Quick and Easy Easter Bakes

This edition of “Quick and Easy” is a little different as in the UK at least we have a couple of traditional Easter bakes which I’ve decided to feature here.

Recipe Ideas
Let’s deal with the traditional bakes first.
One of the most important parts of Easter in the UK are Hot Cross Buns. These are gently spiced buns filled with currents and topped with a cross. These buns are steeped in superstition and are believed to bring luck and cement friendships, and most importantly they are really tasty!

Traditionally they are full of currents but shops are now full of interesting twists on the classic which include additions such as chocolate. So why not try making classic hot cross buns or some modern twists? Me and my mum love apple and cinnamon buns, here is Paul Hollywood’s recipe. I made these the other day and they taste delicious!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hot_cross_buns_74750

Secondly we have Simnel Cake; this is another deeply traditional Easter bake in the UK. This is a rich fruit cake topped with a sheet of marzipan and 11 marzipan balls. These balls represent the 11 apostles of Christ minus Judas. As an extra there is also a layer of marzipan hidden inside the cake. I’ve never eaten Simnel Cake as I don’t like fruit cake but my mum says it is really yummy, I’m planning to make one next year.
Fancy having a go yourself? Here is a really easy recipe from baking queen Mary Berry
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/easter_simnel_cake_82449

Want something a little less traditional and more family friendly? Well I think you can’t go wrong with chocolate cupcakes. Or how about making mini Simnel Cakes? Or for a great recipe that children can try, how about chocolate nests? Made in exactly the same way as chocolate cornflake cakes, just swap the cornflakes for all bran cereal and add a few chocolate eggs.

The shops are also full of cute biscuit cutters, so why not pick up a set and make some lovely iced biscuits. Good shapes are chicks, rabbits and eggs, which naturally can be iced to look just like Easter Eggs.

Simple Decorative Touches and Themed Cakes
Easter is a pretty easy theme to attribute to a cake, so I’ve combined these two sections into one.
Obviously the easiest thing to do is to just throw sprinkles at a cake, so how about finding some adorable little rabbit or egg shaped sprinkles? Or top cakes with chocolate eggs and little fluffy chicks. Some of my cake books have brilliant instructions for cakes that have been iced to look like Easter Eggs and rabbits. One day I’ll get round to trying those out!

So there we go, a quick post on some easy Easter bakes. I’m sorry this post is so late and kind of short when compared to other Quick and Easy posts but as I said yesterday Easter just crept up on me this year. I think this is because this is the first time in years that I haven’t had to stress about exams and essay deadlines at this time of year!

Decorating Tutorial: Easter Nest Cupcakes

I almost completely forgot that it is Easter this weekend, easy to do when there is snow on the ground in March! Though as I write this the sun is coming out which is nice, I’d almost forgotten what it looked like! So sadly I haven’t prepared much Easter themed content, but I do have a couple of things prepared starting with this tutorial on Easter Nest cupcakes.

These cupcakes are absolutely adorable and are so easy to make, I think they’d be great for children to have a go at. So let’s get started!

You will need
1 batch of cupcakes, I used double chocolate cupcakes.
Icing sugar and green food dye
Chocolate frosting, I used a tub of Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge frosting as I was feeling lazy
1 bag of mini chocolate eggs
Bird cake toppers, one for each cake
Piping bag and star shaped nozzle

Step One

Mix together the icing sugar with a splash of water and some green dye, mix well. You want a thick icing that is slightly runny, I can’t give quantities as I just dumped some icing sugar into the bowl! Cover each cake in the icing and leave to dry, I left mine overnight.

Step Two

Fill the piping bag with the frosting. Then pipe a blob of frosting onto the middle of each cake.

Step Three
Pipe one continuous spiral of frosting around the blob. Or pipe a circle around the blob, and then pipe a second circle on top of the first one. Finally add a couple of chocolate eggs to each nest and insert the cake toppers.

I hope these instructions make sense and that you have fun making these cakes. If you make these please let me know I’d love to see your results!

Quick and Easy Valentine’s Day Cakes

No matter what you think about Valentine’s Day it does present a great opportunity for cake decorating, especially as the shops are full of adorable cooking equipment right now. So here are some quick and easy ideas for Valentine’s themed cakes.

This post is structured slightly differently to my last Quick and Easy post as I’m not entirely happy with the way that post turned out. So the new structure for this series is as follows: Recipe Ideas, Simple Decorative Touches, Themed Designs and Fun Things from Shops.
Ok so let’s get started!

Recipe Ideas
I firmly believe that cakes should taste as good as they look, but who wants boring vanilla cakes all the time? It’s great fun to match recipes and cake flavours to the holidays so for Valentine’s why not try some of these goodies?

Chocolate – Since chocolate is an instrumental part of Valentines celebrations, why not keep things simple with a chocolate cake rather than a box of overpriced chocolates? To jazz things up why not try adding chocolate chips, fruits (raspberries and strawberries are a favourite of mine), chillies, caramel or your favourites?  If you want something a bit more visually impressive why not have a go at a Red Velvet Cake?

