Tuesday 29 March 2011

Chocolate Sophistication

I got an order from a work friend, Francine who wanted some chocolate cupcakes with a giant chocolate cupcake for her son's 21st birthday party. As he was turning 21 I didn't think it was appropriate to create anything too flashy or childish (even though I had a Disney Princess tea party for my 21st). So I went with a cream cheese icing with a rich dark chocolate sponge, the giant cupcake also has a chocolate genache filling topped with chocolate flakes.




A little tip on how to make the chocolate flakes, take your slab of chocolate and turn it upside down so you have the smooth side facing you, then taking a large sharp knife drag the knife with even pressure towards yourself along the chocolates surface and you will quickly and easily create paper thin flakes!

The cakes turned out intense and heavenly devilish!

Rainbow Cakes

These are possibly the most pleasurable cakes to make. I made these with my friend Lauren years ago, after she had seen the recipe in a book and knew I would want to try them out. I hadn't made them since but decided to get nostalgic for her birthday and recreate the wonderous rainbow cake!

The process is sublimely simple, just split your cake batter into equal portions (4-5 small bowls) then add a generous amount of natural food colouring, I prefer Dr Oetker as they are cheap and not full of E numbers so are safe for the little ones. Then layer in teaspoon quantities into your paper cases. The best thing is that you can apply this process to most cake batters from vanilla to lemon, obviously not chocolate. It is a bit fiddly but I'm sure you will agree the results are wonderful, perfect for kids parties or the young at heart!



Candy Store Cupcakes

My good friend Helen of Minnie Bats Designs was collaborating with jewellery designer Sarah Hallowes for a candy shop themed exhibition/store. Helen asked me to create some cupcakes for their private view, she didn't ask for any particular type of cupcake so I was able to create anything I wanted. I went with the candy theme, bright colours topped with paste coloured dolly mixture sweets and glitter with poppy paper cases. I really liked the final cupcake design I went more on looks than an ellaborate recipe so plumped for the standard Chop's Cakes vanilla cupcake recipe taken from an old fairy cake recipe with vanilla butter cream icing.




The Candy Shop Exhibition

Minnie Bats designs (My fav is the ice-cream with kitsch leopard print cone!)



Sarah Hallowes Jewellery, cute smartie-like stud earrings



Left: The cupcakes were to be found by the green dribbling monster...obviously!
Right: Cheeky polka dot Mrs Robot in some very sexy hot pink pants created by Helen

Check out http://minniebats.com/ and http://sarahhallowes.co.uk/