christmas pudding are not my friends. You see, I have a passionate dislike for raisins, currants and sultanas, and as fruit cakes contain an abundance of those things, we've never seen eye to eye. Or cake to mouth. So when I wanted to make some mini Christmas pudding for a Christmas party a few years back, I had to come up with a suitable alternative. I went with chocolate chip muffins. It worked for me!!

These muffins pre-date my blogging days, but they got a lot of complements so I wrote the recipe down in a notebook. Flipping through that notebook made me quite nostalgic, and I found a couple of SWEET recipes to share in the near future! I think I'm going to make some mini - muffin versions of these this Christmas, I'll post the photos below when I do!

Ingredients:

For the muffins:
100g soft brown sugar
150g self raising flour
3 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
100ml vegetable oil
50ml milk
2 medium eggs, beaten
100g chocolate chips

To decorate:
150g icing sugar
A few drops of water
50g green ready-to-roll icing
25g red ready-to-roll icing


Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes
Makes 8 muffins

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark four and grease a muffin tin really well.
2. Tip your sugar, flour and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl, then stir in the oil, milk, and beaten eggs until all the ingredients combined to form a smooth batter. Fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, filling each hole 3/4 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes until firm but springy to touch. Leave the muffins to cool completely in the tin.
4. Whilst the muffins are cooling, make your holly leaves and berries with the fondant icing. For the leaves, I rolled out the green icing and used a sharp knife to cut out a holly leaf shape, which is why mine are all uneven! You could also use a cutter, if you have one! For the berries, I simply rolled up small pieces of the red icing in my hands.
5. Once cool, remove the muffins from tin. You'll be serving the muffins bottom up, so you may need to cut a little away from the top of each muffin to make sure they are level.
6. Eat the cut off bits (this step is very important!)
7. Put a wire rack or cooling rack over a tray or sheet of greaseproof paper (it's could get messy during the next few steps!) then place your muffins, bottom up, on top of this.
8. Now it's time to make the icing. I made mine ever so slightly too runny, which is ever so easy to do, so always best to err on the side of caution. Pour the icing sugar into a bowl, then stir in the water 1tsp at a time until you have a spreadable, but still thick icing. I know it's tempting to add the water more than 1tsp at a time, but trust me - this kind of icing goes from solid to runny in 2 seconds flat. Be patient!
9. Once your icing is of the desired consistency, spread a little over the top of each upside-down muffin, letting it go over the edge and start to dribble down the sides. If, like me, you made your icing too runny, the icing will probably stream down the sides, rather than dribble, and you'll be pleased you placed that greaseproof paper underneath to catch all the icingy mess!
10. Place your holly leaves and berries on top of the icing, then leave to set.
11. Serve with a cup of tea and some Christmas cheer!

Happy Thoughts
x

Reindeer Cake Balls

A Christmas post!? Well, yes. You see for me, the Christmas season always starts on 30th November. This is largely in part because my Mum is absolutely crazy, and would have Christmas all year round if she could, so as a kid Christmas began with our advent calendars. It's also partly because the 30th November is the anniversary of the date that Alex and I first because a couple, and it's become a tradition of ours to celebrate by putting up our Christmas tree together on the 30th November. (6 years today! ♥ ) It makes sense if you think about it, because advent calendars start on the 1st December, so you HAVE to put those up on the 30th November, and if you're doing that, you might as well go the whole shebang, right? So, December will be well and truly Christmas month here at The Princess and the Cake. And I can't wait!

Anyways - onto the cake! I made these reindeer cake balls with my little sister last Christmas, and we had a lot of fun doing so. This recipe is great for getting into the Christmas spirit, and the decoration part is perfect for getting the kids involved (and that includes the big kids like my sister and I!)

Ingredients:

For the cake balls:
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 medium egg
1tsp vanilla extract
100g self raising flour
100g butter
200g icing sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract
Milk, if required.

To decorate:
250g milk chocolate (you may end up with a little left over)
1tsp vegetable oil
1 red smartie
8 chocolate covered raisins
White, red and black writing icing
Sprinkles (for the puddings)

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Makes 9 reindeer and 7 puds (see photo below)

1. Start by making your chocolate antlers for your reindeer. Melt 50g of the chocolate and pour into a piping bag. Pipe 18 antler shapes onto a tray lined with grease proof paper, then pop this in the fridge to set.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with cupcakes cases.
3. Cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour until the ingredients combined to create a smooth batter.
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes,  until golden brown on top and springy to the touch. Allow the cakes to cool completely on a wire rack.
5. Whilst the cakes are cooling, prepare your butter cream. Beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy, adding a little milk if necessary to achieve the desired consistency.
6. Take the cooled cupcakes out of their wrappers and break them into a blender. Pulse the cakes on a high speed to break them into fine crumbs. Once the cake is sufficiently crumbed, pour the crumbs into a bowl, then mix in the butter cream a tablespoon at a time until you get a mixture that holds together well without crumbling, but isn't too sloppy - you will not need to use all of the buttercream! Save the leftover buttercream for decorating.
7. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, and make some space for that tray in your fridge or freezer. Measure out 30g portions of the cake mixture, then shape it into a ball with you hands and place this on the baking tray. Pop the tray into the freezer for 20 minutes to set.
8. Melt the remaining chocolate, either in the microwave or in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Once the chocolate has completely melted, stir in a teaspoon of vegetable oil to "thin down" the chocolate. Don't worry - you won't be able to taste the oil!
9. Take your tray of cake balls out of the freezer and place on your work surface next to the melted chocolate. Dip each cake ball into the melted chocolate and tap off any excess chocolate. Put the cake balls back onto the lined tray and allow the chocolate to set. (this won't take long if your cake balls are cold enough!)
10. Use a little left-over butter-cream to stick two of your chocolate antlers onto the bottom of each cake ball, then stick a nose onto the top of each cake ball (the red smartie is for Rudolph, and the chocolate raisins are for Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen!) Use the writing icing to draw eyes, and facial expressions onto each cake ball, and display on a plate with Rudolph in the middle.
11. Turn any leftover cake balls into Christmas puds by spreading a little of the leftover buttercream over the top half, and decorating with sprinkles (as below!)

