Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Updates will be on hold for a few days while I enjoy Christmas and get started on my new job. But please stay tuned, there are going to be lots of exciting things happening here on Princess Cupcake in the new year.

To tide you over until then, here are a few pictures of some winter themed cakes I made.

These are the cupcakes I made as gifts for my family this year. They are spiced buttermilk sponges, topped with a vanilla buttercream. They have been decorated with royal icing snowflakes, snowflake sprinkles and my usual sprinkle of edible glitter.
I'm pretty proud of these, this was the first time I've ever worked with royal icing. Sadly the lighting in this picture does not show the buttercream to it's best advantage, it's actually a lovely minty green colour. However it's been very grey here in England these last few days which has made photography a challenge.

And these cupcakes were presents for my housemates last year, these are actually the same buttermilk sponges as this year. These ones have been iced with blue water icing, with piped snowflakes, more of the snowflake sprinkles and edible glitter. Please excuse the fact I put them back into the bun tin for photography, I can actually remember why I did. 

And finally this cake was made for a friend of mine a couple of years ago. This is a chocolate sponge, sandwiched and topped with vanilla buttercream (actually this is pretty much the colour of this years cupcakes!). It has been decorated with yet more snowflake sprinkles, silver balls, a dusting of icing sugar and a touch of edible glitter.

Can you tell that I like snowflakes? And glitter?
Merry Christmas everyone!

Baked Gifts - Part 2, Presentation Makes Perfect

I wasn’t originally planning on turning my discussion on how to plan home baked gifts into a miniseries but after publishing what is now titled “Part 1, Tips to avoid stress and manage disasters” I was stuck by the inspiration fairy. So here I present Part 2, Presentation Makes Perfect.

This article is a little heavy on the links, and I freely admit that all of them are to Lakeland. I promise that I’m not being paid to promote them; I just really like the quality of their products. That and their website usually has everything I need in one place! However these particular products and similar ones can easily be found on Amazon or in high street shops.

 

In my opinion the key to brilliant homemade gifts lies in the presentation, if something has been presented beautifully receivers are less likely to notice any flaws! Taking the time to present a gift nicely really shows how much you care, and if you’ve spent hours working on something you want it to be displayed at its best right? So here are my ideas for making homemade gifts really look magical.

 

Presentation Bags
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/12007/50-Presentation-Bags

One of the simplest ways to present baked goodies, these bags are gusseted which makes them easier to fill (and fit more in...). These bags are perfect for individual cupcakes, biscuits and chocolates.  These bags are plain which makes them perfect to use all year round, just pop your goodies tie it up with some nice ribbon and you’re all done!

And at £2.99 for 50 bags you can’t go wrong!

 

If cake pops are more your thing why not try these cake pop bags? This pack of 12 bags includes white ribbons and is a snip at £1.69
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15931/12-Cake-Pop-Bags

 

Or how about some cellophane sheets in festive colours? This pack of 12 costs £3.99 and includes 4 of each colour (red, green and clear). These sheets are perfect for chocolates and candies.
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/3825/Cellophane-Sheets  

 

In a similar vein to the cellophane sheets linked above Lakeland also offer these foil wrappers. Perfect for chocolates and a bargain at £4.99 for 200!
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15559/200-Foil-Wrappers

 

Boxes
Sometimes bags just aren’t enough, in which case the obvious solution are boxes! Available in a huge variety of designs and sizes for just about anything you can think off, these are some of my favourites.