Flowers – Roses are the official flower of Valentines and happily as a flavour rose tastes really lovely when used in baking. Rose is actually my all time favourite macaroon flavour! Try adding some rose water to chocolate cupcakes for a lovely twist on the traditional flavours. Or why not try topping vanilla flavoured cakes with a gorgeous rose buttercream? To make rose buttercream omit the vanilla extract when making normal buttercream (or frosting) and add a teaspoon or so of rose water instead. This is great if you want a more subtle flavour as it’s much easier to adjust the quantities to your personal taste.

Simple Vanilla – Not everyone wants flavoured cakes but plain old vanilla cakes are dull. So why not add a new dimension to vanilla cakes by adding some food dye? Red and pink are great seasonal options.  Just remember that what kind of dye you use will affect the final colour; gel food dyes give rich vibrant colours while the liquid ones available in most supermarkets will give you softer more pastel colours. Also using plain vanilla cakes is a great opportunity to play with flavoured icing as the plain cake makes the icing flavour really pop.

Stuck for inspiration or just want something quick and easy? Then why not try clicking the “Recipe” tag on the side and take a look at some of my recipes.

Simple Decorative Touches
Now that you’ve got some an awesome recipe lined up you want them to look great right? So let’s start with the basics, cake cases. I’d suggest going with a red or pink case, but there are lots of beautiful patterned ones available. How about love hearts or a rose design?

Now when it comes to decorating your cakes what you can do is largely dependent on what icing you want you use. Sugarpaste and water icing work best when used to simply cover the surface of the cake, water icing makes great “glue” for sprinkles as well. Sugarpaste however makes a great canvas for both painted designs (which while simple in principal do require a certain amount of artistic skill) or piped patterns using royal icing. Frosting/buttercream however can be piped into beautiful spirals and swirls, spread on and shaped, and like water icing is very useful for sprinkle adhesive.

Sprinkles are the simplest way of decorating a cake, and since this is a Valentines themed post why not try and get some adorable heart shaped ones like on my Red Velvet Cakes? Supermarkets often sell premade icing roses which also fit the theme, but if you want something a bit more special why not try using real rose petals? Just make sure they are ok to eat first! Oh and don’t underestimate the value of edible glitter for that final touch!

Themed Designs
Want something a little bit more special than sprinkles and frosting? Then why not try some of these ideas? I did not come up with all of these ideas myself, several have been adapted from those I have seen in cake decorating books.

Rose Bouquet – Why not try making a simple rose out of sugarpaste and putting that on top of your cake? There are many tutorials available online and in cake decorating books, but if you don’t fancy making your own rose cheat and buy some premade ones. Cake decorating shops and the baking aisle of most supermarkets sell lovely premade roses; my local cake decorating shop even sells chocolate roses! Rose petals or even fresh roses would work in this design.

Sealed with a Kiss – This design does require some artistic skill but looks very effective. Simply cover your cake with some coloured sugarpaste, then using red food colouring, paint a set of lips onto each cake. It should look like you’ve just blotted your lipstick.

Hearts – Instead of using heart shaped sprinkles how about using royal icing? On a sheet of baking parchment draw the outline of lots of hearts and leave to dry overnight (make lots more than you think you’ll need to allow for breakage). Then after icing your cake in your chosen style, carefully remove each heart from the paper and place them on the cake. I think these hearts work great when used in a similar manner to my snowflake cakes from Christmas.

Anti-Valentine – All this pink and hearts getting you down? Then why not turn things your way with these broken hearts? Using sugarpaste cut out several heart shapes, then using a sharp knife cut each heart in half making sure you get a jagged line. You want the heart to look like it’s been snapped in half, then carefully insert a cocktail stick into each piece and leave for a few hours to harden up. Then cover your cake with black icing and then carefully insert each 2 heart halves into each cake.

Fun Things from Shops
And finally here are some fun things to look out for in your local shops, since these products are seasonal I won’t provide shop links as they’ll be broken in a few days time. So while out shopping keep your eyes peeled for these. 

Biscuit cutters – Available in a selection of sizes heart shaped cutter can make Valentines biscuits extra cute, and as a bonus they are useful all year round.

Cake Pans – I currently own heart shaped silicone cupcake cases and a large silicone heart shaped cake pan. These are fun to use all year round and being silicone they don’t take up much storage space.

Lurking in my local shops I’ve also stumbled upon heart shaped ramekins and lots of cute home wares for setting the table like placemats, coasters and even heart shaped wine glasses!

Well I hope this post was useful in some way, all that I have left for Valentines now is my review of the book Kinky Cupcakes which I hope to get up tomorrow.  That post may got up rather late (or I might just save it until Friday) as I have an awful lot to do tomorrow including work and getting ingredients for my brother’s birthday cake!

Halloween Decorating Tutorial – Spiders and cobwebs

Expanding on last week’s post on quick and easy decorating ideas here is a quick tutorial on how to make simple spiders and cobwebs on cupcakes and biscuits. Both of these tutorials are really easy to do; they literally take minutes and don’t require any fancy equipment so they are great for kids to try. I also happen to find them rather adorable!