Happy Thoughts
x

Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Rainbow Cake

Hello folks, and welcome to the latest feature of The Princess and the Cake: Cake'n'Bake Wednesdays! Back in October of last year, I decided to reach out to like-minded bake-a-holics in my local area, and to cut a long story short, the Cambridge Cake'n'Bake Club was born. We're a group of bakers, mostly amateur, some early-stage professionals, who get together once a month to share recipes, hints and baking tips whilst scoffing our faces full of the baked treats we've made. Simple really!

Anyway, we have a shared blog where we post our recipes (www.camcakeclub.blogspot.co.uk if you're interested) but since I decided to move the focus of this blog away from the movie challenges and make it more about my baking in general, I thought I'd start sharing my Cake'n'Bake Club recipes here also. Cake'n'Bake Club meetings take place on the first Wednesday of every month (in fact, it's our first birthday party tonight!) so I decided to turn the same day into my Cake'n'Bake Club feature on this blog - thus Cake'n'Bake Wednesdays! Some months there will only be one post, some months there will be more - it depends how many things I baked for any given month! I think that's enough jibber jabber for now, so if you want to find out more about Cambridge Cake'n'Bake Club, please click on the tab above, and if you'd like to see my recipe, please read on!

For our first ever club meeting in November 2011, we went with the "Signature Bake" as a theme - that is, bakers were asked to bake and bring something they thought represented them - either the first recipe they ever bakes, or one they'd come to be renowned for, and for me it could only ever be one thing:

Rainbow cake!

Firstly, I apologise from the poopy photos - I had no idea we'd be publishing a blog (never mind two blogs!!) so I didn't really give the cake photography the time and effort it deserves. Secondly, I wanted to point out that my cake got a bit squished in transit - please ignore the bottom half of the frosting in the first photo!

OK, before I type the recipe, time for a little cake-science. The reason the colours of the cake curl around each other is purely down to the fact it was baked in a bowl! when baking in a Pyrex bowl it's the bottom and sides that cook first, and as they cook they also rise, forcing the top colours down into the middle of the bowl - pretty cool, right? If you were to bake this recipe in a flat tin, your lines would all be even and you wouldn't get the swirls (the cake would still look and taste great though!)

Ingredients

For the cake:
300g margarine
300g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
300g self raising flour
2 tbsp lemon juice
red, yellow, and blue food colourings (I used gel food colourings as I find you get a vibrant colour without watering down your mixture!)

For the frosting:
150g shortening
300g icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
black food colouring
edible glitter (I used "white hologram")

Prep time: 30 mins
Bake time: 50-60mins
Serves 8-10

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a round Pyrex (or other oven-proof) bowl with foil.
2. Beat the margarine and sugar together until creamy. Beat in one of the eggs until well combined, then fold in a third of the flour. Repeat until all of the eggs and flour have been used up and you have a thick, smooth batter. Gently fold in the lemon juice.
3. Separate the mixture into 6 even portions, and colour each red, orange, yellow, blue, green and purple. (In cake-land, indigo and violet merge to become "purple".) As a reminder, you mix a red and yellow to make orange, blue and yellow to make green and blue and red to make purple!
4. Carefully place the red mixture into the bottom of the bowl and level with the back of a spoon. Layer each mixture on top of the other, spreading gently to the edges after each layer.
5. Bake for 50 - 60 mins, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the bowl for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Once the cake has cooled prepare the frosting. Mix the icing sugar into the shortening a little at a time until a smooth paste has formed. Mix in the lemon juice to taste, then spread evenly onto the cake. Place a little black food dye into the remaining frosting, then pipe a line across the cake. Add another drop of black colouring into the remaining frosting, and pipe a second line next to the third. Repeat for another two lines so you end up with a grey-scale rainbow. Sprinkle with the edible glitter to finish then serve!

Happy Thoughts
x

Bonfire Cake

I absolutely LOVE this time of year. Don't get me wrong - I love the summer, sunshine and heat, but there's just something special about those wintry nights. It starts off with Halloween, closely followed by Bonfire Night, and then it's pretty much Christmas! (Did I mention I will usually celebrate Christmas at least twice in December... I'll tell you about it sometime!)

I know it's not Guy Fawkes Night until Monday, but I wanted to post this spiced-orange bonfire cake today to give you chance to make it over the weekend - trust me, after spending a chilly night out watching the fireworks and bonfire displays, this makes an extra special treat to come back to!

Ingredients:

For the cake:
1 large orange
300g margarine
300g light brown sugar
3 medium eggs
250g self-raising flour
50g ground almond
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp mixed spice


To decorate:
200g icing sugar
Orange food colouring
2 tsp orange juice (reserved from cake)
A few tsp water (as needed)
Orange flavoured chocolate sticks (I used just over one box of Matchsticks)

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 45-50 minutes
Makes 8-10 slices

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease a round oven proof pyrex bowl.
2. Zest the orange and squeeze the juice. Put around 2 tsp of the juice to one side for the icing - the rest will be added to the cake.
3. Beat together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and mixed spice into the bowl and fold into the mixture. Add the zest and juice of the orange to the mixture and beat well.
4. Tip the batter into the prepared bowl, then bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the bowl.
5. Once the cake has completely cooled, turn in out onto a serving plate and carve the edges to achieve a more cone-like shape (see the photo above - you want it to look like a bonfire!). With the carved off bits, you could either eat these now, just to make sure they're OK, or you could freeze them and use the for cake pops later on!
6. To prepare the icing, tip the icing sugar into a bowl with the orange food colouring and reserved orange juice, and mix well. You want the icing to be thick but spreadable and ever so slightly runny to make sure you can coat your cake evenly. If you need to, add one teaspoon of water at a time to the icing and stir in until you have the right consistency.
7. Spoon the icing onto the top of you bonfire cake, then use a palette knife to spread this around the edges. Place the chocolate sticks around the cake, overlapping ever so often, to look like the branches of your bonfire. Break a few of the chocolate sticks onto the top of the cake.
8. Note - the chocolate sticks make it a little tricky to carve this cake, so you may find it helpful to take one or two off to help you with slicing.

Happy Thoughts
x

Spare Me Your Lies, Temptress! Your Emperor's Defeated, and I'm Immune to Your Bewitching Good Looks.