 

Cake pops can be a bit awkward to package (well I think they are, I don’t actually like them so I’m only guessing) especially if you have created a particularly complex design. In that case why not present them in this specially designed box? This box will hold up to 8 sticks, and costs £4.29 for 2 boxes.
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15932/2-Cake-Pop-Gift-Boxes

 

These boxes are brilliant in my opinion; they are designed to hold cakes (up to 6’’ or 15cm) but by using the included inserts these boxes can be adapted to hold 4 cupcakes or 9 petit fours! The design is suitably modern and festive, and at £2.99 for 2 boxes they really are good value. But get in quickly as these boxes are reduced to clear!
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/16861/Lakeland-Christmas-Baubles-2-Cake-Boxes

 

Given that macaroons really are a pain to make, I think they deserve special presentation! This lovely box is designed for macaroons and it looks very pretty. This costs £5.49 for 2 boxes but like the cake boxes are reduced to clear.
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/16862/2-Macaroon-Boxes

Finally there is this box, which features a pretty pink gingham design making it suitable for use all year round. This lovely box is designed for cupcakes and can hold up to 6 cakes, and at £2.79 for 2 boxes it really offers fantastic value.
Available from: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15302/2-Cupcake-Boxes

 

Other ideas
Boxes and pretty bags are all well and good but they aren’t the only way to present gifts and they aren’t much use if you are giving jam! So finally here are some other simple ideas to make your homemade gifts look extra pretty.

 

No gift of jam, marmalade or chutney is complete without a nice label to tell the recipient what is inside! So why not jazz up your jars with some unique homemade labels? Get technical and design some on the computer to print out onto white labels (available in stationery shops) or if you are feeling creative why not get busy with brightly coloured card? Just punch a hole in the corner, decorate with fancy pens, glitter, stickers or whatever takes your fancy and tie the label onto the jar with some string or nice ribbon? Another easy way to jazz up your jars is with jam-jar covers (a perfect way to use up scrap fabric) or with some pretty lids. Lots of cooking shops sell patterned lids amongst the preserving equipment and these are an easy way to add a cute touch to your jars (especially if you are recycling old jars!)

 

How about including a long lasting gift with your goodies? When giving cake or biscuits why not buy a pretty cake tin put them in? That way your recipient gets a lovely new tin to keep (extra tins are always useful) and you don’t have to worry about cakes/biscuits going stale in non-airtight containers. Finally don’t under estimate the effect of using seasonal decorations and cake cases when making cupcakes. This is a really simple way to make your gifts look extra special!

That’s it for now everyone; I hope that these ideas are helpful in some way! 

Guest Post: Spiced Banana Cake

Today marks the introduction of a new feature on Princess Cupcake, guest bloggers. This is the first of several posts written by my best friend Inthannon. Enjoy! All photographs are owned by Inthannon, so please do not use them without her or my permission.

Last week my friend Princess Cupcake asked me to do a couple of guest posts for her since I’m almost as much of a baking enthusiast as she is. This is the first and later on I will bring to the table my Finnish recipes for couple of Christmas goodies.

This first one however, is something I made last night because my fiancée’s sweet tooth was aching. ;) Since I know Cupcake doesn’t care for bananas and I really like banana cake and think it’s a brilliant way to use up over ripe bananas (if you have them in the house), here’s my favourite one with a Christmassy twist.

First thing about banana cake is that the riper the banana the better the cake. The best bananas for this kind of thing are the ones that you look at and think “That’s too dark and gooey to eat” (Obviously if the banana looks like it’s growing unspeakable things or about to walk out of the fruit basket, don’t bake it, bin it). One thing you’ll notice between the cake you’ll make and my pictures is that yours will be darker. This will be because you’ve done what I said and not what I’ve done and used properly ripe bananas... Hello from Miss Hypocrite ;)

Note on measurements: Since I’m weird and foreign, most of my recipes have these strange measurements of dl. This stands for decilitre, which is 100 millilitres. So if the recipe says 2dl of sugar, take a standard measuring jug that has millilitres on it and using the millilitre scale measure out 200ml of sugar. Or go to uncle google and search for a way to convert sugar volume to weight. Or a volume of your choosing.