IngredientsFor the spiders you will need:
Chocolate buttons or large circular sweets
Eyes, I like to use coloured chocolate dots but blobs of icing or chocolate chips work equally well.
Prefilled icing tube, the sort you find in the supermarket baking aisle.
Cakes or biscuits to put them on

For the cobwebs you will need:
A prefilled icing tube
Cakes or biscuits to put them on

SpidersTo make the spider, take one sweet/chocolate button and attach the eyes. As I use chocolate dots for this I put a blob of icing on the dot and then stick it onto the sweet. Then place a blob of icing onto the cake or biscuit where you want the spider to be and stick the sweet down, finally using the icing tube draw 8 legs from the sweet down onto the cake, simple as that. I then like to add an extra blob of icing on top of the eye to create a pupil, I think it makes them look much more friendly!

For these spiders I used Galaxy Minstrels and black icing

These work best if you match the icing colour to the chocolate/sweet so use black icing with milk chocolate, white with white chocolate .etc

Last year me and my friends used white chocolate which resulted in albino spiders! 

Cobwebs
The cobwebs are equally simple; however I forgot to take a picture of them so please enjoy my awful MS Paint diagrams! All you need for these is a surface to apply icing to (cake or biscuit) and an icing tube.

To start draw a 6 point line star on the top (honestly I have no idea what to call this shape!), bonus points if the lines are straight and all the same length!

Then around the centre draw a series of small lines, this should connect all the longer lines and make a circular-ish shape. Again bonus points for getting the lines all the same length!

Continue drawing lines in this manner until you use up all the available space, I try and leave a little of the long lines poking out but that is just a matter of personal preference.

For an extra spooky effect why not add one of the candy spiders once you’ve finished?
Or how about this idea, follow the pattern above as normal but draw it onto greaseproof paper or baking parchment using melted chocolate or royal icing. Leave to dry, then peel off the paper and hey presto you have a spiderweb. These look great sticking out of a pile of frosting on top of a cupcake, or make lots in different sizes and glue them onto a large cake.

So there we go; two tutorials for simple Halloween cake decorating. And considering its half term here in the UK it’s a perfect way to keep children amused!
(I hope these instructions make sense, I have apparently lost my ability to type English today!)

Quick and easy Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween presents a great opportunity for specially decorated cupcakes for parties or just for fun. Themed cupcake decorations can be as easy or as complicated as you like depending on your level of skill, so in this post I’ve detailed a few quick and easy ideas for spooky treats. Some of which I will be posting tutorials for in the next couple of days. All of these ideas are great for children to try.

Keeping it simple
If you don’t have much time to decorate cakes the quickest way to just to make a simple water icing and throw some sprinkles at them. Cakes decorated in this way can easily be matched to an event or theme by matching the sprinkles and the icing colour to the event. So for Halloween try making icing in some spooky and unusual colours, bright green or black for example.  Orange and black strands are a popular choice for sprinkles but I really like using little bats and ghosts.  Oh and a touch of edible glitter is always fun! Another easy way to make creepy cakes is to colour the cake mixture, normally when I do this I make pink cakes but for Halloween why not try green or blue?

Also don’t forget, even the simplest cake can be made to match a theme by using special cake cases, shops are full of Halloween inspired designs right now so shop around to find your favourite!

Vampire blood cakes
These are also very simple but can look pretty cool. Simply cover any flavour of cake (Red Velvet works a treat) with white icing or buttercream, then make a really runny red icing and dribble it over.  

Ghosts
These are taken from the book “A Zombie Ate My Cupcake” and are very effective (book review coming soon). Starting with whatever cake flavour you prefer make an Italian or Swiss meringue then put a small blob of meringue on each cake, top with a marshmallow then spoon more meringue on top. Use the back of a spoon to shape it into a ghost shape, let it cool then add facial features with an icing pen.

Gravestones
Again start with any flavour cake you want and a batch of chocolate biscuits. Try and make your biscuits gravestone shaped, rectangles and crosses also work well (at this time of year it’s fairly easy to find biscuit cutters in these shapes). Use a piping bag or an icing pen to write messages onto the biscuits, the classic RIP always works well! To assemble the cakes cover them with green buttercream (not to bright, try and make a grassy green) and stick a biscuit into the top of each.
Optional extra: to suggest a fresh grave dust coco powder or chocolate biscuit crumbs (Oreo cookies crushed in a food processor are perfect for this) in front of each biscuit and add a few icing flowers.

Spider websCover any flavour of cake with black buttercream or water icing, then using either an icing pen or piping bag; ice a spider web pattern onto each cake. Add a touch of white edible glitter because why not?

So there you have it a few quick and easy decorating ideas for Halloween cakes, stay tuned for some in depth decorating tutorials for a couple of these and some other simple designs.  If you have any other ideas for simple cake designs I’d love to hear them!