Disney Pixar # 11 - Toy Story 3

For the final instalment of the Toy Story Character Cupcakes, I was planning to make a whole bunch of the main crew... however, Angel suggested/requested that I make some strawberry flavoured Lotso cupcakes, and I couldn't very well say no! After all, everyone loves Lotso!

I actually have my own Lotso bear. He is over 2 years old now, but he stills smells like strawberries! I wanted to tap into that epic strawberry-ness, so I loaded my cupcakes full of them! Yum yum yum!

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15-18 minutes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
75g fresh strawberries
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 medium egg
100g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the filling:
150g home-made strawberry jam

For the icing:
150g butter
300g icing sugar
A few drops of strawberry flavouring
Pink and black food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases.
2. Wash and hull the strawberries, then blend them into a puree.
3. Beat together the margarine and the sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg and the strawberry puree until the mixture is light and fluffy, then fold in the flour and baking powder.
4. Fill each cupcake case around 3/4 full, then bake for 15-18 minutes until the cakes are golden brown on top and springy to touch. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.
5. One the cakes have cool, cut a circle out of each cupcake to create a well in the centre - keep the cut-out bits to one side. Fill each cupcake with 1tsp of strawberry jam, then place the "lids" back onto the cupcakes.
6. To make the butter cream, beat together the butter and icing sugar until smooth and creamy. Add a few drops of strawberry flavouring, and a tiny bit of black food colouring and beat until you had a pale grey shade. Place the icing into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, then pipe a circle of grey into the middle of each cupcake. Pour all of the remaining icing back into the mixing bowl, then beat in a little pink food colouring, adding more until you reach the desired colour. Pipe this onto the cupcakes in a circle around the grey icing.
7. Breathe in a big whiff of the strawberry goodness, then take a bite!

Next time it's the final instalment in the Disney Pixar collection so far: Cars 2!

Happy Thoughts
x

My Name is Dug. I Have Just Met You, and I Love You.

Disney Pixar # 10 - Up

Up is amazing. I remember being slightly disappointed by it the first time I watched it, but every time I've watched it since, I've wondered why. The first 10ish minutes of the film are so beautifully, heart-breakingly, cinematic-history-making-ly perfect that it's impossible not to fall in love with Up. The rest of the film is pretty good too.

Aside from the opening sequence - which I didn't want to touch as I could never possibly hope to do justice to it - my favourite moment of the film is when Carl releases his balloons and the house floats up into the air; it has just the right mix of awe and magic to make you suspend disbelief and that's what I decided to create in cake form.

Now, being a veteran reader of Cake Wrecks, I was a little dubious about creating a cupcake-cake, however, I couldn't think of a better way to do this and stick to my remit of "all the Disney/Pixar films have to be made with cupcakes", so the cupcake-cake was made. I don't think it turned out too badly (at least I hope it's good enough not to be deemed a wreck!). I decided to go with a raspberry flavouring for these cupcakes, as I thought it would be reminiscent of candy-floss and bubble-gum and the manner of treats Carl might have enjoyed as a young balloon-seller. The recipe for the cupcakes is one I adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days, as it makes really fluffy light cupcakes.

These cupcakes have A LOT of icing on them, so this one is best saved for when you have a very, very sweet tooth.

Prep time: 45 minutes
Cook time: 15-18 minutes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
40g butter
140g caster sugar
120g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1 large egg
120ml milk
raspberry flavouring - to taste

For the butter cream:
100g butter
200g icing sugar
A few drop of raspberry flavouring
Blue food colouring
Milk (as required)

To decorate:
200g fondant icing
Pink, Green, Yellow, Ice Blue and Navy food colourings
Edible glue

• Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases.
• Beat the butter, sugar, flour and baking powder together in a bowl until the ingredients come together to resemble bread crumbs. Mix the egg, milk and raspberry flavouring together in a jug, then beat this wet mixture into the dry mixture a little bit at a time until you have a smooth batter. Spoon the batter into the cupcake cases, filling the around 3/4 of the way full.
• Bake for 15-18 minute until golden brown and firm to touch. Leave to cool completely on a wire wrack before decorating.
• Whilst the cupcakes are cooling, prepare your butter cream by beating the butter, icing sugar, raspberry flavouring and a little blue food colouring together until creamy. Add a little milk to achieve the desired consistency if necessary. Keep the butter-cream in the fridge until ready to use.
• To prepare the decorations, split the fondant icing into 5 pieces, and colour each one with the colours listed above. I split my icing again so that I had a pale and a vibrant version of each colour. The pale colours were mostly used for the house, and the vibrant colours for the balloons. To make the house, cut out the pieces (see photo below for step-by-step) and assemble using the edible glue to stick the pieces together. Paint on the detail with a little blue food colouring. To make the balloons, roll a chunk of icing into a ball and cut this into two halves. Pinch one end of the circle into a teardrop shape, trying to keep the bottom flat. I ended up making around 100 balloons, but didn't use them all. 

• When the cupcakes have cooled, spread a layer of blue butter-cream over them, then arrange 8 of the cupcakes onto a cake board in a 1, 2, 3, 2 formation (see the pictures for explanation!) Place the fondant house onto the bottom cupcake, then layer the balloons onto the other cupcakes, curving the edges to make the shape of a large balloon.
• Now watch your friends get a little awkward as they really want to eat the cakes, but don't want to ruin your pretty mosaic ;-) 

Next time it's Toy Story 3, and I'll be paying homage with some cuddly cupcakes that smell (and taste) like strawberries!

Happy Thoughts
x

You Have Saved Our Lives, We Are Eternally Grateful!

Disney/Pixar # 3 - Toy Story 2

OK, so it's character costume cupcakes round 2! I was planning to make a couple of other characters this time, but unfortunately I ended up working late, running completely out of time and rushing to get these finished before everyone arrived; so I just made the little alien dudes. What I would say though, is if you're having a Toy Story themed party, these cupcakes are really quick and easy to make and go down a treat!

Image courtesy of FUCKYEAHTOYSTORY

Similar to Toy Story, I just made a vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting as the base for these, putting the focus solely on the "costume" decoration.


Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 12-15 minutes
Decoration time: 30 minutes
Makes 12 cupcakes (6 Woody and 6 Buzz)

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 medium egg
100g self raising flour
1tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla essence

For the butter cream:
50g margarine
100g icing sugar
a few drop of vanilla essence

For the decoration:
Some edible glue, or simple sugar syrup
Bronze shimmer dust
200g of fondant icing, coloured as per the photo below:

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases. 
• Beat the margarine and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy, then beat in the egg. Add in the flour and vanilla essence, then place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each cupcake case. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and firm to touch.
• Whilst the cupcakes are cooling, whip up your butter cream by placing the margarine, icing sugar and vanilla essence in a large bowl and beating until a smooth and creamy icing has formed. Place this to one side whilst you cut out your shapes.
• Similar to Toy Story, I thought it would be easier to show you the shapes and assembly, rather than describe it, so here's a photo:

• These ones were really quick and easy to put together, simple shapes to cut out and assemble, and to finish just a blob of bronze shimmer dust. (I didn't have time or patience to try to make the Saturn logo, and this seemed to do the trick!)

So there you have it, part two of the Toy Story trilogy - oooo0000000000000ooooooooooo.

Next up: Monsters, Inc.!

Happy Thoughts
x

Sheriff, This is No Time to Panic!

Disney/Pixar # 1 - Toy Story

I'm baaack! After a long hiatus from Disney-themed bakes after finishing the Disney Classic collection, my friends and I decided it was about time to get round to the Disney/Pixar collection, so here we are!


It's going to be slightly different this time. First off, it will not be a weekly event. (I'm afraid I don't have the time, nor money, nor waistline to commit to that again ^_^) There are only 12 movies in the collection this time though, so we're just going to have our Disney Movie Nights as and when we're able to. We are, however, hoping to fit in all of the movies before the release of Brave at the end of June - and have THAT as our finale this time round! Anyways, due to this fact, recipes will be appearing on your screens roughly every 10 days.


Another difference is that this time it will be just cupcakes. I've been toying with this as an idea for a while; the Disney/Pixar films are full of vibrant imagery which I think could translate really well into themed cupcakes, so that's what it will be. I figured that if Pixar can have it's own little bubble within the wider Disney-verse, the Disney/Pixar bakes can have their own little bubble within the wider Princess-and-the-Cake-iverse.

So to get the Disney/Pixar cakes started, we had the well-loved (and arguably the BEST Disney/Pixar film) Toy Story. Now, as if it's not challenging enough to come up with movie-theme cupcakes, Toy Story presented me with an additional challenge: there are three. I didn't want to (and didn't think I'd be able to) come up with three completely different ideas for each of the Toy Story films, as the films themselves all link nicely into one big story. But then I also didn't want to produce the same cupcakes three times running - that would make pretty boring reading for you! In the end I settled on an idea I could develop across the three movies: character costume cupcakes. I'd "dress up" my cupcakes in "costumes" to represent the key characters, that way each time I could work on different characters. It would be a trilogy of cupcakes ^_^

I decided that as the focus of the Toy Story trilogy cupcakes would be on the decoration I'd make a basic vanilla sponge this time. I also decided that to start my cupcake trilogy I could only ever take inspiration from the two main-men: Woody and Buzz.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 12-15 minutes
Decoration time: 30 minutes
Makes 12 cupcakes (6 Woody and 6 Buzz)

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 medium egg
100g self raising flour
1tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla essence

For the butter cream:
50g margarine
100g icing sugar
a few drop of vanilla essence

For the decoration:
Some edible glue, or simple sugar syrup
Bronze shimmer dust
Long red, green and blue sprinkles
Red ball sprinkles
White chocolate stars
Some ready to roll fondant icing and plenty of food colouring! Ok, that's very vague, but I forgot to measure out how much fondant icing I used. If I recall it was roughly 2/3 of a 500g packet. In hope it helps, I've provided below an image of both the colours you'll need and the relative quantities of each colour:

• Ok, so best to start by baking the cupcakes! Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases.
• Beat the margarine and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy, then beat in the egg. Add in the flour and vanilla essence, then place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each cupcake case. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and firm to touch.
• Whilst the cupcakes are cooling, whip up your butter cream by placing the margarine, icing sugar and vanilla essence in a large bowl and beating until a smooth and creamy icing has formed. Place this to one side whilst you cut out your shapes.
• I think it will be easier for me to show you the shapes I cut, rather than to tell you, so I've pasted a photo below. The best tip I could give is to make sure you roll out your icing really thin, as you will be layering it up and the last thing you'll want is a layer of icing as thick as the cake! I also used the bronze shimmer dust to "paint" Woody's sheriff badge and belt buckle bronze.

• So now for the assembly: spread a little butter cream over each cupcake, then start to assemble your icing shapes, using the edible glue to stick down each piece. Again, I think it's probably easier to show you what I did rather than try to describe it, so here's a photo collage of the step-by-step assembly of the Buzz and Woody cupcakes:

So there you have it; Woody and Buzz character costume cupcakes! Ta-dah!

Next up it's A Bugs Life!

Happy Thoughts
x

And We All Lived Happily...

Disney Classic # 50 - Tangled

This post has been a long time coming, I know. The final Disney Night was actually held at the end of July 2011, but unfortunately shortly after that a very close family member became seriously ill and subsequently passed away at the end of August, so I never got round to finishing this post, or publishing it. However, I'm not one to leave things unfinished, so here's the post - better late than never!


With Tangled being the 50th and final Disney Classic (to date) I wanted to make something a bit special. Not only would it be our last Disney Movie Night, but it would mark the end of 16 months of hard work. 50(ish) cakes for 50 films is a huge achievement, so I wanted to make this one the best. This would be what Cinderella's Castle Cake should have been - a yumtastic WOW didyoureallymakethat?? type cake. So I decided on Rapunzel's Tower. ^_^ (and we had a fancy-dress BBQ and let off sky lanterns and everything!! Pics below!)

Now, this cake took me the best part of two days and was a lot of work, which makes for an awfully long and possibly confusing post so you'll have to accept my apologies!