Spiced Banana Cake (or about 24 cupcakes)

150g butter

2.5 dl sugar

2 eggs

4-5 dl flour (depending on how moist you want your cake, also depends on size of eggs)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cloves

2 tsp cinnamon

3 crushed bananas

For a standard cake, heat the oven to 170C or Gas Mark 3-4. For cupcakes (unless using a cupcake maker) 180 C/Gas Mark 4. Cream together the butter and the sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix together all the dry ingredients and then slowly add into the mix in turns with the crushed bananas. Mix until even. Pour into a buttered/floured cake tin (deep, 9”/23cm diameter) and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until cooked through. Cupcakes should only take 8-12 minutes in a machine or about 15 minutes in the oven. I used my cupcake maker for these mainly because I’ve only used it twice.

Figure 1 This is pretty much the ideal amount of mix for my cupcake maker.

Note: I tend to almost double the amount of spices since I enjoy spicy things, but there is no real need to do this (unless you’re like me). Also non-stick palette knife is the BEST at getting cupcakes out of the maker. Just slide it between the cake and the maker, apply a little leverage and hey presto, one free cake!

I decided against icing these, just because I find they are nice on their own (and I ran out of day) but I think a cinnamon buttercream might be really yummy with these. Or maybe something with ginger. This is the beauty of baking, we can all make changes to the recipe if we don’t like something in it.

Until next time,

Inthannon

Baked Gifts – Part 1, Tips to avoid stress and manage disasters

I love handmade gifts, they are so much more personal than shop brought gifts and one of my favourite things to do is bake gifts. However Christmas is a busy time of year so here are my tips for giving baked gifts while avoiding stress and disasters!

Plan ahead and make lists
In my opinion this is the most important step to undertake when considering giving baked or homemade gifts. Way ahead of time, stop and think about the following things and then write it all down:

• Who you want to bake for
• What you want to bake
• When you will be giving people their gifts
• What other stuff do you have to do

Why do you need to think about all this stuff? Well you need to think about who you want to bake for as some people may not appreciate a baked gift (certain members of my family wouldn’t I know), also some people may have special dietary requirements that you need to account for. That is why it is also important to think about exactly what you want to make, it’s no good planning to make everyone chocolate cupcakes if you know that someone doesn’t like chocolate for example. So try and find a recipe that works for the maximum amount of people.

It is also important to consider when you will be seeing people; baked goods have a limited shelf life and need certain storage conditions. It’s no good making something 2 weeks in advance if you know it won’t keep until it’s required. As an example I know I’m seeing relatives this weekend, so I need to have their gift ready first, everyone else I’m not seeing until Christmas Day so I can make their gifts closer to the big day.  Additionally consider all the other things you have to do between now and then like shopping, wrapping presents, making Christmas dinner .etc and choose a recipe that fits into your schedule. 

To use myself as an example I know that I’m not very busy this week so I’m baking a slightly more time consuming recipe for the relatives I’m seeing this weekend (Pepper Nuts for those who are interested) but the rest of my family are getting cupcakes. Why? Because I can make and decorate those in stages and slot it around everything else I have to do and I have a lot of Christmas cooking to do!

Plan some more
Got your recipes? Excellent now it’s time to plan exactly what ingredients you need as you don’t want to find yourself running out of anything on Christmas Eve! So sit down and write down everything you need and how much then head to your store cupboard check what you have and what you need.  This is also a good time to work out your baking schedule.

Shop and bake
Finally it’s time to buy all your ingredients and get baking. I would seriously suggest buying as many ingredients in advance as possible, there’s nothing worse than the shop running out of stock just as you need something. I recommend having a backup plan just in case the worst happens and you can’t get the ingredients you need.

Once it’s time to start baking make sure you have everything and enough time to do it in. Try and get ahead where possible and remember you don’t have to do everything at the same time. It’s perfectly OK to bake the cake early and leave decorating it for later (it might even be easier if you leave the cake for a day or so...) and where possible make decorations in advance. They’ll need some time to firm up or dry so it’s best to get them done in advance.

Finally it’s don’t panic; if a recipe doesn’t work or your decoration isn’t perfect don’t sweat it. Keep calm and carry on! And maybe take a look at my guide for dealing with baking disasters?

