Layout changes

Hi there,
As you can see from the shiny new banner at the top Princess Cupcake is getting a new layout! About time eh?

While I work on this there might not be any new posts for a week or so. But soon I shall be back with a cute new layout and some new content.

See you soon bakers!
Charlotte

Happy Pi Day!!!

As many of you are probably aware March 14^th is Pi Day, for those who don’t know this day is dedicated to the mathematical constant pi (π). Why? Because if you write the date the American way, (3/14) you get the first 3 digits of pi.

So in honour of this truly great number I made some mini apple pies or are they apple pi’s? Ok I’ll stop now

For some reason my pastry decided to rise a lot,
so these looked a lot neater before they went into the oven...

To make these I just used some leftover short crust pastry I had lurking in the freezer and a couple of dessert apples that needed eating up. So yeah this isn’t a proper recipe really.

Makes 6 mini pies

Ingredients

half a block of short crust pastry
2 dessert apples: peeled, cored and finely chopped
2 dessertspoonfuls of light soft brown sugar
cinnamon to taste
small knob of butter

Method
Roll out the pastry and cut out 6 circles, line a 6 hole cupcake pan with these circles. Cut out 6 extra small circles for the pie lids, then using the leftovers cut out the pi symbol (π). Use a template or go freehand like I did! Then wet the back of each symbol with a little water and stick them to the pie lids.

Melt the butter and gently fry the chopped apple in it for a couple of minutes until the apple starts to soften. Remove from the heat and put into a bowl, add the sugar and cinnamon to the bowl and stir well. Divide the mixture evenly between the pies and then top each pie with one of the lids and push down gently.

Bake in a preheated oven at Gas mark 6/ 200 C for 20 minutes. Leave on a wire rack to cool. 

Nerdy Nummies

Continuing with the nerdy theme of yesterdays post, I thought I'd make a quick most to alert you all to the most brilliant Youtube channel I have ever seen.

The channel is owned by Rosanna Pansino, and she does the most amazing series called "Nerdy Nummies". In which she makes some fantastic nerdy themed food, my favourites are the Tetris cookies. This girl is a genius, and most of the things she makes are viewer requests (On the subject of which, seriously fangirls stop suggesting One Direction cakes, there is nothing nerdy about them!). Her channel is pretty popular but if I have only just discovered it I figured that some of my lovely readers probably haven't seen it yet!

Her channel can be found here http://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino
And here are the amazing Tetris cookies

I hope you all enjoy her videos, I can't wait to try out some of her recipes. If any of you know of any other cool baking channels, why not share them in the comments?

Snapshots: Lord of the Rings

So it's time for another edition of snapshots and this one continues in my nerdy theme.
Out of boredom at the weekend I decided to make and decorate some muffins and figured that a Lord of the Rings inspired design would be cute. So here are some slightly nerdy chocolate and ginger muffins.

This one is called "A Shortcut to Mushrooms". It features a pale green meringue frosting and adorable little sugarpaste mushrooms (made out of leftover grey from the Companion Cube cake).

I think these are really cute, but next time I make them I need to make a better coloured frosting, it needs to be more grass like in colour. I'll also make more mushrooms in different sizes and perhaps some little daisies just to add a hint of colour into the design. 

And these are called "One Ring to Rule Them All" (V1). Like the mushrooms these also have meringue frosting, and sugarpaste rings. The rings were made of yellow sugarpaste which I then brushed with gold luster dust. 

These are called V1 because me and my mum thought up a much cooler way to do this design, which I will get round to making soon. 

I'm so happy that these came out ok, I have so many other awesome ideas for nerdy cakes (mostly LOTR at the moment) that I can't wait to get started on! And before I forget, just wanted to say, chocolate and ginger muffins? Not that nice, I think they would have been better if they only needed powdered ginger. The addition of stem ginger in syrup is a bit much in my opinion. 

Monday Recipe: Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes V1

Wow that’s a mouthful! As a fruit hater, my brother is never impressed by all my fruit cupcakes. So he decided to set me some challenges and this is the first one I’ve actually completed! United by our love of American candy (especially Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups), he set me the challenge of making Reese’s cupcakes.  These are my first attempt at the challenge and were made to accompany his massive birthday cake.

This is Version 1 of the recipe, kind of a beta test really! I have 2 variations which I need to try next, but that will have to wait until he buys a jar of peanut butter (I actually hate the stuff so I refuse to buy any).  As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy cake sized cakes, the recipe can easily be scaled up and should work in an oven equally well.

Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz coco powder, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
6 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in miniature size (removed from paper cases!)

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and coco powder, then put a small blob of cake mix into the bottom of each cake cases and put a Peanut Butter Cup in each case (obviously on top of the cake mix blob). Divide the rest of the mixture evenly between the cake cases and bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean! Try and avoid stabbing the chocolate when you check.
Leave on a wire rack to cool.

These are tasty as is but are also great topped with a cream cheese frosting.