The cake took 2 days in total (but I was doing other things too so it's probably could be cut down to 1 day) and created 48 slices.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

250g cocoa powder
400g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 heaped tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped tsp baking powder
200ml milk
200ml water
300g butter
500g granulated sugar
4 eggs


For the frosting:

1kg vegetable shortening (Trex)
2kg icing sugar
2-3tbsp milk (as required)
vanilla essence (to taste)
brown, yellow, purple and green food colouring


You will also need a large round cookie cutter, an extra large round cookie cutter (around an inch bigger than the other), a large cake board, 3 smaller cake boards, a 16 inch dowel, plus a number of smaller dowels (the size of these does not matter too much as they will be trimmed to size.)

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease 3 square baking tins.
2. Sift the cocoa powder, flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a bowl and put this to one side. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the milk and water. In a third (very large) bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, the add the eggs one at a time until the mixture is light and fluffy.
3. Fold a third of the dry mixture into the batter, followed by half of the wet mixture. Repeat until all of the ingredients are combined (always ending with dry ingredients so as not to over-beat!) 
4. Share the batter evenly between the three baking tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each layer comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
5. While the cakes are cooling, trim your cake boards down to size. The large one will be used for the base, so leave that how it is. However, this cake will be made of 4 parts, and three of these will need custom-cut boards under the, so get trimming those boards! You'll need one board to be the size of your smaller cookie cutter, one to be the size of your larger cookie cutter, and the third to be about an inch wider than the larger cookie cutter. Create a hole in the centre of all three boards for the dowel to go through.
6. Prepare the icing. In a very large bowl (I had to do this in two batches!) mix the shortening, icing sugar, a splash of milk and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy. Add more milk to soften the mixture if needed, but try not to make it too runny. Colour around 1/4 or the mixture green, 1/8 lilac, 1/8 dark brown and the rest a pale cream/beige colour.
7. Once the cakes have cooled, cut out your shapes. You'll need 5 of the smaller sized circles and 3 large circles. Do not discard the leftover cake yet, as you'll be using this for the roof!
8. Note: here's where it might get a bit confusing! start to assemble the cake by creating four "sections" as follows:
1. Section one - the base of the tower. Place one of the larger circles onto a plate and spread a thin layer of icing on the top. Place 2 of the small circles on top of this (sandwiched with icing), then carve into the larger circle at an angle to give a "trapeze" type shape. (See pics for reference!)
2. Section two - the tower. Place one of the smaller circles of cake onto the smallest cake board you trimmed down. Spread a thin layer of icing on top of this, then place another small circle on top of this one. Again place a thin layer of icing on top, followed by the final small circle.
3. Section three - the house. Sandwich the two remaining large circles of cake together with a little frosting, then place onto the middle-sized board you cut earlier.
4. Section 4 - the roof. After cutting your circles out of the square cake, you should find you have a number of almost triangular shaped pieces remaining. Use these to create the roof on the largest of the boards you cut. (You may have to stick some pieces together with icing to achieve the correct shape.)
9. Once you have your four sections assemble, give each one a "crumb coat". That is, spread a thin layer of icing over each one to help stick the crumbs to the cake, and to give a smooth surface for your icing. Once you've crumb coated each section, pop it in the fridge for at least an hour to set. Note: sections 1, 2 and 3 will be iced in the cream/beige colour, and section 4 (the roof) will be iced lilac, so it's probably best to use these colours for your crumb coat!
10. Whilst your crumb coat is setting, you can prepare your serving board by covering it in a layer of green frosting. Press the flat side of a spatula onto the frosting and lift up to create texture.
11. Once the crumb coats have set, removed the sections from the fridge as you need them for icing and assembly. Start with the base of the tower (section 1) Spread a smooth layer of cream/beige icing on this, then place it onto the prepared cake board. Place your large 16 inch dowel into the middle of this, then add four smaller dowels (around 5mm taller than the cake) around this, as if you were pin pointing N, S, E and W.
12. Remove the tower (section 2) from the fridge, and again spread a smooth layer of the cream/beige coloured icing around this. Using the hole you create in the middle of the cake board as a guide, ease this onto the large dowel in the centre of the cake. The cake board at the bottom of this section should rest comfortably on the shorter dowels placed in the base. You'll probably have to touch up the icing at this stage (I know mine had a big hand-print in it!) so just run a little more icing over the two section to hide the seam. (I failed at this - you can clearly see on my cake where the joint was!) Again add four dowels that are slightly taller than the cake, although this time try to pin-point NE, NW, SE and SW.
13. Next work on section 3, the house. Ice this all over with the cream/beige icing, then pipe on some of the wood detail. Like with the last section, use the hole you made in the centre of the cake board to place this cake on top of the other, and over the centre dowel. The board at the bottom will rest against the smaller dowels to prevent the cake collapsing under it's own weight, and the large dowel in the centre will prevent the four sections from slipping off one another. Again you'll need to put 4 small dowels into this section of the cake, this time going back to pin-pointing N, S, E and W.
14. Finally take out the roof and give this a layer of lilac icing. Like the previous sections, place this cake on top of the other, using the hole in the centre of the board to slot onto the large dowel. You'll probably find that your dowel stick out of the top of the cake a little - this is intentional, just cover it with icing and use this as the point at the top of the tower. (I had to do this as there was no way I could have got my cake that thin without it breaking!) 
15. Now your cake is fully assembled, go back and pipe the remaining details. I fund that I needed to g over all of my "woodwork" details to make them stand out, and I also piped on the "beams" under the "house" part of the tower. Pipe on green frosting to give the impression of climbing ivy. Et voila - Rapunzel's tower!

So, if I was going to do this again I would probably decorate it with fondant icing, as I'm not very neat with butter cream/frosting. This was actually a sort of trial run for the wedding cake which I was asked to make for a friend, as they wanted one of their towers to be chocolate, and for butter cream frosting. I'd also spend more time on finishing touches, like adding flowers and maybe a little fondant Pascal, but after two days of baking at the same time as making my own version of Belle's ball gown and preparing a BBQ, I was quite happy to leave it as it was. Would I make it again? Definitely. And I'll post the pics here if I do!

Well... If I'm right that makes all 50 films in the Disney Classic collection to date baked! It has been one hell of a journey, and with so many hiccoughs along the way it took almost twice as long as we originally expected it to. But I had a blast, and I think the others did too!