Good luck everyone! I’d love to hear what sort of things you are baking for Christmas, let me know in the comments!

Monday Recipe Danish Pepper Nuts

At Christmas I can't help but bake recipes that call for spices, especially gingerbread. There is something about the smell of cinnamon and ginger that just screams Christmas to me. 

I got this recipe from an article in The Telegraph magazine a couple of weeks ago in which there was an interesting selection of Danish Christmas recipes. These sounded the most interesting to me so naturally I had to try them! I’m not sure how correct my attempt at these is, my research into these was blighted by a lot of conflicting information.

The following has been summarised from Wikipedia:
Pfeffernüsse are small, firm, round biscuits, sometimes with ground nuts. The name translates to pepper nuts, which describes their spicy taste and the fact that some recipes do contain nuts (walnuts or almonds). They do not necessarily contain black pepper, Danish recipes call for white pepper.

And this is where the conflicts arise, as you can see from below as my recipe does not call for pepper of any kind and the article claimed that the name just comes from the warmth of the spices as there is no pepper in them. Further research I conducted uncovered recipes containing everything from pepper (both black and white), cardamom and even mace! But when baked they do look like the pictures of pepper nuts I found on Google, so I’m just going to stick with this version as I know that I like them! If any Danish folks to read this post please comment below and correct me on the recipe! 

Makes 120
Ingredients

375g plain flour, plus extra to dust
½ tsp baking powder
½ freshly grated nutmeg
½ ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
175g salted butter
180g soft, dark brown sugar
1 egg, beaten

Method

In a large bowl; sift together the flour, baking powder and spices. Melt the butter and stir it into the flour mix. Add the egg and the sugar, and then knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Leave the dough to rest for an hour at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 C, then shape the dough into small balls, about 1.5 – 2 cm in diameter. Place them on a lined baking tray, leave a little space between them (doesn’t need to be a big space as they don’t spread much). Bake for 10 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

Apparently these keep for up to four weeks in an airtight tin. 

When baking goes wrong, part 1: How to cope with baking disasters

As far as hobbies go baking is a fairly cost effective hobby, even if a recipe doesn’t work out the way you hoped the results are usually still edible. But having a recipe go wrong can be a little upsetting and annoying, so here is a short guide on how to cope when baking goes wrong.

Step 1 Allow yourself to be annoyed or upset
When things go wrong I get annoyed if it’s a recipe I know well or upset if it’s the first time I’ve tried it. No matter what emotion you feel when the worst happens I find the best solution is for 5 minutes to just let yourself feel like that, so have a cry or yell at your oven. Do whatever it takes for you to get the initial upset or anger out of your system because bottling up your feelings is not healthy.

Step 2 Try and find the positives
Just because something in a recipe has gone wrong doesn’t mean that the results are awful, most of I find there is usually a positive side. As an example my recent attempt at macaroons, they went totally wrong but they still tasted like they should. Always try and find that positive part of the bake, like the fact it still tastes right or it can be used for something else. So if you cake has sunk in the middle that doesn’t mean you can’t still eat it. It’ll still taste good and if you don’t want to serve it just cut it up and use it to make something else like cake pops or trifle!
Sometimes everything going wrong can be funny (especially if it’s a recipe you make a lot) and I think finding the funny side and having a good laugh totally counts as a positive side.

Step 3 Work out what went wrong
You may have noticed that I do this when I post about recipes I’ve tried, I believe that analysing your bake is very important. If you don’t try and work out why everything went wrong what is there to stop you from making that mistake again? It may be something as simple as opening the oven door too early and too often or a complex series of issues (see my post on macaroons!), but if you try and figure out the problem it should be much easier to avoid it happening again. But don’t panic if you can’t figure out the problem, sometimes stuff just happens!

There you have it my 3 step program to dealing with baking disasters, in part 2 I shall be listing solutions to common baking problems and tips on how to avoid having a disaster.