Enchanted Fantasy Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

I just want to begin by saying that these are the best vanilla cupcakes (taste and texture) I have made by far. After testing three recipes over the past week, this is the clear winner. I made these to celebrate a young lady's 18th birthday and was given free reign with design, so I went for some enchanted fantasy flowers in bright colours. Who said vanilla cupcakes are plain and boring?

The recipes tested include: 

Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes by Glorious Treats - great texture and moist, however lacked that delicious vanilla cupcake flavour even though I used real vanilla beans. If I tried this recipe again I would substitute the oil with melted butter.

A Better Vanilla Cake by Beyond Buttercream - not bad however taste and texture was not my favourite for the classic vanilla cupcake flavour.

Over the years I have also baked many of the traditional creaming method vanilla cupcakes (cream butter and sugar, add flour and milk alternately) - this results in great flavour but the texture can be a little dry.

The winning recipe for me is Billy's Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes. It uses the reverse creaming method(mix dry ingredients, then add butter) which helps keep the texture soft, and real butter for great flavour. The changes I have made are to substitute the milk with buttermilk to ensure moist cupcakes, and to use real vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste instead of extract. Oh and I always use Western Star Original butter which is salted, so I omit the salt.

Plum and Almond Cupcakes with Heavenly White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

What does one do when faced with the dreaded phrase "I don't like chocolate"? Well, in short, you whip them up these amazing plum and almond cupcakes and hope like hell that they don't mind white chocolate in frosting!

I LOVE fruit in cupcakes.

Just had to have that sentence stand alone as it deserves it. Fruit (and vegies for that matter), give cakes a lovely moist texture and great flavour. Banana, carrot, pineapple, berries, pears and plums all make fantastic cakes. These cupcakes are simply divine as they are moist and tasty but not too sweet thanks to the cream cheese in the frosting. They make for pretty little morning or afternoon tea cakes, and dainty minis would be perfect for a do it yourself high tea. Try them, they are quick and easy to whip up and I have not had a single person not like them as yet.

The Last of the Easter Bunny Cupcakes

 

Inspired by the fabulous Bella Cupcakes I created these little cakes today to celebrate Easter. The cupcakes were leftovers from a trial run of a marble mudcake recipe so some are marble and some are white chocolate mudcake. I wanted to try to recreate the cuteness of my inspiration with a white, pink and purple colour scheme.

I was also inspired the equally creative Bakerella to try her cute little chick cake pops. These did not go as well as I substituted white chocolate for candy melts as I didn't have any. The white chocolate did not colour very well, neither does it go on very smooth. It's still a little bit of cuteness to brighten up the day.

Cute As Birthday Cakes

Now that we're well into the silly season, my next post will be Christmas themed, I promise. But for today I wanted to share with you some last minute cakes I whipped up last weekend for the mother-in-laws birthday. Mothers are special creatures and as such must be appreciated and their birthdays celebrated with cake. The idea of someone not having cake on their birthday is just appalling to me.

Lemon Poppy Engagement Cupcakes

 I had such a great time last weekend. After all the planning and organising, my engagement party went off without a hitch. I wanted to put together a cupcake tower for dessert, instead of the more formal cake option. Cupcakes are just so easy to pick out your own and devour without the need for a plate or spoon. Lemon poppy was the new trial flavour accompanied by the already well appreciated divine carrot cupcakes topped with yummy cream cheese frosting. The recipe was taken from the fabulous Bella Cupcakes blog, and it is deliciously moist, so much so that these really do not require frosting at all.

Wedding Cupcake Trial

 

Weddings. I love weddings. I'm at that age where my friends are starting to get married and I enjoy being there to celebrate it with them and shed a little happy tear at the ceremony and speeches. Now that I am newly engaged, I have entered the circle of married or to be married. And I like it. I can now freely talk about weddings in public, read wedding magazines and attend wedding expos without the slightest turn of a head.

Next month I have the greatest pleasure of baking and decorating a friend's wedding cupcake tower. I am nervous, but excited. Yes, you might have guessed, this is my FIRST EVER wedding cake/cupcakes. The bride is going to look absolutely stunning, and I am hopeful that my cakes will measure up the same way.

Pretty In Blue Cupcakes

 Blogging is a very new hobby for me. It started from a love of baking, which then turned into a love of decorating, then photographing and finally recording my triumphs and losses in writing. Each time I decide to bake, a lot of thought goes into the flavour of cake to make, and how to decorate it. These can be two very separate things, or they can be tied together. This time I feel the decorating and the cake flavour baked are distinct, so they have been divided up. I am so happy with how these cupcakes turned out in both flavour and presentation, and they are my favourite so far.

Dragonfly Cupcakes

Yummy! Dragonfly cupcakes - they are such a pretty design and I had to put my own stamp on them by using a blue and purple colour scheme. You can get purple dragonfly's can't you?
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These delicious morsels were made up of devils food cupcakes, topped with chocolate ganache, then covered with fondant discs and decorations. The cute little antennae are made out of bean vermicelli noodles so they're edible. They're just sooo cute. And I suppose the bows are cute too.

Baby cupcakes dressed in animal suits

So for my first post I'm showing some cupcakes that I made to take to work for a baby shower morning tea, hence the theme I chose. Now I received as a present late last year the fantastic new Planet Cake Cupcakes book by Paris Cutler which this design comes from. I so wanted to make the santa's crew cupcakes in December, but did not have the time to spare...I'm hoping that with lots of time to plan I will achieve it this year :-)