L-R: Maleficent, Minnie Mouse, Roger Radcliffe, Tom Selleck, Hades and Belle

Happy Thoughts
x

Also Cute and Fluffy!

Disney Classic # 41 - Lilo and Stitch

When it came to thinking of a cake for Lilo and Stitch, pineapple upside-down cake just seemed to make sense. (Although I should mention that even though this choice seems fairly obvious, a friend did have to make the hint before I picked up on it!) I'd decided quite early on that rather than baking any old upside-down cake, I'd do my best to Stitch-ify the design on top of the cake. It's just a shame they don't make blue pineapples...

I looked through all of my cookbooks for a pineapple upside down pudding recipe to no avail (which seemed strange, I thought people loved pineapple upside down pudding!!) so I ended up using a recipe a found here. I found the image to use as a template for my Stitch-side-up pattern here.

Prep time: 50 minutes
Cook time: 35-40 minutes
Makes 12 slices

(Note: the prep time here is so high because it took a while to cut the cherries and pineapple rings to the correct size and to place them all to look like Stitch's face. If you go for a more traditional pineapple-upside-down cake design using whole rings and whole cherries the prep time would probably only be 15-20 mins)
Ingredients:

200g margarine
200g golden caster sugar
Small tin of pineapple rings drained from their juice (reserve 2tbsp of the juice)
Half a pot of glace cherries
150g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp lemon juice
3 eggs

1. Preheat to oven to gas mark 4. Place your template picture onto the bottom on a 9" loose bottomed cake tin, and place a layer of grease-proof paper over that.
2. Beat together 50g of margarine with 50g of sugar and spread this evenly over the bottom and sides of the cake tin, making sure you can still see the template design below.)
3. Slice the cherries into thin strips, and cut the pineapple slices into small chunks. Use the cherry slices as the outline of your design, and use the pineapple chunks to fill the gaps.
4. Place the remaining ingredients (including the 2tbsp of reserved pineapple juice) into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until just combined. Carefully spoon the mixture on top of the pineapple and smooth with the back of a spoon. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until springy to touch or a skewer comes out clean.
5. Remove from the oven but leave to stand in the tin for 5 minutes, before carefully turning out onto a serving plate.
6. Get your friends to admire your masterpiece, then cut into slices and serve warm!

Next time we're watching Treasure Planet, and I'll be making some yummy steam-punk inspired cupcakes!

Happy Thoughts
x

What Would Happen If You Gave a YoYo to a Flock of Flamingos?

Disney Classic # 38 - Fantasia 2000

I played with a few ideas for Fantasia 2000, all of them working along the same line... Fantasia 2000 was part-sequel part-re-imagining of Fantasia, so what ever I did for the cake had to be a bigger, better, new and improved version of the popping candy cupcakes I'd made for Fantasia. For Fantasia I aimed to make something that - on top of being tasty -was colourful, noisy, and had a bit of sparkle, and I think I achieved that with the rainbow sprinkles inside the cake, the popping candy centre and the edible glitter. But this time I wanted more - and so we ended up with a rainbow sponge cake, popping candy layers, edible glitter and SPARKLERS!!

I chuffing loved the sparklers - not the greatest photo I know!

I sort of made this up as I went along using my basic vanilla sponge recipe. For the icing I thought I'd try something new and so used a recipe I found here, but to be honest I don't think I'd use it again. It was easy to spread and set nicely, but it was far too runny for piping and had a coconut-y taste that I wasn't too keen on. But hey ho, that's how it goes!

Prep time: 1-2 hours            Cook time: 20 mins per layer (2 hours)         Serves: 10-12

Ingredients:
200g ready to roll white icing (or 200g of pre-coloured icings in colours of your choice)
Various food dyes (red, yellow and blue at a minimum!)
300g margarine
300g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
300g self raising flour
4 tsps vanilla extract
200g shortening (if you can't get any shortening, I used a dairy-free vegetable spread ;-) )
1kg icing sugar
120ml water
pinch of salt
1tsp almond extract
5 packets of popping candy
2tbsps strawberry jam
Edible glitter
multi-coloured sugar balls

1. Colour the ready to roll icing and cut out shapes to decorate the top and sides of the cake with (this can be done a few days in advance to save time)
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a cake tin
3. Beat together the margarine and the caster sugar until creamy, then beat in one of the eggs. Sift some of the flour into the bowl and stir into the mixture. Repeat until all of the eggs and flour have been incorporated to make a smooth mixture.
4. Add two tsps of vanilla extract and mix well.
5. Divide the mixture equally between 6 bowls and use food dye to colour the mixtures red, orange, yellow, blue, green and purple.
6. Bake each layer for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when pressed. Turn out and leave to cool on a wire rack.
7. Whilst the layers are cooling, prepare the frosting. Tip the shortening, water, 2 tsps vanilla extract and 1 tsp almond extract into a large bowl with roughly half of the icing sugar. Beat with an electric mixer for 10 minutes, then beat in the remaining icing sugar.
8. Once the cakes have cooled, begin to stack them, placing a thin spread of strawberry jam and a packet of popping candy between each layer.
9. Once the cakes are stacked, ice the cake. Stick the pre-made decorations onto the sides ad top of the cake, and sprinkle edible glitter over the whole thing. To finish, crate a border around the bottom of the cake using the sugar balls.
10. Cut into slices and enjoy!

It might be a while until you hear from me again, as this is/was the last movie/cake before I had to take a break to go into hospital for my operation, and I've decided to give myself April off for recovery and hope to pick this up again in May! Whenever the next Disney Night ends up being, we will be watching The Emperor's New Groove and I'll be making something a little bit Inca! Until then...

Happy Thoughts
x

Slimy, Yet Satisfying

Disney Classic # 32 - The Lion King

I've got to be honest... this one wasn't my idea (or creation). Way back in July 2010 when I was first admitted to hospital, Zoe and Mike came to visit me one day, with flowers and a plan. The Disney Night idea was still only a couple of months old, and I hadn't yet thought of ideas for many of the later films, and had been asking my friends to share any ideas they had. Well, on this day in hospital in July, Mike came to me and said he'd been think about his favourite Disney film, The Lion King, and trying to remember scenes in which they eat something. The most memorable scene for Mike was during the Hakuna Matata song, where Timon and Pumba start looking around for grubs to feed Simba.

Mike's idea to transform this into cake was to make a chocolate log, and make a few creepy crawlies to go on/in/under it, which I thought sounded fantastic. So that's what we went with. Mike took the lead on this one, making the chocolate log and adding a few of the crawlies, and I contributed by making a couple of crawlies myself.

My jelly worms were based on an idea I found on this Halloween website back in October, and I got the recipe for marshmallow here. And now I'm going to hand over to Mike...

Chocolate Log

Chocolate Log: I originally came across Delia's recipe for Buche de Noel, which attracted me by its flourless creation and the promise of nutty depth of flavour. Creme de Marrons was unavailable, however, so I resigned myself to making her less special chocolate log, until I realised that a) I didn't have enough chocolate for the recipe and b) there was a jar of nutella right by my hand. So this is a Delia recipe adapated heavily by me to make use of what limited ingredients I had.

Prep Time: 20 mins [60 mins if you lack a whisk]
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Serves: 6, as part of a whole
Ingredients -

For the cake:
6 large eggs, separated
150g caster sugar
75g cocoa powder

For the filling:
100g dark chocolate
2 eggs, separated
200g nutella
50g unsalted butter

First melt the chocolate in a bain marie to avoid over heating. Then add the 2 beaten egg yolks and combine until glossy.

Add nutella at some stage, along with the melted butter. Beat the egg white until stiff and fold into your slightly *cooled* chocolate mixture. Chill.

In the mean time, whisk the eggs yolks in a bowl and then add the caster sugar, whisking until the mixture begins to thicken slightly. Sift in the cocoa powder, and gently but thoroughly fold in the egg whites, having whisked them to soft peaks. Place in a baking tray lined with baking parchment and bake at 180 for 20 minutes. The cake will rise quite a lot, but will fall back, as designed.

After it has cooled, turn it out onto a new square of baking parchment and remove the original baking parchment [note - using foil cause serious issues at this point, I do not recommend]. Spread cooled filling evenly over the surface, then use the parchment to roll the cake into a log shape. Finished! Garnish with various grubs, and use chocolate clusters to suggest leaves, detritus etc around the base.

Marshmallow Grubs

Prep time: 45 mins       Cook time: at least 2 hours to set              Serves: 8
Ingredients:
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
125ml boiling water
pink and yellow food colouring

1tsp vanilla extract
25g gelatine powder
250ml cold water
500g granulated sugar
2 egg whites

1. Mix the icing sugar and cornflour together in a small bowl and put to one side.
2. Add the food colouring to the boiling water as required, and mix in the vanilla extract. Sprinkle the gelatine powder on top and stir until all of the gelatine has dissolved.
3. Put the sugar and 250ml water in a medium sized saucepan over a low heat, stirring until all of the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil without stirring until the temperature reaches 122°C. Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatine mixture.
4. 
   Pour the egg whites into a large bowl and beat until stiff. Using an electric mixer on a low speed, carefully pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites. Continue to beat for around 5 minutes, until the mixture becomes thick and pillowy.
5. Dust a sheet of greaseproof paper with the icing sugar/cornflour mixture. Pour roughly 1/4 of the marshmallow mixture along one edge of the greaseproof paper and quickly roll the paper over itself to create a sausage like shape. Tie off both ends with string, and tie string at various intervals along the middle, to create the segments. Repeat with the remaining mixture.
6. Leave to set in a cool place for at least 2 hours (do not refrigerate)
7. Once set, cut the strings and discard them. Rub a little of the icing sugar and cornflour mixture onto your hands, and carefully unroll the greaseproof paper and remove the marshmallow. The marshmallow will be quite sticky in places, so it is a good idea to sprinkle a little of the icing sugar/cornflour mixture over it.
8. To serve, tear chunks off the grubs and enjoy ^_^

Jelly Worms

Prep time: 5 minutes      Cook time: none, but needs to set in the fridge overnight       Serves: 15

Ingredients:
One pack of strawberry jelly
6oz boiling water
2oz milk
green food colouring

1. First thing you will need to do is cut the straws down to match the size of your glass. I used jumbo straws for this, so that my worms were fatter, but any plastic straws work just as well. Cut the straws to be slightly longer than the glass you are using, then stand the straws in the glass. Tip - make sure the straws are really compact as this will help to stop the jelly falling out the bottom of them!
2. Break the jelly into cubes in a jug. Add 6oz of boiling water and stir well until all of the jelly cubes have dissolved. Add the milk and stir well.
3. Stir in a drop of green food colouring, to achieve an earth-wormy type of colour.
4. Carefully pour the jelly mixture into the straws, and place in the fridge to set for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight.
5. To remove the jelly worms from the straws, hold each straw under the hot tap for a few seconds to loosen the jelly, then squeeze the end of the straw gently to push the jelly out.
6. Place on a plate and serve!

Next time we're watching Pocahontas, and I'll be making a Pumpkin Pie.

Happy Thoughts

x

Les Poissons, Les Poissons, hee-hee-hee, ho-ho-ho!

Disney Classic # 28 - The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid was the first Disney movie I ever saw... it got me hooked! Unfortunately though, I struggled for ideas for a little while. My friend Becky asked me if I would be willing to make a wedding cake for her... so for a short while I decided that what I would do was make a plain sponge cake, ice it in fondant, and then decorate it with fondant sea-creatures, as a sort of practice wedding style cake. (Of course, when it came to the wedding cake, the sea-creatures would be replaced with fondant flowers, or butterflies, or something more weddingy.) Anyways, a couple of weeks before The Little Mermaid, Big Mike asked me what cake I was doing, and I told him. "Oh," he said, "I thought you'd do another jellyfish cake." AH!! How could I be so stupid!!

A little history on the jellyfish cake... my friend Helen LOVES jellyfish. Or rather, anything that lives under the sea. So for her birthday back in February last year I decided to make her a cake in the shape of a jellyfish. I made a stand with iridescent tentacles, covered the cake in iridescent glitter, and the inside... well the inside had to be rainbow cake.

A little more history for you - rainbow cake (cake with a multicoloured sponge) is like my speciality cake. Before starting the Disney nights, I made it all the time and my friends were always like "oh wow that's amazing!! I love it so much!" And I love it so much.. in fact, I'm thinking of having a rainbow wedding cake myself. How could you not love something that looks like this:

But anyways, I'm off topic. Jellyfish cake was such an obvious choice for The Little Mermaid, I was hitting myself for not thinking of it straight away. Big Mike came to the rescue, and jellyfish cake happened yet again.

I didn't think crab cakes would go down so well...

Not really any references for this one; it uses my usual vanilla sponge recipe, and the design came to me in a random stroke of inspiration when walking to Sarah's house one day.

Prep time: 30-40 mins           Cook time: 45mins        Serves: 10

Ingredients:
300g margarine
300g caster sugar
300g self raising flour
3 eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
various food colourings
150g unsalted butter
350g icing sugar (plus extra for dusting)
splash of milk
300g ready to roll white fondant icing
edible glitter (I used white hologram)

You will also need:
A cake board
A tall stand (I used a oil burner stand, but a pint glass would probably work just as well. Anything you can stand the cake on stably)
iridescent gift wrap (I bought mine from Clinton's)
Scissors
Sellotape

1. Before starting, make sure that your cake board is the same size that the cake will be. If it's too big, trim it down to size.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, and line a Pyrex (or ovenproof) bowl with foil.
3. In a large bowl, beat together the margarine and sugar until creamy. Sift in roughly 1/3rd of the flour and mix. Add one egg and beat into the mixture. Repeat this process until all of the egg and flour have been incorporated. Add 2tsps vanilla essence.
4. Divide the cake mixture evenly between 7 bowls. Use the food dye to colour the bowls of cake mixture into different colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink.
5. Carefully pour the red mixture into the Pyrex bowl, and level the top with the back of a spoon. Next carefully add the orange mixture on top of the red, again smoothing gently with the back of the spoon. Repeat until all the cake mixture has been used.
6. Bake in the oven for around 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Once cooked, remove from oven and leave to cool in the bowl for one hour before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Whilst the cake is cooking, it's time to get crafty and create the tentacles! Cut the iridescent cellophane wrap into strip, and stick these around the edge of the underside of the cake board. When you lay the cake board on the stand, these should be long enough to completely conceal the stand.
8. Once the cake has cooled, prepare the butter icing. In a large bowl, beat the butter until soft. Add the icing sugar, the vanilla extract and a splash of milk and mix until smooth. Add a little purple food colouring and mix well.
9. Place the cooled cake onto the prepared cake board, and cover with the purple butter cream.
10. Dust the work surface with a little icing sugar, and roll out the fondant icing to around 3mm thickness. Place this carefully over the cake and smooth down. Trim the edges a little longer than they need to be, then pinch, crumple and push up the edges to make the bottom of the cake look wobbly/jelllyfishlike. (That is a terrible description - but if you look at the pictures you'll see what I mean.)
11. Make a little syrupy-icing mix, using 1 tsp icing sugar and 3tsps water. Use a pastry brush to brush the syrup all over the cake. Dip the pastry brush in the edible glitter and the dab this onto the cake, all over.
12. Place the cake on the stand, and there you have your very own jellyfish! Cut into slices, ogle for a bit and then enjoy!

Next time we're watching The Rescuers Down Under, and I'll be honouring the classy heroine Bianca by attempting a traditional Hungarian Dobos Torte (or Dobosh Torta).

Happy Thoughts
x

And We Call It Bella Notte

Disney Classic # 15 - Lady and the Tramp

I love looking at photos of cakes, especially novelty cakes, so it probably comes as no surprise that I often buy cake decorating books. Before I ever dreamed of "Disney movie nights" I had found a very, very cool "spaghetti and meatballs" cupcake recipe in one of my cake books, and I've been waiting for an excuse to make them. Well, then the Disney nights started, and what better reason could I possibly have for making spaghetti and meatball cupcakes than in honour of this classic scene from the movie:

I found the original idea in Karen Tack and Alan Richardson's Hello Cupcake! but used my usual recipes for vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream. These cakes looked great, but with all the icing, the jam and the chocolate piled on top they were very sweet and sickly! We also found them quite messy to eat, and most of us ended up using a fork or spoon - expect a very gooey and very sweet cupcake!

Prep time: 30 mins      Cook time: 20 mins      Serves: makes 9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

100g margarine
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
1 medium egg
Few drops of vanilla essence
12 Ferraro Rocher chocolates
250g strawberry jam
150g unsalted butter
350g icing sugar
Drop of milk
A little white chocolate, for grating

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with white cupcake cases.
2. Cream the margarine and caster sugar together in a large bowl. Sift in the flour and fold this into the mixture. Add the egg and vanilla essence to the mixture and beat well until all ingredients have combined.
3. Carefully spoon one tbsp of cake mixture into each cupcake case (this made 9 cupcakes) and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and firm to touch.
4. Remove the cakes from the oven and set to one side to cool.
5. Whilst the cakes are cooling, make the butter cream. Beat the butter in a large bowl to soften. Sift in a little of the icing sugar and beat into the butter. Continue adding the icing sugar a little at a time until it is all combined. Add a drop of milk to the mixture to soften it, if required, and beat in some vanilla essence.
6. Once the cupcakes have cooled, cover each one in a thin layer of butter cream. Place the rest of the butter cream in a piping bag and pipe "spaghetti" onto the cupcakes. This actually looks better if you do it roughly, allowing some pieces to hang over the edges and overlapping the icing, rather than if you try to keep it neat and tidy.
7. In another bowl, stir the jam until it gets runny. Unwrap the Ferraro Rocher's and drop each one into the jam. Using a tablespoon, scoop one "meatball" (Ferrero Rocher) and some jam out o the bowl and place this on top of the "spaghetti" spoon any left over jam onto the cupcakes. Note: I used one "meatball per cupcake, plus an extra "meatball" on the serving dish or resting in the middle of the cupcakes, for decoration
8. Grate a little white chocolate over all of the cupcakes, serve and enjoy!

Next time we're watching Sleeping Beauty, and I'll be testing out my piping skills to make something pretty ^_^

Happy Thoughts
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